I remember that shop. It was the third location the family shop was in, and my father and his three brothers were raised in an apartment above the store, 148 East 18th Street. That was maybe the second or third place they lived in, and the one I remember visiting my grandparents in.
I love to make reference to the photo whenever someone starts to express worry about the world we're leaving to our grandchildren. It's a common sentiment that people start to express when they feel the times we live in and the solutions we're adopting, or not adopting, are going to impair the lives of either the unborn or the current crop of youngsters when they get older. The grandkids. Everyone tells us they're worried about the grandkids.
Obviously, from a still photo I can't tell what my grandfather is thinking. Or what my father is thinking. He's not a father yet. He's not even married yet. My guess is that neither of them are thinking about a future generation that's probably going to keep experiencing war. And has.
My grandfather was born in 1882 and came from Greece in the early 1900s. That I know, he was never in the military, but certainly was around in 1898 when the U.S.S. Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor, Cuba and we entered into a brief war with Spain; was around when War I started; was around when the Turks invaded Greece in the 1920s and likely pissed off people he knew back home; and certainly, at the moment the shutter clicked, was around when the world was at war in the 1930s and 1940s. His entire life was framed by military conflict at that point.
I can't tell what he's thinking. I can't tell what my father's thinking. He's not even my father there. He's the man on right's third son. No one can tell what they're thinking when that shutter clicked, or what they were thinking in the days and weeks before and after the printed photo came back from the drug store.
My grandfather already had grandchildren by the time the photo was taken. My father's oldest brother married young and had two kids by the time we entered WW II. My first cousins, who are now older than I am. They were my grandfather and grandmother's first grandchildren. Were they worried about them? Maybe now and then when they had a cold or the measles, but they sure as hell didn't feel crushed by worrying about them. I remember them, and they never seemed wracked with worry. "Oobla dee, oobla dah, life goes on."
Saturday was the day I went back into Queens, Bayside, and dropped off the taxes with the accountant I've been dealing with, Al, for over 30 years. He's a fellow who I thought was about my age, but in our conversation on Saturday he said something that made me thing he's 82, ten years older than I am.
He's still working and runs his tax office alone these days. He used to have a partner, who I never met, but I suspect passed away. I know next to nothing about Al's family, but assume he's married, or been married, has kids, and likely has grandkids. There are no family photos in the office.
The annual drop-off conversation quickly hits on what you would expect a septuagenarian and an octogenarian in a tax office to discuss in 2021. Taxes, wild government spending and politics. It's a natural.
Al inevitably expresses worry about what we're leaving the grandchildren. The debt. The massive debt that occurs when trillion is the new billion. And we all know a trillion is a thousand billions, right? Ten to the 12th. There isn't a proposal made these days that doesn't have the word "trillion" following it and the dollar sign. Republicans. Democrats. the media. The usual suspects.
Cue the photo. I tell Al about the photo. "Al, I can't tell, but my thinking is my grandfather is not worrying about his current and yet to be born grandkids in that photo." He might be thinking about what's for supper, or he might be thinking about what flowers he has to order from the wholesaler soon, or making an arrangement and a delivery. Worried about the grandkids getting blown to kingdom come? We haven't even dropped the A-bomb by then.
In my 70s now, with my cousins near or over 70 as well, I can report back to my grandfather that we made it. We lived within the context of our times and got as old as he did. Even older. And for my father, in case he ever started to worry about his grandkids, my kids, I can report back that they've done well, are living in the context of their times, both at, or near 40, married with families. And those grandkids are doing well, plowing through Zoom instructions, masks, quarantine, school shootings and "active shooter" drills. Also TV, movies, ice cream and cupcakes. They are living within the context of their times.
I never framed this question with anyone before talking with Al on Saturday, and I never read it anywhere, but I asked Al, "when would you like to have retroactively died? During the Reagan administration? Clinton? Either George Bush?" Probably not Carter, because you had to hope things were going to get better and you'd like to be around for it.
As soon as we're born, we're part of the next generation and the world as it is.
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