‘member? ‘member when??

It has been an odd week for memories. (Hum along everyone!) “Scattered pictures—of the smiles we left behind” danced through my mind over and over as if the 1970s icon Barbra Streisand were behind nearly every corner of my mind…

It all started the other day when I got out a blue pin-striped shirt to wear that I had not donned in my nearly seven months in Jordan. Last week I discovered a box with about 4-5 items that I had never unfolded and hung up after the boxes arrived in August (ahhh…the misty water-colored memories of Rita promising me for weeks in that smoky voice, “Don’t worry John—the boxes will come…) and so I decided to debut this nice shirt I hadn’t seen in months and months. As I unfolded the shirt, a once-familiar object fell out of the shirt pocket: a gold-wrapped candy. (Now I know what you are thinking—I am going to relive my late 1970s musical triumph of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”! But no.) Emblazoned on the 1 square-inch piece of gold foil was a monogram—the fancy-schmancy monogram with the prominent ‘A’ flanked by a smaller ‘C’ on each side.

As the piece of chocolate mint tumbled to the ground, Barbra Steisand wailed in my head about the “smiles we gave to one another.” The candy was from Ardsley Country Club, a place I have had the opportunity to visit many times courtesy of the largesse of my dear friends Anne and Peter in Irvington. As I sighed over the beautiful memories from many dinners and lunches at the club, it was such a serendipitous reminder of how fortunate I am to have had friends like Anne and Peter. I scooped the candy off the floor, plunked it on my desk, and finished getting my coat and tie on so I could officially start the day. Happily on that walk to morning meeting, I was flooded with those random memories that an hour before did not even seem in the offing.

There were memories of lazy summer afternoon lunches on the terrace (they like to sit at a certain table, where A&P claim the view of the Hudson is just the most superb) delighting in Anne’s decision that “the table would like a few appetizers I think.” There were the cold, winter evenings where it felt as warm and cozy at the club as life-long friends sharing the comforts of lived-in laughs. I don’t remember how long the rosy glow of the memories lasted—but it was all because a long-forgotten souvenir of a fine meal accidentally plopped out of a shirt pocket.

A day or so later I decided to wear another of the forgotten clothes items—a rather seen-it-all houndstooth jacket I don’t remember wearing since George Bush I left office. I don’t even remember why I included this jacket in my packing, except I thought there might be a day one wants to exude a kind-of Sherlock Holmes-ian charm. There was one of those foggy-sleety days last week when wearing a “jacket emeritus” seemed appropriate. (Yes, there have been a few of those wintry days here, even in Jordan.) As I tried on the jacket, remembering that I had purchased it in the mid-1980s, I felt in the jacket pockets, and discovered several old souvenirs (one may wonder—do I ever have certain articles clothing professionally cleaned?? Hmmm….).

I found two ticket stubs and a program. I am almost embarrassed to state the date on any of these items! I remember in my younger days I liked the idea that my jackets and suits acted as a kind of filing cabinet, or desk drawer, or ersatz scrapbook. Oh my. For those of you who know my father, you are chuckling to yourself right now, “Yes, he certainly is Ken’s son.” My father loves to collect—nay, to embrace—anything that has any age to it. It may be a mint from a favorite restaurant, or an old envelope, an old coupon…do you get the picture? So, I guess I come by this hording thing rather naturally. And you should see my mother’s bibles—a veritable archivist’s delight of old bulletins, sermon notes, Ann Landers clippings, Hallmark cards, grocery lists, snapshots, besides the actual pages of biblical wisdom.

So I look at these tickets and program, and Barbra Steisand busts out again with another verse: “Can it be that it was all so simple again?” Huh? Barbra—shut up, I am reminiscing, and your soprano is a little grating…

One ticket is from the farewell tour of Yul Brunner in The King And I that I saw in Chicago. I just checked on-line to be sure, and the master of the King of Siam died in 1985. Oh my. Actually, I remember almost exactly when I saw it, in the autumn of 1984, when I was studying “abroad” at the Newberry Institute in Chicago. Of course the ticket ignited many memories of that fall studying the infamous Sacco-Vanzetti case, living in my first real apartment (the worst dump I will ever inhabit, inshallah), in an amazing city and enjoying intellectual engagement. Sigh.

