HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR BROTHER JEFF MAGID!

[Jeff Skolnik]

This is late by 3 days.....no excuses...

PLEASE PASS A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR BROTHER JEFF MAGID.....HE HAS
OFFICIALLY JOINED THE 52 CLUB....


Here's a Magid story to prompt y'all.....


Stories from youth.....Part ?


The goal of the game was to stay up all night, playing an imaginary
game of SECRET AGENT. We were on one hand bored, but on another we
were completely amused as we played our game. It was one of the
countless sleepovers, this time at my house.


My sister Leslie had interupted us a hundred times barging into my
room to grab the phone, but now it was late...1:00am.


Monty Stratton (my secret agent alter ego) was in his hidden office
(my closet) and determined to play out the game by waiting in my
office for our next job. My back was killing me and my legs were
cramped but...it was the game, you know?


By 1:30AM Jeff I can't remember his secret agent name) was falling
asleep on one of the two beds in my room and after not hearing any
responses from him from our made up game, I gave up and climbed out
the closet and went to crash on the other bed.


Secret Agent was only one of the many imaginary games we made up to
keep ourselves amused as children during those years in Jeffery
Manor.


It was before middle school and before the riots and the civil rights
movements that changed our neighborhood...it was before the white
flight...it was before the break-up of our youth.


Many years later, telling my own children bedtime stories, I replayed
this game to my children who always laughed at the funny tales of our
youth. My kids can tell these stories as though they were their own,
as many times as I have recanted them to them...as though to keep
them
alive...to keep them within my soul...alive and existing. I know (as
my kids can tell) this is an obsession with the tales of our youth
that somehow keep me sane and whole and complete.


It's 1:30AM in Sanger, Texas. I cam across a photo of Jeff climbing
out the barracks into the closet at our Hebrew camp when we were 13
years old.


Monty Stratton is going to bed...


Happy birhtday, my brother Jeff.

[Jeff Zolitor]

Happy B-day, JM. I tip my hat to those who are still able to remember dates
like this - even if it is 3 days late.

On one of the many trips we took to the 'dunes' with Kerry and his dad, we
had fallen into singing along to some popular song on the radio. It always
seemed like Kerry's dad liked the music we listened to. Anyway, we were all
singing and Magid says, "Zol, you're singing off key." To this day I still
sing off key just to piss off the Jeff Magid of my youth. Far from pissing
him off, my attempt at incitement is met only with a broad grin, similar to
the one that present day Jeff Magid shows so well.

Love you all.

JZ

[Magid]

Thanx da bode of use Jeff's fer thinkin' of me. Skolbs, I too remember
playing Secret Agent at your house many times. However I had to laugh
thinking about Leslie's interruptions, coming into your room to use
the phone. To you it was a sibling annoyance. To me it was a hot
teenage goddess walking in the room in her underwear. Her offhand
acknowledgment to me (usually a very cool "Oh hi Magid") sent my heart
a racin'! She made me wish that I was older than nine! She was the
first of my friends older sisters that I was crazy about. Laura
Krepack was later. Then I think it was Phil Gross...but that's another
story.
Zol, I don't think i told you that you were singing off key. I think I
just said you were a little off key. It had nothing to do with your
singing :)

Thanks again!

JM