The weather improved somewhat the day after our excursion into Manhattan, enough to allow me to take my daughter to Jones Beach to swim in the ocean. As I watched her play in the water as I did more than thirty-five years earlier, numerous memories came back to me: of splashing about the water and usually winding up with a mouth full of salt water at some point. Memories of trips to the beach with my grandparents and at least one trip with my aunt. Searching for seashells in the sand, and one occasion where a very strong wind blew in from the ocean creating a sandstorm while sending the large beach umbrellas flying through the air. But at least my daughter got to experience swimming at Jones Beach like her father had done decades before.
For some reason, I can’t recall where we went after the beach or what we did. I do remember that Monday was the reason I originally gave serious consideration for a trip back home. That evening was the varsity awards banquet for Baldwin High School. Each year since 1951, just months after he died, the school included an award named after my grandfather, originally bestowed to the most outstanding two-sport athlete. After the award banquet that evening I met a woman who had won the award in the 1970s, but now the award is only handed out to male athletes.
I arrived at the banquet that evening with no clue who was receiving the award or any background information about them. As it turned out, that relatively important information was emailed to me as our flight was enroute to New York. Fortunately, the director of athletics at the school jotted down the name of that year’s recipient, what sports they participated in, opinions of him by teammates, and where he was heading to college after graduating. Using just those few sentences, I set about drafting my presentation. As the award named for my grandfather is considered the most prestigious, it is the last one presented, giving me plenty of time to come up with something off the top of my head when my time came. For the next couple of hours I wrote and rewrote what I wanted to say, crafting something worthy of the award itself. The big challenge, though, was going to be the presentation itself, not having any opportunity to rehearse in advance; what I was going to say would be my speech’s trial run. I was just hoping I wouldn’t screw it up.
I’m not a big fan of crowds, wary of people I don’t know, and there I was facing both of those personal quirks while giving a public speech. Theoretically I should’ve been nervous, but the jitters were just not there. I was on a mission, to present an award named after a family member, I had to get it right with a presentation that would’ve made my grandfather proud, that would’ve made my father proud. Eventually my turn came to stand up behind the podium.
My speech began by introducing myself and how glad I was to be there that evening (usually just lip service, but I really was glad to be there). I pointed out that in years past two of my grandfather’s children had been there to present the award; that evening I was standing in place of my dad, my grandfather’s eldest child, who had passed away and could not be there that evening. That was immediately followed by how I never knew my grandfather, having died fifteen years before I was born. Nonetheless, I had come to know him in a way through the newspaper clippings in the scrapbook he kept, and by a first hand account from one of his few living contemporaries whom he had played high school football with in the 1930s. Through all these vicarious memories, he still lived for me, he still threw the football with great precision to his favorite receiver, Jerry McHugh, he still continued to pummel the defenses of the opposition. At that point I began the overview of the award’s recipient for 2008. Perhaps five minutes and all was said and done, speech given, award presented. With that the banquet was over. A number of people introduced themselves to me afterwards, but damned if I remember any names as overwhelmed I was feeling at that moment. Hopefully my presentation was good enough to make my father and grandfather proud.
The next day was wind down day, time to get ready for the flight home the next day. But there were promises to keep, and miles to go before I slept. Kept the promise to myself of shopping at Modells before we left town. Visited the Broadway Mall where my wife bought souvenirs for family back home, and I got to pick up a replica 1939 Brooklyn Dodgers hat and visit the New York Islanders store (heaven, pure heaven to me). That evening my aunt and uncle took us to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant, whose name and location completely escape me that the moment. After returning to her house, my aunt completely surprised me by breaking out a bunch of old family photos, of my father, my aunt and uncle, grandparents, great-grandparents, for me a treasure trove of family history. Not having access to a scanner and not being able to take the pictures with my, I did what I needed to do in that situation: I took pictures of the pictures. Hey, it worked, and I have my own set of those photos.
Our flight left from the same runway at LaGuardia that we had landed on a week before. After a delay (go figure) our plane began its race down the runway. The “Welcome to New York” sign off to the side of the runway raced past the window as I looked to my right. The plane started to bank to the left as it climbed to altitude. Out the port side windows I could clearly see Manhattan, essentially the whole island. My heart ached, like I was leaving home for good. New York was once my home, it isn’t now. Everything’s changed and the places I knew and remembered as a child have permanently and irrevocably changed. But it had been a really great visit and more of a revelation of family history than I could have ever had hoped for. As the landscape below lost its details, becoming a tapestry of various shades of green, I knew then that it would not be thirty years before my next visit back.
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