I was out in the neighborhood this morning. I was trying to get my exercise out of the way early . . and it was cold. Twenty six degrees is only fun for Eskimos and Polar Bears, which I am not, not.
I passed a house decorated for Halloween, and I remembered that tomorrow was the big day for witches, goblins and other types of unusual creatures, me included. . there are not many people with a quintuple bypass!
Halloween was cold in New York, too. Cher and I grew up there for a number of years. She was five and had a rice bowl haircut. I can still remember her in a knee-length plaid skirt and with a big smile on her face. She sat next to me, the toothless one, in a white shirt and vest and sporting a smart Mickey Mantle crew cut. We were both in our living room in Valley Stream, New York. We were in the second floor apartment that my parents had rented, our legs dangling off the couch as we looked at the shiny, new middle-Eastern costumes mom had sewn for Halloween.
Inside, my mother, jet-black hair in a dark stiff skirt, sat across from us, smiling. It was a moment of warmth and happiness in that tiny apartment. My mom smiled at us and, for a rare and wonderful moment, she was happy.
If I had known about the raging torrents which were to thunder under the bridges over the next twenty years, I would have held onto the moment and never let it go.