Spend it all

 

The late humor columnist Erma Bombeck was once asked in a television talk show interview if she saved any ideas so that she would be assured of at least one strong column a week. Her vintage reply is instructive:"I don't save anything. My pockets are empty at the end of the week. So is my refrigerator. So is my gas tank. So is my file of 'ideas.' I trot out the best I've got, and come the next week, I bargain, whimper, make promises, cower, and throw myself on the mercy of the Almighty for just 'three more columns' in exchange for cleaning my oven."I didn't get to this point overnight. I came from a family of savers who were sired by poverty, raised in the Depression, and worshipped at the altar of self-denial."Throughout the years, I've seen a fair number of my family who have died leaving candles that have never been lit, appliances that never got out of the box, and new sofas shrouded in chenille bedspreads. "I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a higher court, it will go thusly: 'So,empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life? Any dreams that went unfulfilled? Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born? Any unpaid compliments or bits of love that you haven't spread around?' And I will answer, 'I've nothing to return. I spent everything you gave me.'"

 

 

May Day

May Day

 

During the cold war of the 1950’s, every May 1^st, the U.S.S.R. paraded their tanks and artillery through the streets of Moscow. On TV and movie Newsreels, we saw proud Soviet leaders overlooking the parade from a balcony in Red Square. To counter this show of might, the City of New York had parades for peace throughout the five boroughs.

            In Brooklyn, we marched up Flatbush Avenue, around Grand Army Plaza and down Eastern Parkway. My school wore our school sweaters of purple and gold. One student carried the school flag with the name Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School emblazoned in gold letters upon a field of purple. Another carried the American flag and a third carried a Diocesan flag, gold lettering on a white background.

            I looked forward to the event every year, not so much for the parade but because it meant a day off from school. It seemed like a celebratory march, well not a march really, more of an amble. We walked in groups of friends and made plans for afterwards. Usually, we gathered in Judds, our favorite after school soda shop to play the juke box and drink cokes.

 

            My high school, a Diocesan college prep school, took only the brightest eighth graders from each parish of Brooklyn. I felt it an honor to be accepted, especially since my parents threatened me with public school if I didn’t get into “Bishop’s”. The local public school, Manual Training High, took everyone else and taught them a trade. We thought the kids from “Manual” were dummies who couldn’t make it scholastically…how arrogant we were.

It never occurred to me that some kids would rather learn a trade than go to college. I realized it when my nephew graduated high school with honors and told his parents “I love working on cars. I’d rather be an auto mechanic.”

We marched on May 1st^d in response to the Soviet’s armament parade but May 2^nd was also a significant date. On that day in 1945, Russian troops entered Berlin and the second World War had effectively ended although the official surrender occurred 6 days later.

I’m not sure how long these peace parades went on in N.Y. After graduation, I no longer followed school events. Bishop’s closed its doors in 1972 and reopened later as a school for the deaf. I thought it ironic that I have a deaf child and my high school now teaches deaf children.