George Schrieber Comes to Lunch
George Schrieber came to lunch with Cathie and Robbie, our neighbors in Holyoke. George is one of my father’s oldest friends. They met in the early ’50s and married in the same year 1953, in New York City. George is a hale and hearty 87 now, and he moved four months ago to Applewood, where there are options for three levels of assisted living. George said he’s been impressed by the people who live there. Those who were once doctors, and UMass professors, scientists and CEOs. He said the conversations with them were one of the best things about his new digs.
George said that most of his neighbors rely on walkers…and he feels kind of guity being able to amble around unassisted. His cheery smile and upbeat temperment made Sunday even brighter, as we had a big lunch looking out over Cindy’s backyard.
Men like George, Cindy’s dad Mo, and my father Nat are moving up in age, and I sometimes think about what it will be like in twenty years when so many from this generation pass on. There won’t be as many people who lived through a world war, or when people listened the radio instead of TV, or when there were no computers. Think about the way things were in 1953, that year they were both married. How different that was from today!
April 10, 2006 @ 10:02 pm
Amazing isn’t my Dad will be gone 3 years April 15th. Miss him everyday!
April 11, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
What I will miss, not soon I hope, will be my Dad’s exuberant language. Do you know what I mean? He’s 78, so his communication style is informed by a frothy mix of 1940’s scholarship, a Navy career, and S.J. Perlman. When he “shuffles off this mortal coil”, the oral history of my family, I am sure, will be lost to the tides of time because I’ll forget to call ‘deodorant’ ‘goat cream’ or say ‘We’re bugging out” when we leave. That’s a shame. A lost language.I know he misses my Mom for the language they spoke to each other. A melange of Missouri and La Scala, as she made dinner he’d pull her onto his lap at the kitchen table, kiss her neck and say, “Blow in my ear and I’ll follow you anywhere, Floria Tosca.” and she’d whack him with her dishtowel and say, “Oh! Baron Scarpia! How you do go on. Have some slumgullion, my love.” “Oh hey!” he’d say, “That’s the ticket,” ” Now yer shpeakin’ my language, shweethaht.”A thousand monkeys and a thousand type-writers, aren’t going to hammer out gems like that. Sigh.