| A month ago Avi went to Macomb, Illinois to work for a week. She had worked there a couple of times before, and had already committed to going back again when she got her current job in Chicago. I was out of the country during her previous trips, but this time I came along. On the way there we passed by DeKalb, and on the spur of the moment decided to make a quick stop. For years I had been thinking of making a day trip there, but even though it's only an hour and a half away, I somehow just never did it. We drove though town and then went down to the cemetery to visit Mom and Dad's graves. I wanted to spend more time. It's so strange that the place where I spent the first seventeen years of my life should be so close, and yet I never go there. Macomb is an interesting town, though it's in a corner of the state that's called Forgottonia, because it's remote and neglected. The first picture on the page is what's left of a hotel where Abraham Lincoln stayed on a couple of occasions in 1858 when he was traveling around the state debating Stephen Douglas. This year the high holidays were strange. I normally co-ordinate them for our minyan, and that's a lot of work, but since I've done it for thirty years, I have a routine, and know what to do. This year we decided to do services via Zoom (like everything else in life!) and that made the whole process different. Instead of me making all the arrangements by myself, a small group of people got together and had a series of meetings. We had to make all kinds of decisions and arrange many things in advance that normally could be handled on the fly. I was very concerned about how it would go, but in the end it was very good, and people were very happy with it. Now it's Sukkot, and I'm just using Avi's Sukkah, but wishing I had built one myself. Next year! Our whole lives are on the computer now. My Catalan lessons, with a tutor who lives in Chicago, are on Zoom. I have two Sinhala lessons every week, one via FaceTime with a tutor who lives nearby, and the other over Skype with a tutor in Sri Lanka. The second picture on the page is a lawn sign that you see all over our neighborhood. Though hate has no home here, many languages clearly do. On the bottom line are Hebrew and Assyrian (Christian Neo-Aramaic). That's something you don't see everywhere! I'm disappointed that they don't have either Catalan or Sinhala. I think I need to make my own sign. And the music is a bit of a traditional American song called "Daniel Prayed". I have it on a record by the Red Clay Ramblers and thought it would be fun to try recording part of it myself. |
| Created on 5 October 2020 by Samuel Ethan Fox |