The blessings of childhood memories
I spent the High Holy Days immersed in family.
Rosh Hashanah was celebrated with children and grandchildren. My son and his wife hosted us for dinner. What a change to not have the family at our house as we are accustomed to doing. Yom Kippur found me at my childhood home making sure my mother’s absence didn’t diminish the observance of the day of remembrance and atonement. We didn’t want my father to be alone.
We broke the fast with toasted chicken sandwiches, a family tradition for as long as I can remember and apparently longer than that. Slices of the roasted chicken from erev Yom Kippur are sandwiched between two fairly fat slices of challah. Additions include lettuce, tomato and whatever spread you might want. The sandwiches go under the broiler for a quick toast (and are carefully turned so as not to fall apart), and they are done! Apparently, these sandwiches were a feature of his mother’s post-fast table more years ago than we really want to remember.
This got me thinking about my own childhood and brought forth many memories.
Many of these memories are centered in the kitchen. No surprise there. Like many of you, we ate dinner together every night without fail. Breakfast was a hurried affair. Everyone was off to school at a different time. But the smell of burning bread still takes me back as there was a burned toast lover in the family!
And what about the old-fashioned manual egg-beater? Remember that contraption with the handle that could whip up a couple of eggs for scrambled eggs in no time? No electricity needed. It’s still in the drawer in my parent’s kitchen, and we used it on Sunday to make breakfast. I was curious so I did a little research. Just in case you were wondering, you can still buy one at Target!
Our yard, still fenced with chain link, was the scene of a lot of play years ago. The highlight of my memory, though, is a large white rose bush at the back of the yard that my mother called the “Prom Rose Bush.” It was usually in full bloom in June and was the scene of many prom night photos. The beautiful white blossoms still appear each year, more than 60 years after it was planted!
Staying at your childhood home for a few days really can take you back a few years. The neighborhood is still there but few people from the ’60s and ’70s still live there. The neighborhood association publishes a directory of residents and when they moved in. My folks bought their house in 1966; the northern Virginia subdivision of about 375 homes was built about 1960. I counted about a dozen people from that era who still live there. It’s not an exact number because you have to pay your neighborhood association dues to be listed in the directory. But the friends and neighbors I remember are long gone. And times have certainly changed. I saw few children on bikes riding up and down the streets, running between houses or out waiting at the bus stop for the school bus as I remember we did.
This is a particularly good time of year for these reflections. We all have childhood memories, good and bad. I’d love to hear some of yours if you’d like to share. Send to me online at editor@jewishallianceri.org or via mail: Editor, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence, RI 02906. I’ll do a round up in November or December.
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