My First Blog!

Well, here we are now members of the blogger universe. Laure has already started pumping things out for the B.L.O.G. So, I suppose that even this first small step for me is an important one. After all the years I have spent threatening to write something, and even the occasional fits and starts in that direction; I have finally decided to write things down, if only to see if something can be saved for the grandkids. Given that semi-New Year’s resolution, I also thought that I might as well put thoughts out into the open air, whatever subject seems to strike my fancy at the moment. What do I intend to write about? As much as anything, I’ll write about “us,” and our life and times. Then, from time to time, we’ll comment on what we like and dislike currently (politics, manners, people, and the world we all live in). “Oh God, another one of those blogs.” Yup. I had better clarify the “we” thing. It will be more historical, reflecting the world Laure and I grew up in, people who affected our lives; and pretty much helped us to see the path we have been following for most of this lifetime; leading to the present stay in Antananarivo, Madagascar – far away from hearth and home. I guess I will have to even view what the term “hearth and home” now means for the two of us. You see, that is not as easy to say as it might seem. We have a small house in Virginia, pay taxes there; and have been calling that Commonwealth home since the mid 1960s, when I took up a full-time occupation with the USG, working mostly overseas. I had determined, pretty quickly, that I would never really return to my birth-state, New Jersey, again, except as a sometime-visitor. Now, it seems as if those visits are even rarer than before. When one or both parents were still alive, every trip to the States (from the field) was really a visit “home.” Now, with the exception of Neil and Susan’s mother’s day party, there is little reason to make the trip. I guess the easiest explanation lies in the fact that our worlds are no longer the same, and haven’t been for many years now. So, I guess it is an appropriate time to start telling a story, which may help explain how we arrived at where we are now.

Why start a blog at 71? Mostly, because my wife and daughter seem to think that there is a story worth telling; and because I believe that I’ve reached the point many but not all do: recognition that you are mortal after all. I know that I will be a fresh memory for my wife and daughter; and I have worked reasonably hard these last ten years or so to ensure that my grandkids do not forget me too quickly. Perhaps, with a little luck, depending on whatever I write between now and whenever, I will leave a bit of a legacy for a couple of new generations after that as well. In the meantime, I am honestly wondering whether or not anyone else will be interested in these ramblings. I suppose I would like to see if anyone reads what we write, and then suggests that Ben Franklin and I have things in common, other than the fact that we both grew heavier, bald, needed glasses as we got older, and chose English as our language of choice. I guess that puts me in the same category as Shakespeare as well. Cool beans, as Em used to say. I read about all these bloggers who seem to have audiences in the thousands, or even more. We can set my bar much lower than that. I figure that when I pass the ten-reader mark (using up all the relatives who might show an occasional interest), that’s when I will start getting excited. Otherwise, I think that I will write primarily for my own enjoyment; and, hopefully, for the enjoyment of the (family) reader.

Where to start? Well, it was a dark and stormy night; actually that was true. My earliest Paterson memory, the one that stuck, was a rainy evening, whenever. I am only sure that it was the kitchen of the three-bedroom apartment the 5 Chessins then called home at the time, which would eventually hold eight of us before we moved “uptown.” Beside the door to the back porch, there was a window. It was raining, and I was plastered to the window watching the drops streak the window. For some reason, sitting there, I suddenly saw myself as a very old man looking out of that very same window, watching the same rainfall. Funny how such a short picture can remain embedded in a person’s mind. I don’t even remember how old I was at the time. All I know is that I knew I would eventually be that old man, and see the rain. There were times, through the years, when that wasn’t all that much of a given. As I write, I’ll try to rebuild that life, and what it became later. I do believe that it was before I became that “pudgy Jewish” kid my daughter “remembers” from old photographs she keeps for us. I should also admit in advance that I now see much of those days through the fabled rose-colored glasses I read about in a recent news article. It seems that some writer had, somewhat belatedly I think, come to the conclusion – after a study of course – that older people appeared generally happier than younger people; attributing that to the fact they had made it that far, were generally retired, and – I suspect – were not starving to death in the Sudan. So, that’s me.