Instead of an Email...

I was born on the twenty-sixth day of the eighth month in the absolute middle of the 20th century, 8/26/1950. My first recollected memory, from 1953, is of my father coming home on a Friday evening as I, his eldest son, sat dutifully on the bottom step along the Weaver Street sidewalk waiting for him to return from Jersey City where he worked through the week. It was warm, so it must have been baseball season. My father, a hopeless Phillies fan, was still, no doubt nursing the wounds of the pennant winning 1950 Whiz Kids’ 4-0 World Series drubbing by the New York Yankees, even though it was then three seasons on. That evening he walked with a list from the weight of his suitcase, which was full of dirty clothes that would be taken care of over the weekend before he left again on Sunday evening. But laundry be damned, there was time enough between now and then to listen to a Friday night and then two weekend day games….