By the time you will be reading this, I will be in Cincinnati (OH).  I haven’t been there is a long time- and this trip is overdue.

I am going to celebrate my mom’s fake brother’s birthday.  What, you say?  Well, this is how my mom explained it.  My grandmother (Bessie) and my great-aunt (Rae) were really close.  And, they shared a duplex forever (even after marriage).  And, my Aunt Rae gave birth to a boy almost the same time my grandmother gave birth to my mom.  So, Estelle (my mom) and Eddie were very close all their lives.

I remember visiting Eddie and his lovely (and gorgeous) wife Esther (and, eventually, their children) often. We traveled to New Jersey to see them.  What you don’t realize is that these trips predated the construction of the Verrazano Bridge that connected Brooklyn to Staten Island. (This is also why Staten Island had greater affinity to New Jersey- it’s three  bridges only went to New Jersey.)  So, we had to go from the Jones Beach area to Manhattan to the Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey.  A  l-o-n-g  trip if you are still a child.

That continued for years, until Eddie got a great promotion at GE and moved to Cincinnati.  So, we only saw him on solemn events (the death of his mom, my grandmother, my grandfather) and wedding and bat mitzvot.

But, as I grew my companies, I decided to include the Christ Hospital (Cincinnati) among the facilities where clinical trials were to be run.  Now, there were bona fide reasons to choosing this institution, but the ability to visit with my Cousin Eddie and Esther were fantastic bonuses.

And, on Friday the 13th (see, we Jews don’t worry about such things- besides the date is really the 15th of Sivan), I will be spending the weekend with Eddie, Esther, their kids, relatives and friends. To celebrate Eddie’s 90th birthday.  (It would have been my mom’s chance to celebrate, too- but she is long dead.)

To top off the fun, I will be departing Cincinnati in the wee hours of Saturday night to reach Philly.  Where I will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of me being a Phanatic with my son.  It was 50 years ago on Phather’s Day that Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game.  A game to which I took my dad and brother.  And, when my phate as a Phanatic was sealed.

Memories…

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