eddvick

We are back from a week in Texas, guests of my brother and his family. Ron, his wife Lana, their daughter Emily, and Emily's son Adan live in Bedford, one of the 'mid-cities' between Dallas and Ft Worth. They were excellent hosts; and it was particularly great seeing my great-nephew, now two years old and quite possibly the loudest screecher on the face of the planet. Unusually, all four of Ron's children were there (I can't say "Ron and Lana's" because some of them are from Ron's first marriage), so we had a big cookout with Patrick, Preston, Lisa, and - of course - Emily.

Ron and Lana have a pool, where Katie spent as much time as possible. From being a passable-if-tentative swimmer she went to jumping off the diving board and racing across the pool. This happifies me.

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On Thursday, Katie and I went to Montreal for my nephew Matthew's Bar Mitzvah. Amy couldn't make it because she'd been out of town the previous weekend and will be leaving day after tomorrow for Wiscon. Randy, my eldest brother, converted when he married Shellie Weintraub. They have a large family, most of whom made it for the ceremony and the reception and the next-day-brunch.

Here's a picture of Randy, Ron, and me. We haven't been all together for eight years, so there was a lot of catching up to do.



Here's "Bar Mitzvah Boy", or "BB" as Katie dubbed him, holding the Torah.



And here are Katie and I decompressing from the trip there.



(note: I've color-corrected all three photos. These were from Ron's camera - he still uses film, and the developer hit the wrong button and everything came out blue-shifted!)

The height of the trip was the ceremony itself, on Saturday morning. The synagogue is Orthodox, who are the most conservative sect of Judaism. Shellie had talked the Rabbi into allowing Ron and me, non-Jews, to open the Ark of the Covenant. None of her relatives had thought she'd be able to pull this off! It's an enormous honor, almost exclusively reserved for those of the faith. I can't show you a picture of Ron and me in our prayer shawls and kippas, as photography is not allowed on the Shabbat.

The ceremony was part of the service, which ran 2 1/2 hours and was primarily conducted in Hebrew. Women were separated from the men, and Katie was a real trouper sitting with Ron's wife Lana behind us. One difference from my memories of Baptist church was how free the younger kids were to run around the sanctuary. 2- and 3-year-olds, up to a couple of girls who looked about Katie's age, wandered about and played everywhere. It was sweet.

There was a reception where about fifty people ate, talked, and danced. Matthew had fifteen candles on his cake (he was of course turning 13, the age of manhood), and he asked various groups of relatives up to light one candle each. Ron, Lana, Katie, and I got to light the 6th (I think) one. It was a cool idea.

We got back last night after dark. We didn't get to do much shopping, but I did bring back some Canadian Smarties, and Katie got some jasmine tea and brought Amy some Junior Mints.

I lived in London for six months back in the mid-60s. It was an exciting time to live there, but I was only seven years old so most of it passed me by. Why was I there? Because my dad was a pirate.

He managed a pair of pirate radio stations, that is. Radio England and Britain Radio. They, along with about a dozen other stations, were known as 'pirates' because they were not authorized by the BBC to broadcast. Because the BBC did not accept advertising, the pirates did and made a mint--for a while. The pirate stations were on offshore ships (one was on a WWII-era fort on piers in the Thames estuary), ostensibly outside government control. Unfortunately, some of the pirates acted like... pirates. There was pirating of radio frequencies, pirating of jingles, and pirating of news. Worse, there were actual armed invasions of stations, and a murder. Parliament, under pressure, acted to make it illegal for businesses in England to advertise on the pirates. That was the beginning of the end.

During Parliament's deliberations, a band called The Roaring 60s put out a song called "We Love the Pirates" that got airplay on all the stations. I have the 45, but no turntable to play it on. I hadn't heard it for at least ten years until recently. If you want to hear it too, click here. It'll be the 3rd song. (this is a segment from The Mad Music Show podcast, so there are other songs around 'Pirates', some of them mildly NSFW).