Hill Street Blues
Backwards and Forwards
February 15, 2024
Hill Street Blues
Earlier this year, I watched a few reruns of Hill Street Blues on my streaming service. What a pleasure to have a reunion with my old friends; Captain Frank Furillo, Counsellor Joyce Davenport, Sarge, Belker, Renko and Bobby and the entire cast of characters that Judi and I welcomed into our Jackson Heights, Queens apartment at ten o’clock every Thursday night! I was transported back forty-five years ago to a reunion with the gritty streets of Chicago, the for-the-times risqué bedroom entanglements, and pay phones on every corner requiring a pocket full of quarters to get through the day. Come Thursday night at ten, my schoolwork would have to be done. Hill Street Blues was on our old black and white TV with the rabbit ears antenna, and I was watching.
And for an hour watching Hill Street Blues forty-five years later, I was young again.
Forty-five years after Sarge ended his morning role call with the message, “Let’s be careful out there,” I was up early one January morning to catch an uber, fly to Florida, rent a car, and drive an hour to attend a conference of retired rabbis at a Marriott hotel. Florida was nice, but I could have been in any Marriott hotel conference area. In Saskatchewan, Santiago or Saint Louis, the conference rooms are all the same. I venture to say that we could be blindfolded, put in a Marriott and still find the bathrooms.
Why did I choose to re-engage with colleagues? Well, it was much like watching Hill Street Blues, nice to visit with old friends and play rabbi again, even if I am happily out of the arena. I am now comfortably retired and accustomed to my new life. I enjoy my family, take care of myself, travel again now that we can, write a little bit—life is good. I have jumped over most of life’s hurdles and the way ahead feels unburdened. (I am also experienced enough to know that smooth sailing lasts only until the next storm appears.) The world is falling apart around me, but my life is good. I have to remember that too.
Why did I choose to re-enter the rabbinic world?
A few reasons. I wanted to see friends and classmates. Nobody knows us like the people we were fifty years ago. I am astonished how physically aged everyone appears but encouraged also that the intellect and spirit of the retirees in attendance remain undiminished. And I wanted to do some learning to keep my marbles pointed and sharp.
In the fall, I will experience another milestone birthday. More of these special birthdays are now in my rear-view mirror. Maybe two or three lay ahead. Realizing this, I am in a rush to live as fully as I can. As the years flash by, I don’t want to miss anything. I feel that my life has become a little more frenetic and urgent.
Fifty years ago in college, I learned about Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial human development, compartmentalized into eight distinct stages. The last stage starts at 65. Fifty years ago, that was impossible to fathom. Now I realize that my end will be like everyone elses. Someone will share a few words over my coffin and before people gather to have a bagel and whitefish and move on with their lives. In the big picture, that is life’s last moment for all of us.
Erikson called this last stage, “Integrity vs. Despair.” I recognize the stage, but I feel the name doesn’t quite match my human understanding. I cannot speak for every boomer, but in my stage of life—I am not so worried about my integrity. I did what I did and made the mistakes I made. I own them. I had my accomplishments too, and they are satisfying. (An observation: the mistakes we make are usually done solo, but the accomplishments require other people to get them done.)
I don’t despair about death. I have the philosophy that death is not gloomy. If I made it this far, I have done pretty well. Why should I despair over the fact that I will be like every living thing and experience life with both its beginning and its end? I accept the two and hope that when my time comes, I will welcome this last moment of living.
So what should we call this last stage of life?
Looking at the way I am organizing my days, I would embrace the popular shorthand, FOMO, fear of missing out. I have so much that I still want to do and so much that I enjoy that I don’t want to miss any of it. I suppose that it is not so much fear of missing out, but more fear of leaving too much life on the table. I am finding that living at my age has a pleasant urgency. Being retired, I have time, lots of it. And being where I am in this stage of life, I do not have enough time to do everything I want to do.
Opening our retired rabbis’ meeting was a discussion about how we are to make sense of our lives now that we have graduated from professional responsibility and identity. Personally, I sat in the back of the conference room and read my phone. I made that journey and crossed that bridge a while back. I have no issues with these issues. Once I ford that river, I see no need to look back.
But I perked up at the end of the discussion. The MC of the evening then declared that all of us rabbis-of-yore are most anxious about, drum roll please, FOBF.
I paused, not aware of this phrase.
He went on to say that all of us rabbis together with all human beings have FOBF, a primal fear of being forgotten. I scratched my head and examined my heart. I, for one, do not have FOBF, not in the least. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite. I expect to be forgotten. I expect that memories of me—all of my work, my passions, and my loves will ultimately fade away.
I pray instead that the things which motivated my life—my commitments to God, the Jewish endeavor, the people I love will all pass on to future generations who will not know me as the person I was or remember much about me, if anything sticks at all. I actually want my life to be subsumed into eternity. Time is measured in more than years and lifetimes. The generations will pass, and people will forget me. Others will take my place. I am ok with that. This even makes me happy. And I live every day with a contented hope that what I love will carry on well into the future, even when I am not here. I did my job.
Here is my formula for life for now. Let me do simple math. (You think I remember algebra from fifty-five years ago?)
FOMO>FOBF. Fear of Missing Out is much more compelling than the Fear of Being Forgotten.
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This should appear in your mailbox on February 15, 2024. February is an important month in my family. Four generations came into being in February. Happy birthday to my dear sister, Rebecca whom I have eventually forgiven for barging into my life sixty-six years ago on February 11. We make each other smile. Happy birthday to my daughter, Alana and her son, Judah, both born on this day, February 15. I cannot imagine my life without their joyous exuberant love. And my dear mother-in-law, Renee will turn 95 in a few days. She still writes checks and balances her checkbook and reminds me to drive carefully. I wish her long life such that she can continue to prompt me to drive carefully until my children take my keys away.
My grandmother Rose, now long gone but still in my heart would tuck me in at night and say with love, “Jonny, happy dreams and happy birthdays.” To my February crew I repeat her prayerful charge, “Happy dreams and happy birthdays.” I pray that you and all who read this newsletter enjoy these blessings in abundance. And I suggest that everyone concludes their nightly prayers with a prayer for baskets full of happy dreams and calendars filled with happy birthdays.