November 16, 2005

• Topic: family, work, travel, people

  
  

  So…no updates on my grandmother.  Her condition has neither improved, nor worsened since she suffered a stroke last Fri.  Most of the initial shock has worn off, and all the family conversation about her condition, what happens next, and stories from the past have made the experience a lot more tolerable than I had anticipated.

  
  

  My grandfather and uncle were over for dinner last night.  The site of my grandfather and the sadness in his eyes immediately rippled through me.  Soon, however, we began chatting and I started asking questions about his past.  I’ve heard a lot of 2nd hand stories, and most things my grandfather told me was when I was young and not prepared to absorb everything he had to say.

  
  

  So…I heard first hand some of the background of my grandfather’s involvment in WWII, getting sent over to Northern Africa, Casablanca, Tunisia, then sent up through Italy, and into Marseilles.  How he was a soldier in a tank, one of five in the tank who was responsible for loading ammunition.  How his tank got his and he still has a piece of German shrapnel in his leg.  How he was then sent to a hospital in England, where he learned that his tank had been hit again and exploded.  That piece of German shrapnel saved his life.

  
  

  He talked about his return to the U.S. through New Port News, Virginia.  How the military asked for all weopons back, but that didn’t include the knife my grandfather swiped off a Nazi POW.  He was born in 1921, so he was around 24 when he returned to the states, and began working for Citibank in Manhattan.  A few years later, he accompanied a friend on a double date, where he met my grandmother.  Things went well, and for his second date, he brought her to a Ranger game at the old Madison Square Garden in the ’50′s (this I never knew about), where he had to explain to her all the rules, and what a puck was.

  
  

  My mom was telling me how life was simpler back then.  You lived near your grandparents, uncles, and cousins.  You spent most of the weekend and summer with your family.  Since they lived in Brooklyn, most of them went to Brooklyn College.  The religious ones went to Yeshiva Univeristy in Manhattan. 

  
  

  I want to spend more time and write more about my grandfather.  He’s 84 now, I made a mistake earlier about my grandmothers age, she’s 79.  CNN had something about living longer, and said the avg. age is 76, so at least they’ve both made it that long.  My grandfather even said, “I’ve lived an interesting life, maybe i should write my autobiography.”  I’m sure most people who have lived that many years will feel that way, but, I guess it depends how much life was lived during those years.  My grandparents certainly filled their lives richly.

  
  

  On Tues., I went to the New York City Traveler’s Club through meetup.com  It was an amazing time, at a bar called Phebe’s on 4th and Bowery.  About 30 people showed up, I got there early for 2 for 1′s, and later there were free appetizers.  Guy to girl ratio was not in my favor, but I met a girl who is from Belgium and is here on a J-1 doing a marketing traineeship w/ a baked goods company, and another girl from Great Neck, Long Island who spent the year after college in Bulgaria, where she “smoked a lot of pot.”  It was such a fun night and easy way to meet people, especially when the ice breaking question is, “where have you travelled?” rather than, “what do you do?”

  
  

  This book I’m reading, “A Million Little Pieces,” is pretty friggin’ good.  It’s about this guy James and his experience in drug rehab.  This guy was the biggest addict you’ll ever hear about, to every drink and drunk imaginable.  He winds up in some nasty shape, and he writes in a way that clearly makes you feel how bad the addiction was, yet he writes it in a calm and poised manner, that makes you think, “hey…this guy isn’t so bad.”  As he reveals his innermost thoughts and fears, you begin to connect with him on a human level, and look past the surface of his addiction and criminal behaviors, and start to see someone who was troubled as a kid, turned to drugs to fill his feelings of aloneness and depression, and finally realized rehab was the only things that could turn his life around. 

  
  

  And…it’s officially winter.  Today it’s in the 40′s, there’s a chance of flurries for Thanksgiving next Thursday.  I may go watch the filling of the balloons for the famous Macy’s day parade on Wed. night.  And, tom. night, I may see Jerry Stiller (Frank Costanza) at the B&N near my office.

  
  

  Keeping busy, still have some uncertainties about my short-mid term future, but, just trying to have the presence to fill the present with presents (you get the point).

  • 5:00 pm
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