Return

A friend of our son---a classmate and musical accomplice---moved back home to Israel with his family three weeks ago. They had lived in Houston since the boy was in the 7th grade, while the father completed an assignment at The Medical Center. The parents apparently tried to find some way that their son could remain in Houston and finish his last year of high school, but either couldn’t swing it or decided not to.

In one of our periodic efforts to relate to our spawn, a few months ago we asked what his buddy would be doing in Israel and were told he probably would be “hanging out, y’know, playin’ his bass” until he had to join the army (one of the endless variants our kid employs to say, Don’t bug me, daddy-o, with your 1001 tiresome questions).

Our son missed his friend’s going-away because of the trip he takes every summer to visit relatives in New Jersey. On the airplane ride home last week we noticed he was spending even more time than usual with the newspaper, and out of the blue he remarked that he was pretty sure his friend lived in or near Haifa.

When he got home he learned that his friend had been in touch with another friend and related that his family was trying to get back to Houston, as soon as possible.