29 September

At the present time I am cruising through the air over the East coast of the USA, flying in an Airbus 380 and listening to the album Murray Street by Sonic Youth on noise cancelling headphones. The sound is great. “Sympathy for the Strawberry.” I am reflecting on the past at 30,000 feet.

Looking down through the clouds at places from my earlier days got me to reminiscing fondly about people who have left us. Here are a few observations that have stuck with me:

– Great Aunt Coressa had an opinion about Woodrow Wilson’s long-ago Presidential candidacy (positive overall: “a decent man, who wanted peace”).

– The US Navy made port calls to mainland China after the end of WW2. I have photos of my Dad in Shanghai, riding in a rickshaw and chatting with a military policeman from India (a Commonwealth soldier) on the Bund, the waterfront.

– My Dad’s family raised turkeys in their garage in Aurora, Colorado, to help make ends meet during the Great Depression. Dad did not like dealing with the birds.

– As a child, my Mom used to swim in the stream behind her Dad’s ice plant in Glen Burnie, Maryland (something unimaginable now).

– My Uncle Bob extolled the virtues of having a longish walk at one end of his daily commute. He worked in Baltimore and one day he was mugged. He still walked, though.

– My Mom’s Irish grandmother had a house on the South River near Baltimore. Mom used to love to go there and visit with her. The grandmom had a goose who was mean-spirited and used to bite the kids.

I am grateful to have such memories enabling me to reach back into history through a first-person narrative. These family stories provide a view into the pre-digital era, linking me personally to the past. My reflections in mid-air remind me that it is important to take time for such conversations, because such opportunities are transient.