Ike loved his granddaughters – and the Sox

 

Today (Feb. 20) is the anniversary of my father’s passing 18 years ago. The date was March 13, 2003, but in the Jewish religion, the anniversary is observed on the date that corresponds to the date on the Hebrew calendar, which is the 9^th day of the month of Iyar --- which falls on Feb. 20 this year.
In honor of Ike’s memorial observance, I wanted to share this column that I wrote on the fifth anniversary of his death. The column --- which was published May 12, 2008 in The Sun Chronicle --- is appropriate to run today, not only because it corresponds to the date of his death on the Hebrew calendar, but because of the timely topic: baseball.
The sport has just opened its 2021 spring training for what will be the second straight season that will be played under the cloud of the coronavirus pandemic.
This depressing scourge ---- which last year robbed us of most of the season and which this year is likely to let only a sprinkling of fans actually attend games (very possibly none in Boston, which may reopen a little in 2022 as Bay State and Boston officials are keeping us apart and increasingly anxiety-ridden) ---- has stolen much from us, but thankfully NOT our memories!
But I digress. Luckily for us, my Dad and I didn’t have a pandemic to contend with, which allowed us to bond over baseball, which we turned into our lifelong obsession.
We had a ton of fun at games over the years, but sadly, Ike left Earth’s box seats before the Red Sox beat the curse in 2004, so he never saw his beloved Beantown team win the World Series. He saw them lose in 1946, and we both saw them lose in seven games in 1967, 1975 and 1986 --- the year that still stings for Sox fans of a certain age.
RIP, Ike --- and enjoy chatting with all of those Hall-of-Famers who we lost in the last several months.

This column was published May 12, 2008 in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA.

Whenever people close to us pass on, we are reminded that their memories live on. The memories, sympathy cards say, will help sustain us. There's a certain amount of truth in that, and yet such sentiments don't make the loss easier to accept.
I was thinking a lot about that after recently observing the fifth anniversary of my father's death. The observance is both by habit and design. It's by habit because you don't forget such milestones; it's by design, because a formal way to remember such deaths is built into Jewish life.
The memorial observance occurs on the date of the death on the Hebrew calendar, and this year it fell on the fifth anniversary of my father's funeral. A prayer is said for the deceased, but that's not the main reason behind the ritual; that is simply to keep the memory of your loved ones alive throughout the year, and rest assured that Ike is remembered.
That's especially true during baseball season. It's no secret to readers of this column that Ike was a big Red Sox fan who, like so many others of his generation, passed down his love of baseball to his son. Ike took me to my first game at Fenway Park at age 5, and despite having to leave early because I was scared by a thunderstorm, I was hooked. I followed the Sox in my formative years, and we were on a season-long high in 1967, the fabled "Impossible Dream" year.
Through the years, we experienced a lot of Red Sox-related father-son moments, both highs and lows, but like a lot of Sox fans of the World War II generation, Ike --- who was born one month before the Red Sox clinched the 1918 World Series title --- did not make it to that magical night of Oct. 27, 2004, when the Sox won their first World Series in 86 years; he had died 18 months earlier at 84.
Naturally, my thoughts went to Ike on that night, as they did last October, when the Sox swept the Colorado Rockies on Oct. 28-29 to claim their second World Series title in 89 years. He would have been proud of those moments, but rooting for the Red Sox isn't the only experience helping to keep Ike's legacy alive. These are only some of the ways in which he's remembered:
Ike was a linotype operator, and he encouraged me to become a "copy boy" at the old Boston Sunday Advertiser and Record-American, the precursor to the Boston Herald, when I was in high school. He saw many changes in the industry before he retired in 1983, and the communications revolution I've been a witness to makes me wonder what words of advice Ike would give me as newspapers struggle to survive.
Ike and Sylvia, my late mother, were married 52 years when she predeceased him by six years, and he was a loyal husband and father. That's an example worth following as my wife, whom my father adored despite her allegiance to the Yankees, and I look forward to celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary this fall.
I've been leading the children's services at my child's Hebrew School the last couple of years, a job my dad gladly did in the days when the kids in the Orthodox synagogue I grew up in Dorchester were treated like evil beings by most of the adults. But not to Ike, who not only led the students' Saturday and holiday services, but also chaperoned yearly trips to Fenway Park, when we sat in unreserved grandstand seats in right field for $1.50. Those trips earned my dad angel status.
He passed down the holiday traditions, something I took for granted until trying to explain the hows and whys of the Jewish holidays to my daughters. Ike was especially remembered at this week's Passover Seders.
All of those memories of Ike sustain and keep him alive. But the best way that his memory is honored is through my kids. Ike was the proudest grandfather in the world, even going up to strangers in Brookline, where he lived his last several years, to let them know that his son and daughter-in-law would be adopting a child from China.
Now, five years after his death left my children without a grandfather, I feel as if, due to my advancing age, Ike's legacy has made me feel like a grandfather, too, a feeling that has been reinforced by being mistaken for the girls' grandfather. That's why making sure my kids know all about their granddad is the best possible way to remember Ike.
Besides, of course, shouting, "Play ball!"