Gimme Shelter: Farewell, 2024

One of America’s favorite flowers is the forget-me-not, with the tiny, delicate blossoms all showing their faces in a bunch, like happy school kids beaming together over some classroom accomplishment.

The Latin for the flower is myosotis, which means “mouse’s ear.” Perfect for the virtue of not forgetting, because no matter how small the ear, it hears the voices of the past as well as any other.

Not forgetting often means reunions, and 2024 was a bumper crop for me.

“Meet you at the Apple,” I texted Jimmy one day last May, and he knew exactly where I meant. The plaza outside Citi Field in Queens is centered around the big red structure that once rose slowly beyond the centerfield fence of Shea when a Met hit a home run.

We met for a night game in the middle of the week. Not just an average game for two friends; we hadn’t seen each other for more than 30 years. Was that possible? Yes. We didn’t have a falling out, we just, as so often happens, lost touch.

Work, moving, who knows? Carelessness, maybe, neither a fault nor a vice. Just life. But it was time to resume our friendship, one that took in college years and a cross-country car trip crossing 40 states, a journey with no purpose except to just get up, get out and go.

We met again in September at the Apple for a late afternoon game. We were back in touch.

I met a group of friends one September when we were all 14 years old at a high school in St. Louis, and we’ve stayed in touch over the (many) years. The guys come east, or I go west, where we have family.

The last several years, the guys have come in summer to reunite, and we’ve chartered a boat out of Orient and fished for blues and stayed up late. It’s good to be 16 again.

And 2024 saw the drama of saving our paper from extinction, when for a while it looked like the Reporter would not be a unique publication, but part of a website of the two other Times Review papers.

Hard work to find ways to save our paper, and opening ears to hear the community demanding the Reporter stand on its own, has given us a year’s lease (at least) to continue to publish our beloved Reporter

In the Roman religion, Janus is a spirit portrayed as a man facing forward and back. His image can be seen in ruins in Italy, marking ceremonial gates and doorways. This month is named for him.

The ancients believed that while passing through, look for what’s ahead, but also look back so you won’t forget who you have traveled with.