Heavy Air

When the Ds were babies, my father in law insisted on taking them outside. For D1, it was several weekly trips to Matheson Hammock, where my mother in law would watch her as he swam or fished. By D2's time, they had moved to Pembroke Pines, and the venue was CB Smith Park. Either way, he insisted the Ds get "Good Air," which he pronounced with his heavy Yiddish/Polish accent. It sounded like "Gut Ay-re." He was convinced that growing girls needed this, along with Gut FOOOD. He made sure to always take Wifey outside in Haifa, when she was a toddler, and let her breathe deep from the breezes off the Mediterranean. I thought of him this am as I fetched the paper. June is here, and a tropical storm awaits in the Gulf. Right now, the air is heavy with heat and humidity. The rains will come and cool things off, hopefully. And we'll endure Miami's dog days for the coming months. Friday night I was at UM, watching the Canes baseball team in the company of distinguished gentlemen: Norman, Mike, their terrific sons, and my junior high bud Kenny. It was hot, but as the evening rolled on, and it passed 10 pm, a lovely breeze kicked up. It reminded me of evening sailing trips when I was an undergrad -- it always seemed the cooling breezes came across the Bay near that time. Melville wrote that he knew it was time to put out to sea when he found himself down a bit -- when he caught himself spending too much time at funerals. Funny -- for me the travel bug has hit, in a small way. Every decade or so, I get the urge to visit Long Island, and just drive past my old house and schools, and walk along the Atlantic at Jones Beach. The time is upon me, and I booked a trip for this weekend. I asked D2 if, in the close to a year she's live in NY, she has been out to LI. Of course not -- why would she go -- there's nothing there. She's right, objectively, but for me there are the memories of a happy childhood. And as I near 55, I like to kindle them a bit. So I rented a car, and D2 and maybe her boyfriend Jonathan will come with me on Saturday. We'll lunch at my family's chinese place, Kwong Ming, even though I hear it's not so great anymore. But the nostalgia is why I'm going -- not the wontons. Then we'll drive the old 'hood, and then decamp to Jones Beach -- the venue of so many happy childhood times. As a small boy, my parents would take me -- my Mom packing a full chest of sandwiches and drinks. As a teen, a 25 cent bus ride on Hempstead Turnpike would drop us at Parking Field 4, as my friends and I searched for ladies from other Nassau schools -- maybe more exotic than the ones from MacArthur High. My happiest memory of Jones Beach was a cold March day, though. It was a Saturday, and I had no plans. My Dad and I had just bought new coats -- mine was down, and his poly filled. Both were tan -- ski parka types. We drove to Jones Beach. I was a high school senior, accepted by scholarship to UM, and at the end of the school year, we were to move to South Florida. My Dad and I walked the frigid, wind swept, but sunny boardwalk for miles. We talked about his life -- poor childhood in the Bronx, years of service in the army, and coming back to NY to start a family -- and now able to retire at 60. His one regret -- to a man who prized intellect above most else -- was that he never went off to college, and now I, his only son, was going to do just that. I felt so empowered by him. I felt like a son becoming a man. I wanted to become just like him. We returned to the Jones Beach restaurant and went inside. We had hot cocoa and clam chowder. Funny -- I recall the table linens were royal blue. That day, now 37 years in the past, is one I still treasure. I would go on to live out his dream, and mine. He'd be gone just over three years later... My old friends Mark and Rita never left LI, except for Mark's one humorous year studying marine mechanics at Key West Community. They married young, and had their only child late -- Joseph is now home from his freshman year at an upstate SUNY school. They've invited us for a Saturday barbecue, and we'll attend and bore D2 and Joseph with tales of our "Dazed and Confused" youth. And hopefully it will be cooler out, and those lovely LI Spring breezes will swirl. I still like to get good air for my Ds.