Thursday morning: situation remains the same. I still have the option of calling up the Radiation Department at Mount Sinai and asking for an earlier time. Probably will do that either tomorrow afternoon, or Monday. Strange, how for the past two weeks, the momentum in discovering what was wrong and creating the strategy for fixing it, was strong---now---a void. Yesterday had tough stomach cramps almost the whole day, but not sure who to call---the surgeons who are guiding my treatment or the Ryan Health Center where my "primary care physician" is in practice. But since my "primary care" person is a stream of residents who move in and out of the Center, every six weeks, I wouldn't even know how to identify this person if I needed them. So I toughed it out. Today the stomach is more relaxed, but I just ate a slew of pretzels (I know I should not have done this) left over from the hummus that I bought at the drugstore a few days ago. Will this cause another "catastrophe"? We will see.
Where do we go from here---for some reason, on my way back from the drug store, I had strong memories of my second Saturday at Hopkins---1960. It was Yom Kippur (day) and Jeff, another freshman and myself took a bus to Park Heights Avenue---the central avenue of the then Jewish community in Baltimore. It was about 4 P.M.; we wanted to find a synagogue that would let us in to the last service of the day. It was a beautiful late summer day, and when we hit the avenue, it seemed lined with families who were taking breaks from the services. And what beautiful families they seemed to be--the men and boys all in suits, the wives, and especially the teen age girls, dressed in a modest way, but a way that showed off their beauty. There was nothing about this scene that reminded my of life in the Bronx or Manhattan. I was walking in a totally different world, a world that seemed calmer and warmer. Looking at some of the young women, who must have been in high school, admiring and longing for their beauty, my seventeen year old self must have had one of my "green light at the end of the dock" moments. Forgetting about my studies at Hopkins, I wanted to be part of that "paradise". But of course, I made no attempt to meet those people. My friend and I simply walked from synagogue to synagogue until we found one that had seats; we then participated in the final service, then returned to our home, the Hopkins Campus.
Three years later, Yom Kippur afternoon was also on a Saturday. This time, I returned to Park Heights Avenue by myself and simply wandered through the streets, once again filled with Jewish families from the area, But by this time, I had actually dated a few women from the area---from Freshman to Senior in college life years is a long time. I remember being more detached---I simply wanted to look at the scene and remember my feelings from three years earlier with some detachment.
But what I could not have envisioned on that Saturday afternoon, was that these families would be very close to the last families that would be celebrating the Jewish New Year in that area. By 1970, the majority of people living in the Park Heights area would be black---stores would close, crime would go up. The situation there still exists today---it is a part of Baltimore in terrible need of services, of greater input then the government is giving it, a neighborhood that could use participation by all to make it stronger.
What makes cities change, neighborhoods change...? Eternal questions that need to be answered.
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