Orel Family

End of Mourning

Just like that, it was over. As an official sort of thing, anyway. In Jewish tradition, it is customary to be in mourning for 11 months after the death of a parent. Some traditions hold that it is 11 months from the date of death, others hold that it is 11 months from the date of burial, and yet other hold that it is 11 months from the date of death unless the burial is delayed by 3 or more days, in which case it is from the date of the burial (insert joke about having 2 possibilities and therefore 3 opinions here). We went with 11 months from date of burial.

So, stepping back to last September 1, the mourning period ended on Wednesday, July 23. I'm no longer required to say kaddish for my father except during yizkor and yahrzeit, and his name will no longer be read, except for yahrzeit. Or, perhaps more accurately, I'm required to stop.

Over the days approaching July 23, I thought quite a bit about this particular end. Typically, there's a ceremony at the synagogue to mark the end of mourning, corresponding with the final day; however, due to some communications breakdowns mine has been delayed until the 31st. I get a gift (a daily prayer book signed by the minyan regulars), someone -- the rabbi and maybe a regular -- says a few nice words, then I say something. So I've been thinking what I might say. Typically, while hoisting the fruit picker up the apple tree, or while reaching in for the raspberries -- things I can't much imagine my dad doing (and, considering that his last visit to Michigan was during the height of raspberry season and he went nowhere near the canes, I'm thinking my imagination is reasonably accurate on that one). I haven't yet figured out what I'll say, but in the meantime...

My dad, as I first remember him. I was about 10 when I took this picture, and to me it's the iconic image of him from when I was growing up. Never mind that the camera wasn't level, that my perspective wasn't the best or that I was shooting straight in to the sunset. That's dad, before he grew old, on a routine work day having just come home in the '64 Bonneville (visible behind him), carrying that day's haul of Tuscan Dairy Farms products in his handy carrying case. That's a one quart carton of Orange Drink clearly visible in the front right (not Orange Juice, which in later years I would consume by the half gallon), and it looks like a quart of Pathmark label milk at the back right. There was room in the carrying case for 3 quarts on each side, and it usually came home full. The Omaga watch was missing from his hand that day. Couldn't even guess why. Behind him is the basket he had put up a year or two earlier; it is still in the same spot, looking quite a bit less robust. Ever so slight a smile; whether it's family pride or placating the young photography, I neither know nor care. This was him, in his element, in the spot he had staked out for himself and his family.

Of course, it's not so simple. Nothing ever is. So I thought back, also, to our altercations -- and there were many. Varied in level of seriousness, but what I focused in on was one that was particularly not serious... though I suppose it was different for me at the time: music. In the early '70's, I confess it: I liked Dawn. They weren't known then as "Tony Orlando and Dawn," just "Dawn." I can blame my brother. It started with a song called "Candida," which he decided he liked because it was about a hope for clean air.

But "Knock Three Times," that was my song. From 1971 -- not long before I took that picture. Every hour on WABC 77 radio! The great horn flourish to kick it off, and that classic opening line: "Hey Girl what 'ya doin' down there." The 3 knocks and the twice on the pipe, the dramatic break with strings and, and, and, the key change! How could it be better?


My dad, who had grown up on Benny Goodman, among others (see my note from last year), hated it. He didn't just hate it, clearly, it offended him. He would prance around the living room, intentionally mangling the chorus: "Knock three times if you want me on the ceiling!!"

So, Wednesday was the last day for kaddish. Last day for reading the name. At evening services, his name was read one last time. Then on Thursday, not there anymore. I sat for kaddish, and for the first time in almost a year, had the sensation of listening as others recited the old Aramaic formulations.

Thursday evening, I left work 'bout a quarter to 6. Got to the car, flipped on the XM, and it was on the '70's station. It's one of my presets; I figure it's the era I know best, and also makes it easiest to switch to the '60's and '80's with the least amount of effort. A song was just finishing up, and... the horn flourish!! Now, I don't believe in divine intervention, and if I did, I'd expect that it'd show up in other forms. But at that moment, it sure seemed that it was more than just the XM satellite that was out of this world. So I did the only thing I could: I applauded the transmission from above. Then I realized that, after all these years, despite having bought that old Bell Records single when it was new, that I didn't actually know the words.

So I listened. ok, ok, I always knew the kyrics were a little ridiculous (hey Tony, if you like the girl, why don't you just go downstairs and knock on her door? Why the heck you asking her to knock on the ceiling or the pipes? You expect her to bang the pipes -- twice! -- just to say no? Gimme a break!). But Thursday evening, I just couldn't help laughing at the 2nd verse:

If you look out your window tonight
Pull in the string with the note that's attached to my heart
Read how many times I saw you
How in my silence I adored you
And only in my dreams did that wall between us come apart

Dangling a note out the window?? I see a restraining order in that man's future!

ok, so all's forgiven. And that Tony, maybe he's liable to end up on the ceiling. Knock three times if you want him there.
Me, I still like the song. Call it a guilty pleasure.