Then there was the ticket from January, 1985: a concert on Mozart’s birthday (his 229th) in his birthplace-town of Salzburg, Austria. I remember that I had just arrived there that week and will always treasure those first images of the incomparable Salzburg as I adjusted to my first time living away from the United States. Barbra—please—I am trying to be all classical, and I do not need the montage of you and Robert Redford right now!

The program in my pocket was from a concert of a talented, beautiful friend from Denison. Elizabeth offered her junior recital in my last few weeks of college life, and I even wrote margin notes about the opera arias she sang. In college Elizabeth had one of the most glorious voices—effortless, and pure, a voice that would make Cecilia Bartoli a little jealous. Elizabeth’s arias from the Italian and German repertory reminded me of the History of Music course I took while in Salzburg, and how steeped I was in the history of music at the time. Of course, the flights of fancy then took wing as I thought of the Denison clique in general. Instead of Barbra’s voice, I hear us singing songs from “Tears for Fears” on our way to their concert. Later this week I would get an email from the inimitable Sue Skinner saying that she had just thought me as a cook talked of her love for White Castle hamburgers—in case you missed my gastronomic tour, among my favorite foods and memories! The weaving of opera history and White Castles in just a few seconds…the beauty of synchronicity!

Anyway, that was the end of the Houndstooth Scrapbook. Maybe I didn’t wear the jacket much after the spring of 1986.

In the last eight weeks I have been reminded of the jumble of emotions last year during January and February, 2007. In those weeks I first met the headmaster of KA, first met the chairman of the board, first heard of the offer to head the history department at KA, and first flew to Jordan. It was one year ago today that I accepted the job offer, knots in my stomach, excitement coursing through me, wondering if this was the most outlandish thing I had ever done. So, you see, it hasn’t just been the sartorial nostalgia plunging me into the odd memory here and there.

After a few short weeks last winter of meditating, praying, imagining and believing, I accepted the job via e-mail. I called Anne and Peter to tell them that I had indeed accepted the job, and Anne immediately said, “We need to go somewhere special and celebrate. Let’s go out to ‘One.’” I remember that it was the night of the Academy Awards, and as I enjoyed dinner at ‘One,’ an unusual silence fell among us. How many more dinners would we get to enjoy before I left? How many more times would I see snow fall in the Hudson Valley as it did that night? Would I even get to watch the Oscars in that far-off land???

This morning I got up with enough time to read a devotional from the “Daily Bread” booklet my wonderful friend Doris J. sends me. I was a day or two behind, but as I turned to the biblical passage, the oddest feeling of déjà vu embraced me. The passage was from Hebrews 11, and reads, in part: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. . . .By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place…obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” In the margins of this passage was my handwriting: “February, 2007—I am going to Jordan.”

I had almost forgotten that I had read that last year at this time, and it kinda called out to me that I had some biblical fax suggesting it was time to give up some familiar, secure surroundings to go somewhere new and make some new memories. I had underlined the words, and as I looked at the force of those year-old underlinings, I remembered the force of my conviction to try out this new place. Wow. It all came back to me in a torrent of memories.

So here I am—I am sitting in my Corky’s BBQ t-shirt (Corky’s is a legendary BBQ joint in Memphis where Anne and I have had more than one rib-stickin’, finger-lickin’, sauce-splashin’ meals, most notably at the beginning and end of our gratifying Civil Rights-learnin’ trips to Mississippi in 2000) awaiting the Oscars. I will be watching the telecast tonight, live, albeit in the middle of the night here, with two friends that I cannot believe I might have missed if I had not been so moved by that passage in Hebrews. Hopefully the phones will work tonight so I can call my legendary friend Mary and squawk about the Oscar show as we have done for 20 years).

KA friends Elizabeth and Rehema and I will be watching, talking, eating, and wondering why we stayed up all night to see some show! A care package just arrived the other day from the sister-of-sisters, Elizabeth, and I may make some pudding from her treasure trove for the occasion. Maybe I will even keep the pudding box so I can pull it out of some odd place years from now “whenever we remember.”