Memories and Generations at the Start of a New Year

For most, Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is a time to look ahead, to the upcoming good and sweet year, ushered in with prayer, apples, and honey. But as I davened in temple this year, I found my mind drifting, envisioning the many ages of my life and the assorted Chicago-area locales where I have listened to the blowing of the Shofer on this ancient holy day.

Rogers Park in the late 1960s. Standing with friends on Pratt Avenue after youth services at B’nai Zion Synagogue. In my mind, those services were interspersed with ones on the bleachers of Loyola Park, a small mimeographed cardboard rectangle being the ticket to admission. All leading up to the one astonishing moment when the youth leader carrying the Torah past the young congregants tripped (or was tripped,) almost dropping the sacred scroll to the ground. A stern warning to all followed; had the Torah dropped to the floor, we would all be fasting for 40 days!

in 1970, as a high school junior, I was called upon to prepare and lead a Rosh Hashana teen service. Along with my collaborator, we culled news stories and ancient fables to choose readings that would be relevant to our fellow teenagers. Fitting for those violent times, our readings related to the war in Vietnam and the tragic shootings at Kent State a few months earlier.

A few years later a college friend invited me to join her at High Holiday services at a lovely synagogue on the shore of Lake Michigan. The setting was inspiring. But this was the year 1973. Ten days after Rosh Hashana, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel to initiate the Yom Kippur War.

Twenty years later Barb and I were a married couple with young children. The family worshipped on Rosh Hashana in the old auditorium at Stevenson High School. In a bit of karma, the Rabbi was the same Rabbi who had officiated at my Bar Mitzvah decades earlier, when he was an itinerant Rabbi who had only recently moved to Chicago. In more karma, sitting in the auditorium foreshadowed my upcoming long association with Stevenson High School.

As the kids grew, so did the need for Hebrew School and Bar Mitzvah lessons. To minimize carpool time, we joined a congregation near our home. High Holiday services were scripted, lengthy, and maintained every ritual. They were everything but inspirational, and when the Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s were over, so was our synagogue membership.

A few years later, Stevenson High School beckoned once more, this time with services in the Performing Arts Center. The setting was livelier and so was the spiritual leader, a young cantor training to be a Rabbi. Accompanied by a professional choir he gave life and breath to the services. In his sermons he challenged the congregants with questions, his assistants roaming the auditorium with microphones seeking out answers. We enjoyed those Rosh Hashana services for many years until COVID silenced them.

Today, post-COVID we pray once again, this year at our son’s congregation along with his wife and our granddaughters. My favorite Hebrew saying has always been “L’dor vdor”–“From Generation to Generation.” The circle of life continues.

May all the days of your life be good ones. L’shana Tovah.

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The Old 151–Circa 1966

The Old 151 bus, I rode it then,
When I was but a lad of ten.

'Twas the magic carpet to take me where
I wanted to go with a kid-sized fare.

A dime and two pennies was all it required
To transport me wherever my young heart desired.

A Rogers Park 3-flat is where I called home
And that CTA bus that would let this boy roam. 

I could catch it on Farwell, at Sheridan Road
And Shazam! it became my get-around mode.

A ride north to Howard would take seven minutes
It was almost as far as the big city's limits.

Up towards Papa Milanos and the new bowling alley
Where the pizza was hot and the downed pins would tally.

Or the field house at Touhy to shoot Friday night hoops
Though most weeks we would walk it, in our dribbling groups.

A short ride to the south was the Loyola El Station
I would hop on the rail by that bus stop location.

For the price of a transfer, a nickel, no more
I'd ride it downtown, to Kroch's/Brentano's bookstore.

Route 151 was how our family traveled
It took us on roads, some paved and some graveled.

We didn't have a car, Dad said "we don't need it.
Public bus and train routes would surely excede it."

With routes in the hundreds and also the nine-six
Chicago's buses were always our family's fine-fix.

And now I'm a senior and not in the city
I don't ride on buses, perhaps it's a pity.

With Double A R P discounts -- I'm sure that they've got one.
A ride on the old 1-5-1 would be quite a hot one.

But alas I now think that it never will happen
In those thoughts and this verse, I'll now put a cap in.

The Key to the Past

Yesterday morning I felt something crunchy in the pocket of my blue jeans. I reached in expecting to find a crumpled receipt but instead pulled out the key to our safe deposit box in its cardboard envelope. What the heck was the valuable key doing there?

Weeks ago we had been applying for Barb’s pension from Lutheran General Hospital, where back in the 1980s, long before the days of Advocate or Aurora Healthcare Systems, she worked as an Occupational Therapist. The application required a copy of our marriage license, a document we have not been asked for in 42 years (or is it 43?)

A trip to our bank vault failed to find the license but despite the pandemic the Cook County Office of Records was able to mail me a certified copy in less than 10 days. I scanned it into my PC, mailed a copy to the pension administrator, then made another trip to the bank and placed the original in the vault. I must have jammed the key in my pocket that day and totally forgot about it–until I reached into my pocket yesterday and like Little Jack Horner I pulled out a plum.

Do many people still have bank safety deposit boxes? They are very special repositories. This last visit brought back so many memories. The box itself contains some of the remembrances, the matured US savings bonds, the decades-old mortgage documents on the houses we raised the kids in, the certificates for trees planted in my honor in Israel. But the memories weren’t all on pieces of paper.

I was flooded with memories of the First Commercial Bank, on the corner of Morse and Clark in the city. Four times a year throughout the 1960’s I would walk to the bank with my dad or mom and sister Linda. We’d enter the busy bank lobby and immediately on the left was the elevator–the first one I can remember. Mom or Dad would let one of us kids press the green button inside the elevator car and we would descend to the basement, just one story down.

In the still and quiet basement, under the unnatural glow of fluorescent lighting, we would approach a high counter, behind which would be a very serious-looking lady or gentleman. We would produce a silver key, sign a register, and be admitted through the giant steel door, a door as thick as my mother’s arm was long, into the vault. We passed aisles and aisles, rows and rows, of metal doors, each requiring two keys. The clerk would locate our family box, twist in the keys, and lead us to a private cubicle.

What were we doing in the vault four times a year? Dad and Mom owned “coupon bonds” with interest payable 4 times a year. To claim the interest, coupons needed to be cut from the bonds and turned in to a teller in the bank, with the proceeds deposited in the family account.

I doubt it was very much money, but the ritual made it very important to me. I remember on sunny days if the four of us were together the walk included a stop at Ashkenaz for soup and a bagel. And I remember thinking we would be clipping those coupons forever.

Sadly, the last time I visited that vault was as the executor of my mom’s estate. The bonds, Mom, Dad, and Linda were all gone–but the memories of those afternoons, the walks, the elevator, the clipping, will always live in the safe deposit box of my memories. I can always reach into my jeans and find the key.

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