This past weekend I found myself resident in the urban neighborhood in which I grew up.
I attended services in the great synagogue where my parents were respected and honored members. The 700 seat sanctuary is still an imposing edifice, in excellent repair, but its real glory in times past, the number of its worshipers, is a shadow of its former self. The rather dismal turnout of only about 150 people and the choir's modernization of familiar melodies aside, the service brought back recollections of more than 50 years ago to my attendance in this very sanctuary surrounded by individuals and families with whom we had cordial, even warm relations. We knew everyone and regularly visited scores of families, many of whose descendants still live in the neighborhood and pray in the synagogue. Many of my friends are still there as are their children and grandchildren, and a number of those who were a lot older than I when I was growing up are still there too although the percentage of age difference has narrowed considerably. They seem no older now than they had been then. How can that be?
The personalities who defined the older generation of our acquaintances, maybe as many as 100 people, now demised, flitted through my consciousness as I was lulled to sleep by the choir. I remember my father's business partner, who sat in an adjoining pew, who was visited on an annual or semi-annual basis by a gentleman who was lionized by many of the other congregants as a valued guest, but to my eyes and those of my friends as more like a visitor from another planet.
In those days, there was an extremely rigid dress code in the sanctuary which required a suit, dress shirt, tie and fedora or Homburg hat. This man broke every rule. He was dressed in a tieless white shirt with partially rolled up sleeves a pair of light colored work pants and stood out especially because his tall frame was accentuated by a long, wild beard and and topped by a military style beret. His name was Captain G.... and we never figured out whether the "captain" was an honorific (like Col. Sanders) or whether he was military or what. We did find out that he was a fund raiser for a charity in a foreign land which accounted for his strange dress and the others' tolerance of it.
I wondered what happened to him just as I was jolted out of my reverie by a particularly off-key blast from the choir.
2 comments:
Having trouble reading what’s going through your mind here:
Was the nostalgia sweet or bitter?
do you long for those feelings again or are you simply satisfied with the memories and moving on in life?
you beautifully presented the emotions I often feel there, as well. Never heard the story of Captain G. Perhaps my branch of the family can shed some light on whom he was? But talk of splendor and glories past always make me sad.
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