A Tale of Two "Families"

I am going to a funeral tomorrow morning and a "wake" in the afternoon.  Two separate, very different people's services.  One man was close to 90, I am sure, and the other one my age, or thereabouts.  They represent to me very important locations - settings - homes - families.

"Mr. Moore," as I always called him, was the father of kids who like me spent summers at the lake.  Our road was filled with families who came at the end of school in June and returned Labor Day weekend to the city, or suburbs.  There were about 20 of us, and summer nights found us playing "capture the flag" or trying to ring the bell before Mr. Gehring caught us.  During the day we swam, paddled on our paddle boards, fished, explored the glen, listened to the radio play the songs of our day, and generally had an ideal childhood.  The fathers went off to work, the mothers stayed in the camps or watched us when we swam, and life was good.  We went back in to the city and suburbs to schools and rarely saw each other until the next summer.

Mr. Moore was the last of the fathers - and mothers - of that generation.  My friends are the parents, and grandparents now.

Jay Mindnich came from my winter home, the Westcott Nation on the east side of Syracuse.  There was a group of us who attended Levy and then Nottingham, but we were distingushed from the more University- area kids by Westcott Street.  After school we hung out at Abdo's Market on Beech Street, or drank vanilla cokes and ate home fries at Wittig's counter.  We went to the Westcott Theater for movies, smoked cigarettes in the alley, roamed Thornden Park.  Especially this time of year, when the lilacs were out and the scent permeated the air for a week.  Jay was one of the neighborhood kids, a State Champion in wrestling, and the kid who didn't move away.  He came back to the house he grew up in while the rest of us moved out of state or to Skaneateles.  He stayed, buying houses, painting houses, renting out houses on his block.

Jay was the last of us.  I asked his brother, who is my age, if he would be back once the house was settled. He seemed startled.  With Jay gone and the rest of us dispersed...why?

These people are both part of my extended families and as such are dear to me.  As an only child my friends became my siblings.  Cathy at the lake was my first maid of honor, the little sister I never had.  Gail and Rick bought a place in Skaneateles and I realized even Westcott Nation people could live there.

Even thought there's sadness in seeing these two men leave, there is also the joy that I had - we had - such great places to grow up.  Alex had the lake, too, and his friends are the sons and daughters of my generation.

I wish every child had such good memories.  I wish every child had a place - or places - that are as evocative as the lake and our inner-city neighborhood.  I wish that could be recreated, but I know it can't.  I wish parents would think of that when buying homes, and I know many who do.

Tomorrow we'll say good-bye to Mr. Moore (and the church will be filled with people from the lake). Then in the afternoon we will "wake" Jay, as he requested, and see old faces and tell old tales.  It's good, it is as it should be.  A moment stolen from time to remember other times, other people.  And feel blessed.