Jersey It Is

My father is moving to New Jersey. I'm not going to make any wisecracks about that state here. I'm going to say that the conversation I just had with him leaves me sad. He is a lifelong New Yorker--born in Brooklyn, raised there and Queens, lived in Manhattan, Long Island, Manhatttan again--and that's it. He's a talker. To strangers. So leaving New York is like leaving his own voice behind, even though he says he needs to get away from "the noise, the filth..."

But he told me today he is having mixed feelings and will miss being about to "walk outside and talk to anyone."

There is, to me, little sadder than the sadness of your own parents. Then again, I don't have children yet.