http://www.lohud.com/article/20090830/COLUMNIST05/908300347/-1/SPORTS
Summer of memories
By Bob Baird • Journal News Columnist • August 30, 2009
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Sooner or later, everyone has that moment when we realize we’re closer to life’s finish line than we are to the starting gate.
It’s not usually something we obsess about, but as birthdays and other life milestones pass, there are times when you can’t help but accept that the years and the memories are both piling up and, sadly, slipping away.
For my generation, this summer has been one of those times when the memories, good and bad, have been in your face.
I’m still healthy, still love what I do for a living and in my spare time, and I look forward to many positive markers along life’s path.
But I’ve had a hard time pushing aside the memories and ignoring the links in life’s chain stretching back 40 years to the summer of 1969.
I should have graduated from Manhattan College that June but didn’t, mostly because I had spent 1968 majoring in being editor of the college newspaper. It not only cut into my class attendance, but it fueled a change of career plans, from teaching physical education and coaching to being a journalist.
Forty years later, I’m still at it, despite changing readership needs and habits, and technology that has shifted from Linotype machines spewing out stories in hot lead to writing news nuggets on my cell phone.
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That July and August, I worked in New York City, at a commercial banking company. My father was well into a 40-year career there and now, after 36 years at the newspaper, I understand what an accomplishment that was.
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My dad and I found a special closeness in dealing with my mother’s illness and death. As my career in journalism hits the 40-year mark, my youngest daughter, Kelly, is on course from starting on a path in what has been the family business since 1865.
And this summer, I’ve found myself forced – sometimes, admittedly, without too much pressure – to confront the memories.
This has been a summer of anniversaries, celebrations of past joys. But some of the ’69 Mets are gone. The mud-covered revelers who bathed nude at Woodstock are now retired Baby Boomers and grandmothers. Kelly’s got a birthday looming, but next time around she’ll be 25, Sean 30 and Tracy 35 – hardly children.
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No matter how one feels about his politics, his actions at Chappaquiddick and his legacy as a senator, his passing marks an end to an era, closing the loop that began with John, passed through Bobby and ends with the last brother’s battle with brain cancer.
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It’s how we say goodbye to memories, making room for the new experiences that come later in life, if we’re lucky enough to recognize them.
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Baird, Bob (MC1969)
[JR: Worth reading the whole thing! I just did "fair use".]
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