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Songs in the Key of September

INTRO: Winter 1958

When I was growing up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania my parents would take me and my two sisters to synagogue services on Friday night, not every Friday, but a lot of Fridays. On a cold winter night, a day after a major snowstorm my father took my two sisters to services at our synagogue and because my mom was a bit delayed in getting ready, she and I left about fifteen minutes or so later. I was only eight years old, all dressed up in my little sports coat and tie with my winter coat and gloves. As my mom and I were walking to the synagogue she slipped and fell on the ice. Fortunately, there were other people who also were late in coming to services and they saw my mom on the ground and offered to help. She was in terrible pain, and it turned out she broke her right wrist badly in several different places. While someone ran into the synagogue to get my father who immediately came and took my mom to the hospital others took me into the synagogue where I found my sisters and sat down next to them. I remember crying for quite some time. It was the first time I remembered watching a loved one in pain, watching and feeling totally helpless knowing that I could not do anything to end their pain or make them better. It was a feeling that would come back later to haunt me, almost fifty years later.