01-22-2018, 08:20 AM
For those of us struggling to get rid of "stuff" in order to hit the road. This essay appeared in today's New York Daily News. Thought I'd post it here for some discussion. I am neither agreeing with it, or disparaging it. Everybody is different.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 22, 2018, 5:00 AM
For the last few years of his life, my father wore a black Burberry
trench coat. He would never have picked out such a coat for himself.
Born and raised in Newark, he had no interest in fashion, least of all
anything British. Newark-born, he tended toward the utilitarian, buying
blue-collar work pants and shirts typically found at, say, Sears.
But after my parents divorced, my father found a girlfriend, and she
soon decided he had earned the right to treat himself to a touch of
luxury. Hence, his appearance one day wearing that coat: trademark plaid
lining, double-breasted, belted at the waist, complete with straps at
the wrist that buckled to seal out cold and rain.
After my father died of a heart attack in 1997, I adopted his coat and
wore it every fall and winter. It fit me poorly, baggy in the neck and
chest and shoulders, with sleeves an inch or so past my wrists. But I
never felt the need to get it taken in.
Eventually, the coat started to come apart, first with holes in the
pockets, then with fraying in the collar and cuffs. My wife tried to
stitch it up, but even her prowess with a sewing machine failed to
arrest its decay.
Resigned to reality, I retired my father’s coat to our hallway closet.
There, it still hangs. I bought my first new raincoat in almost 20
years; it fits better, but feels like both a surrender and a betrayal.
The girlfriend also persuaded my father to buy a new black Cadillac, a
1991 STS model. All his life, he drove only station wagons and vans, the
back seats always piled high with the tools and equipment he needed for
the residential real estate properties he managed and the technology
non-profit he had founded.
After he died, I drove his Cadillac for 14 years. I took our family of
four to places near and far, just as my father had our family of four,
at least on those rare occasions when we all went out together.
Then the Cadillac started breaking down too. So one day, we arranged to
give it away to a charity. I watched a tow truck haul it off, and felt
as if I were once again saying goodbye to my dad.
Family heirlooms often go out of use, that armoire or silver candlestick
relegated to the attic or basement. Or the fine china is given away to
relatives and the wedding gown sold at flea markets. Should we cling to
these tangible reminders of our past? Or should we let it all go?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Baby Boomers like me are less likely
than the Greatest Generation to cling to them, and Generation X and
Millennials even less likely. Either things are shiny and new or they’re
calculated to be vintage, from some second-hand store. As it happens,
though, the Library of Congress has a Preservation Directorate that
advises the public about how to take care of prized mementos.
I opt to keep a tight grip on physical relics of my family history,
especially when it comes to my father. And that’s because his presence
in my life was marked largely by his absence. Off to work he went early,
back home he came late, almost always too busy for his family, let alone
his son.
Wearing his coat and driving his car, I quickly discovered, made me feel
good. Maybe if I kept doing so, even if posthumously, I could somehow,
finally, feel close to him.
My habit of clutching my family history started years earlier. After my
maternal grandfather died in 1981, my nana urged me for years to take
some of his clothes home to wear. Every time I visited her apartment on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she slid open the door to her bedroom
closet in front of me and told me to take something. “Poppa would have
wanted you to,” she would say.
For years I gently declined. Making off with any of his belongings, I
decided, would have felt faintly ghoulish.
Except one day I said yes. And took home an overcoat, purchased 40 or 50
years ago at Harry Rothman’s. A classic “Chesterfield” affair: heavy
wool, in a rust-brown-beige plaid, single-breasted and loose-fitting,
with a single vent in the back, a small collar and no cuffs.
This coat, too, is getting tattered, the silk lining all but shredded.
But family is for keeps. In the face of loss, hand-me-downs can console
us, comfort us, maintain a sense of continuity from generation to
generation. Going around town in Poppa’s coat, I almost feel him still
looking out for me, as if he’s still alive, his arm over my shoulder at
my first Yankee game.
We need more than memories to keep us warm. That coat's going nowhere
until I do.
