Every December, the family goes to Florida for Christmas week. As a kid, I never traveled that week since airfares were so much, but my wife and I have a comfortable life that can support that. Luckily, that same week is when the New York Rangers play in Tampa and Sunrise.
Rangers have had a bad run for December, but as a collector of memorabilia, I like to get the used Warm Up pucks for the games I attend. The Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers have it on sale, the Panthers selling it minutes after the first period starts. So after the first period started and the Rangers already down 2-0, I walk into the game used store, that sells the puck. As I’m buying two practice pucks that are still wet from the ice, I see someone I recognize buying a game-used stick for his son. It’s a classmate from day school and high school, that I haven’t seen since our 20th high school reunion in 2010. So we talk and it’s like no time has passed, he’s joking about stuff we did in 8th grade. He tells me his mother is ill.
A few days later, I found out his mother had passed. I met her a few times, so she wasn’t a stranger to me, and I always remember her as a wonderful lady. So while I don’t like funerals and live an hour away from the funeral home, I just felt the need to pay my respects. Seeing him on a Monday and learning about the funeral on a Thursday, in my mind, required attendance on a Sunday.
The Rabbi Harry Halpern Day School was unique. It was a Conservative Jewish Day school, affiliated with the East Midwood Jewish Center. It was a wonderful education with wonderful teachers and so many of us, were successful, to then attending Midwood High School. It was fun, it was a learning experience, and it could be crazy too. So many years have passed and even if you don’t see someone for a long time, it’s a tie that always binds us, even if the school is no more.
