“We don’t remember days,
we remember moments.” 
Cesare Pavese

Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet and novelist. While I may disagree with the first part of his statement above — there are certainly many days I do remember — I agree that it is the moments which often provide the most vivid and enduring memories of our lives.

I took some time to jot down one experience, one moment, which I recall from my first twenty-five years of life. I was born in June 1954, but other than backyard picnics with my mother, learning to tie my shoes while watching Captain Kangaroo in the living room of our family home, and going to the horse races at Bay Meadows with my Uncle Bill Carroll, I don’t really recall much prior to 1960.

I do, however, vividly remember…

1960: …falling off the monkey bars at South Sunset Playground and breaking my right wrist.

1961: …throwing up on the sidewalk outside Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco on May 5, 1961, the same day Alan Shepherd became the first American to fly into space.

1962: …being told that Marian McCarthy, one of my Saint Gabriel School classmates who was also my square dancing partner during physical education class, had died.

1963: …sitting on the grass outside South Sunset Playground with yard supervisors Grove Mohr and Don Ybaretta, as well as several of my classmates, listening to news reports of the assassination of President Kennedy on Mr. Mohr’s transistor radio during our lunch break.

1964: …standing at the casket of my classmate and best friend, Mike Celeski, with Sister Mary Roberta, my third-grade teacher, at Carew & English Mortuary at Turk & Masonic.

1965: …watching Bob Portman hit the game-winning basket at Kezar Pavilion to give Saint Ignatius High School the victory over Sacred Heart High School to win the Bruce-Mahoney Trophy.

1966: …learning a lesson about shopping and deferred-gratification after purchasing an over-priced bag of plastic golf balls at a sporting goods store in Monterey, California.

1967: …when a camper at Silver Tree Day Camp, where I was a volunteer junior counselor, fell down the hill from Red Rock and sustained multiple compound fractures.

1968: …seeing Senator Bobby Kennedy in person and hearing him speak at Lakeshore Plaza on Sloat Boulevard in San Francisco thirty hours before he was shot and killed in Los Angeles.

1969: …working my first shift as a PBX switchboard operator at Welch Hall on the campus of the University of San Francisco and being pleasantly distracted by a USF women’s powderpuff football game which was being played outside the office window on the front lawn between St. Ignatius Church and Campion Hall.

1970: …meeting Mari Jo Whelan, my first high school girl friend, at the home of Tim (my mother’s cousin) and Joan (Mari Jo’s aunt) Healy. We had met two years earlier at Tim & Joan’s wedding.

1971: …meeting a small group of high school students from Milwaukee, Wisconsin while staying in Mandeville, Jamaica.

1972: …moving into my room in the dormitory at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San José where I lived and worked during my college years.

1973: …attending my first concert — Sha Na Na at Winterland in San Francisco.

1974: …having an early-morning breakfast and conversation in the dining hall at Bellarmine College Prep with legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

1975: …saying goodbye to the children at Ranfurly Home, an orphanage in Nassau, Bahamas, the night before returning to the U.S. after a year teaching at Saint Augustine’s College.

1976: …sitting at a picnic table in the backyard of my family home on 38th Avenue on a warm summer day working on lesson plans for my new job teaching at Bellarmine College Prep.

1977: …sitting in the office of the Santa Clara Mission Cemetery, where I had a part-time job as a night security guard, writing a perfect Shakespearean sonnet the night before it was due in my Renaissance Literature class at Santa Clara University.

1978: …walking into a very chaotic San Francisco City Hall at around 3:00 p.m. on the day Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed. I was there to submit a waiver for the job of firefighter with the San Francisco Fire Department.

1979: …working in the 7-B classroom on a late-summer day, preparing for my first year teaching at Saint Christopher School in San José, when I noticed the inquisitive faces of Molly Giannini and Carolyn Giovanola, two incoming seventh graders, peering in through the open door to check out the new teacher. I put them to work immediately putting up bulletin boards!

Of course, there have been many more memorable moments in my life since 1979. Perhaps I’ll share some of those in a later blog post.

Meaningful memories. Unforgettable moments. While some were happy times, others were regrettable. I am grateful for the ability to remember all of these moments in vivid detail.

What “moments” do you recall from your past?