/Brody, an executive and essayist in Forest Hills, is author of the new
memoir, “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes
of Age.”/
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 22, 2018, 5:00 AM
For the last few years of his life, my father wore a black Burberry
trench coat. He would never have picked out such a coat for himself.
Born and raised in Newark, he had no interest in fashion, least of all
anything British. Newark-born, he tended toward the utilitarian, buying
blue-collar work pants and shirts typically found at, say, Sears.
But after my parents divorced, my father found a girlfriend, and she
soon decided he had earned the right to treat himself to a touch of
luxury. Hence, his appearance one day wearing that coat: trademark plaid
lining, double-breasted, belted at the waist, complete with straps at
the wrist that buckled to seal out cold and rain.
After my father died of a heart attack in 1997, I adopted his coat and
wore it every fall and winter. It fit me poorly, baggy in the neck and
chest and shoulders, with sleeves an inch or so past my wrists. But I
never felt the need to get it taken in.
Eventually, the coat started to come apart, first with holes in the
pockets, then with fraying in the collar and cuffs. My wife tried to
stitch it up, but even her prowess with a sewing machine failed to
arrest its decay.
Resigned to reality, I retired my father’s coat to our hallway closet.
There, it still hangs. I bought my first new raincoat in almost 20
years; it fits better, but feels like both a surrender and a betrayal.
The girlfriend also persuaded my father to buy a new black Cadillac, a
1991 STS model. All his life, he drove only station wagons and vans, the
back seats always piled high with the tools and equipment he needed for
the residential real estate properties he managed and the technology
non-profit he had founded.
After he died, I drove his Cadillac for 14 years. I took our family of
four to places near and far, just as my father had our family of four,
at least on those rare occasions when we all went out together.
Then the Cadillac started breaking down too. So one day, we arranged to
give it away to a charity. I watched a tow truck haul it off, and felt
as if I were once again saying goodbye to my dad.
Family heirlooms often go out of use, that armoire or silver candlestick
relegated to the attic or basement. Or the fine china is given away to
relatives and the wedding gown sold at flea markets. Should we cling to
these tangible reminders of our past? Or should we let it all go?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Baby Boomers like me are less likely
than the Greatest Generation to cling to them, and Generation X and
Millennials even less likely. Either things are shiny and new or they’re
calculated to be vintage, from some second-hand store. As it happens,
though, the Library of Congress has a Preservation Directorate that
advises the public about how to take care of prized mementos.
I opt to keep a tight grip on physical relics of my family history,
especially when it comes to my father. And that’s because his presence
in my life was marked largely by his absence. Off to work he went early,
back home he came late, almost always too busy for his family, let alone
his son.
Wearing his coat and driving his car, I quickly discovered, made me feel
good. Maybe if I kept doing so, even if posthumously, I could somehow,
finally, feel close to him.
My habit of clutching my family history started years earlier. After my
maternal grandfather died in 1981, my nana urged me for years to take
some of his clothes home to wear. Every time I visited her apartment on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she slid open the door to her bedroom
closet in front of me and told me to take something. “Poppa would have
wanted you to,” she would say.
For years I gently declined. Making off with any of his belongings, I
decided, would have felt faintly ghoulish.
Except one day I said yes. And took home an overcoat, purchased 40 or 50
years ago at Harry Rothman’s. A classic “Chesterfield” affair: heavy
wool, in a rust-brown-beige plaid, single-breasted and loose-fitting,
with a single vent in the back, a small collar and no cuffs.
This coat, too, is getting tattered, the silk lining all but shredded.
But family is for keeps. In the face of loss, hand-me-downs can console
us, comfort us, maintain a sense of continuity from generation to
generation. Going around town in Poppa’s coat, I almost feel him still
looking out for me, as if he’s still alive, his arm over my shoulder at
my first Yankee game.
We need more than memories to keep us warm. That coat's going nowhere
until I do.
/Brody, an executive and essayist in Forest Hills, is author of the new
memoir, “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes
of Age.”/
Regards
John
John
I don't like to make advance plans. It causes the word PREMEDITATED get thrown around in the courtroom!
I'm NOT crazy! My mother had me tested! 
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