last week... or maybe the week before... i received an odd thing in the mail from my sister mary therese. i opened it and said to ed, who just happened to be there, hey here's a postcard from my long gone grandfather, felix rossi deceased 1974 (?.. me and dates) and there it was

a very nice shot of the parthenon, foregrounded by... what... the erechtheion?

and on the other side

mary therese included a note to say that it was found in a book (The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling) by a friend who recognized the family names. this friend had picked up the book a while back at a sale at old St. Mary's Carmelite in Joliet (must have been quite a while back, since St. Mary's closed its doors almost twelve years ago, june '91).

i remember receiving the card... i remember being not so impressed (i was 16 going on 17... hard to impress under the best of conditions)... but probably because the note seemed so pro forma. now, of course, i understand. pop was on a tight schedule, doing his best to touch base with his gazillions of grandchildren. heck, he didn't even have time to mail it from Hellas. the stamps and postmark indicate Venizia - no doubt the next stop on his cruise.

i'm amused by the backwards c/o, since the inscription marks the card for me.... and kind of intrigued by the formal signature... in person, he was just "pop," never "grandfather." but i suppose a postcard from a distant land calls for a more rigorous etiquette. he tells me all is well... and i'm sure i was glad of that, but i probably had no idea of the serious risks one assumed on a luxury cruise around the mediterranean... it was a decidedly friendlier world in 1967... at least from my limited p.o.v. and he sends regards to all... i'm certain that i did not convey them properly.

i remember the book in which it was found, the kipling collection. i had read some of the stories... doubtless used the card to mark my place... and probably never returned. rudyard and i never connected on a profound level.

and now my sister beth has visited and tells me that mom is very interested in this postcard and wonders why i haven't written about it yet... i don't know why... but now i have.

and mom says:

Tom -- I thought it most interesting the way it cropped up and Pop always signed everything that way. I'm sure he intended you to keep it for a lifetime --and you left it in a book! But now it is back and I'm glad you wrote about it! He did die in 1974, August 1 to be precise. He did enjoy his trips and I'm so happy that he was able to do all he did. In 1967 when he was on that cruise he would have been 86 years old---three years older than I am right now. I don't think I would be up to that kind of travel--he was an amazing fellow! And no, you don't take after him when it comes to love of travel!

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.

Walter Benjamin

 

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