Thomas Wolfe wrote, “You Can’t Go Home Again,” meaning “past times are fondly remembered, irrevocably in the past, and cannot be relived.” But Thomas Wolfe was never one of the brothers of the Harry C. Resnick Memorial Chapter Number 832 of the Aleph Zadik Aleph in Louisville, Kentucky. We went home again on September 12.

We were born from 1940 to 1943, and we’re not teenagers any longer. The pimples are gone, we don’t go out on dates, school has been out for over 60 years, and our bodies tell stories of lives well lived. But when we came together in our friendship circle, we were kids again, sharing stories of adventure, fulfillment, and aspirations for our futures. We remembered our brothers who have passed away by placing a photo of each departed brother on a separate chair in our circle of friendship.

We came from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and we came home to the Louisville, Kentucky JCC. We have known each other since before our Bar Mitzvahs. Some of us went to the same elementary schools, Hebrew schools, and some of us even dated the same girls. I married one of those girls 53 years ago.

Old men laugh differently. They laugh a full-throated laugh that fills the room with happiness. The aches and pains, the surgeries past and future, and the loss of family and friends hurt less in a room full of laughter. No one has been spared the ravages of time from the forces of aging, yet none of us expects he will be unable to come back home to Louisville for our next reunion in two years.

‍Kadima (Onward).

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