A Sigh, A Starry Night, and a Frog

My wife and I are fortunate in our friends, and the couple we visited last weekend are among our most treasured. They are both retired university professors, both stars in their fields. I first met him in the sixties, when we attended one or two academic conferences together, and when my family and I went to Israel, for what we thought would be a two-year assignment, he met us at the airport and drove us up to Jerusalem. He was spending the last of his time there on a Guggenheim fellowship and before leaving for the States, he and his wife took us all over the country on a kind of farewell tour for them and an introduction to Israel for us. It was during that summer that we became friends.

For the past ten years or so, they’ve organized family reunions for their children and grandchildren, each year in a different locale. Among these have been Tuscany, the English Lake District, and the Hamptons. All of these places had swimming pools, a sine qua non for their five grandchildren. This year’s reunion represented an exception, because the venue offered no pool. However, it fronted on a large pond, with its own dock, a floating platform, and two kayaks. The kids, now 8 to 18, fished, swam, and went kayaking, when they weren’t playing board games, reading, or hiking on excursions organized by the adults.

The place our friends rented is in Franklin County, the northeast corner of New York State, which features hundreds of lakes and ponds and numerous rivers along with the mountain scenery. The main house and its two cabins are able to sleep 18 people, although our friends needed only 14 places. In the end, their pregnant daughter-in-law was confined to bed rest, so she, her husband, and their two children were unable to come, reducing the size of the gathering to ten. Our friends invited us to spend a few days with them, so while we were there we were twelve in all.

It’s always a treat to spend time with this family. I could give you numerous reasons for this pleasure – their stimulating conversation, their good humor, their energy, our shared histories, etc. – but this would only be searching for reasons, some of which may have nothing to do with the fact that we like them so very much.

We shmoozed a great deal, partly on the dock, partly at meals, partly in passing, and when we weren’t talking, we read, played board games, took short walks, and looked out the large picture windows at the lawn sloping down to the pond. The trees up there are mainly evergreens, but there are enough deciduous trees for us to notice that their leaves were turning color and falling, telling us- as if the cold nights were not sufficient evidence – that the summer was drawing to a close.

Our hosts are religiously observant, which meant that all cooking had to be completed before the onset of the Sabbath as well as arrangements for keeping the hot foods hot or at least warm. Lights in bathrooms and other strategic places in the house were turned on and would remain lit until the conclusion of the Sabbath the next evening. Laptops and i-phones were put away. Work comes to a stop on Shabbat. When it was time to light the Sabbath candles, our hostess gave a mingled sigh of relief (she had, after all, organized, before the onset of the Sabbath, 36 meals - the next three meals for twelve people) and pleasure at the 25 hours of rest awaiting her.

After dinner, we went out onto the lawn that slopes down to the water and gazed up at the stars, brilliant and innumerable, a vivid contrast to night skies in the city.

The next morning, as my host and I walked up to the house after sunning ourselves and shmoozing on the dock, he pointed out a small frog. Perfectly immobile, it could have been a broach from Cartier’s, striped horizontally in gold and green. We stared at it for several minutes, which seemed not to disturb the creature, which was probably waiting for an insect to fly near enough to be zapped by his tongue. None came, however, and he hopped away.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and left, most reluctantly, on Monday afternoon. Our visit was too short but we were grateful for it all the same.

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