A Mitzvah and a Swim Meet

The Bronx House was THE place for us kids to hang out. It was just a few blocks from our apartment building, a leisurely five-minute walk. Our neighborhood also boasted a Young Israel which was a little farther away, a mere 10-minute leisurely walk.

The Y.I., which is how we referred to the Young Israel Community Center, had limited options. It did offer us another cool place for Jewish teens to hang out. Y.I. sponsored dances for teens, classes of Jewish topics of interest, with a heavy emphasis on Israel and Mitzvah clubs. Y.I. distributed the famous Blue Boxes fundraiser. The money raised with these boxes was sent to Israel to purchase and plant trees.

The Bronx House, however, offered all genres of music lessons. It had basketball courts, and all manner of clubs we could join. It also offered opportunities for community service options. The roller-skating rink was especially fun for us. As teens, the roller-skating rink was a place to be free, skate, and all the while, check out the cute boys while giggling like the silly girls we were.

In the school yard of our junior high school, located just feet away from our apartment building, were basketball courts. This was the preferred spot for some of us. These courts were where we would hone our basketball creds and practice the best ways to secure the interest of the cute boys.

Our high school had a great gym; however, it did not have a pool. There were a few high schools that had pools and perhaps swim teams, but we were unaware of them. Our high school was big on basketball, and cheerleaders. I wonder if I have ever mentioned the fact that I was captain. So much for self-bluster.

Gene was a major swimmer. His high school had a track team and swim team. When my four girls were growing up in Tampa, they were on the swim team.

When we moved to Atlanta, they swam for Swim Atlanta. I never could understand how they managed not to have eye damage from all the chlorine. Move ahead a generation, and my granddaughter swims on the Centennial High School team. She’s inherited her Zaidie’s (grandpa) genes. I must admit she is quite good. (Just thought I would mention this for a little bit more self-bluster–as if I had anything to do with her skills!)

The swim meets are often too far or too late in the evening for me to attend and cheer the team on to victory. A few weeks ago, her meet was fairly close. By that I mean 30 minutes as the crow flies.

Upon arriving at the meet, which was being held in a rather large private school, I encountered one of the largest campuses I’ve seen since my days at LSU. I parked, and wandered the campus in the freezing cold for at least 15 minutes. I finally came upon the tennis building. I asked a couple of kids where the aquatics building was located, and just my luck, they were there for a tennis meet and were not students at the school. Oy!

Fortunately for me, one of the moms overheard my dilemma and offered to show me the direction I should take. She asked where I parked. I explained that, at this point, I had absolutely no idea!

And now we come to the crux of this shpiel.

She got her keys, suggested I get in her car, which was totally loaded with every luxury gadget ever imagined for a car, and this mom drove me around to the myriad of parking lots until I spotted my car. When we finally located the spot where I parked, she had me follow her to the aquatics center.

Why share this, you ask? What’s the big deal? Stop a moment and think! Our world, our country, has forgotten the value of kindness. The value of community; the value of respect for one another; the value of hello, or a smile in recognition of each other.

This mom of one of the tennis players who was competing in a statewide tennis meet is, in my humble opinion, a woman who has not forgotten the value of a mitzvah, the value of kindness.

She has not forgotten her humanity.