Labels: Dawn, kaddish, Knock Three Times, Leo Orel, mourning, Tony Orlando

posted by Matt Orel @ 10:57 PM 0 comments links to this post

Bruce Springsteen and a little Magic

I’m sitting here, trying to come to terms. So far as grieving goes, I’m somewhere between denial, anger and acceptance right now. Part of me wants to yell at my dad, “how could you have done this?” but then I remind myself that he’s the one who’s gone. People coming and going from the same house where I grew up. So many of the appliances and furnishings and even wall hangings have remained unchanged from the 1960’s. Everything’s the same. Some of the kids I went to elementary school with, I’ve seen their parents these last 3 days. Or the kids, some of them still live in town, some of them came back. There are too many desserts. Way too many. More keep coming in, and we can’t keep up, and there’s one less person eating them, anyway. Cousins I haven’t seen in 20 years, super 8 movies to thread for the first time ever (dad always did that), we can all see ourselves from happier times in 1968.


As I write, washing over me are the sounds of “Long Walk Home,” a track from the soon-to-be-released album Magic, by Bruce Springsteen. Hey pretty darling, don’t wait for me, it’s gonna be a long walk home. It’s a throwback album, something like what he might have made after the Gary US Bonds albums of the early ‘80’s, almost. The album isn’t due out until October, but it leaked this afternoon, and it’s been some time since I’ve needed a tonic quite like this. When they built you brother, they broke the mold.

Love is a power greater than death. Well, not quite.

My father was a great fan of swing music in general, and of Benny Goodman in particular. That was his music. He didn’t show off his knowledge very often, but if you put on any old jazz record for him, within a couple bars he’d tell you the song, the band, the players, and if it was a song with multiple versions, he’d tell you which one. In 1986, my sister graduated from college in California, and the family all came out for it. Benny Goodman died that weekend. My dad was 65, and for the first time I saw him look like an old man, as if his youth had just been robbed.

“Magic” isn’t an unqualified success for me yet, though I like it enough. “Radio Nowhere,” with its strident beat and a tune vaguely reminiscent of the Tommy Tutone hit “8675309,” gets the album off to a good start, but “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” just never seems to get off the ground, with riffs that seemed pulled from the back catalogue and a sax part that I can only describe as perfunctory. “Livin’ in the Future” is maybe my favorite track so far: Livin’ in the future and none of this has happened yet. But of course it has, the nightmare is here. But we can still dance and groove. The song is light, almost a cross between old J. Geils and Bruce’s own composition “Out of Work.”

Unfortunately, too many of the tracks that follow seem to drag. This is particularly true of “Your Own Worst Enemy,” and the Beach Boys style song “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” which had my brother commenting that “for this song half the crowd will be snoring and the other half will be sending their husbands out for beer,” and while that may add up to one half too many, it’s not yet easy for me to envision that one working live. The low point for me so far is “I’ll Work for Your Love,” in which the Catholic imagery is overdone to cringe point.

A few years ago, my dad told a story of traveling from his Army post at Fort Ord down to Los Angeles to see Benny Goodman play. He’d never told me he’d traveled for his favorite artist, but now I started to understand a kinship. I asked him, about how many times did he see Benny Goodman. “About 19.” Not 18 or 20? “Nineteen.” There was nothing more to say. I just smiled.

“Gypsy Biker” starts off with a harmonica wail that sounds like the studio version of “Empty Sky,” always a highlight. “Magic” is one of the few tracks that depart from the classic E Street sound, and it’s among those that work best: Leave everything you know and carry only what you fear. It reminded me a bit of “Nothing Man” and “Further On (Up the Road).” The other more topical songs – “Last to Die” and “Devil’s Arcade,” also worked well for me.

I don’t know that I’m ready to see this tour. I won’t try for tickets when they go on sale this weekend. Maybe later, maybe when I’m more ready.

I watched a video today, my own wedding. At the end of the chair dance, when we put him down, the video shows him coming over to me and hugging me. Maybe the only time, ever, at least like that. I had forgotten that little detail. And part of me wants to yell at him again, but I can’t, not quite. So I’ll sit here a little more, listen again, and try to come to terms.

Labels: Bruce Springsteen, Leo Orel

posted by Matt Orel @ 11:55 PM 0 comments links to this post