My Mother's Wrath Revisited

[schlomo]

My Mother’s Wrath Revisited

I loved playing stickball with my friends. Most of the time, my backyard was our default. When it was my turn to bat, I inadvertently tended to whack the ball onto the inaccessible roof that covered all of the apartments. Each time I did so, my mother had to reimburse the ball’s owner. When the game was over, I trotted upstairs to our home to receive my mother’s reprimand: a solid lashing with her trusty leather and potentially lethal belt for every ball that I lost in the crevices of the roof. Neither one of us discussed our actions, although I felt that my mother’s fury was unjust and excessively cruel. I whimpered; my mother snarled.

Sixty years later when I was hospitalized in Hawaii, I was reminded of my stickball heydays.   During a rain storm near the drain of a nearby roof, I noticed the bedraggled remains of a tennis ball. Immediately, I transported myself to my backyard transgressions and my mother’s painful retribution. It was a jolting  memory, but I somehow cherished revisiting the crucible of my youth.

I never located that punishing belt after my mother died. I don’t know what I would have done if I had found it. I can imagine flinging it onto a roof where it could contend with the scraggly remains of the forlorn, discarded tennis balls of past generations.

I wonder if I will notice any other revelation that would remind me of my early days in Revere. I relish the opportunity. Let the scavenger hunt begin.

The twilight of my life may well include the dawning of my life, a literary motif (a la Marcel Proust) based on the recollection of past adventures and misadventures.