SOUVENIR -- ISN'T THAT FRENCH?

Souvenir is a rather complex word in the French language.  It is a noun with many meanings, some of which are rather philosophical and some which have fallen into complete desuetude.  It is also a verb that is what is called, "essentially reflexive."  It's like calling our crazy-bone the same thing.  Another interesting thing about this word is that it looks like it comes from the marriage of two Latin words, the first of which means "under" and the other "come." So, whatever that means when you talk about remembering is too far beyond me at this late hour to get into.  Besides, I do know that in English "Souvenir" means money spent for some mysterious reason that I have still to fathom.  It is one of those things that has become so automatic in our culture that not too many people think about the meaning of their actions.  Every time someone comes back from the far corners of the world and gives me a token "souvenir" I invariably ask myself, "Now what am I supposed to be remembering?"  Not being a person who very easily drags the past along with him into the present, and even less into the future, souvenirs are quite a challenge.  Now, if I have that attitude about my past, I want to know what that says about my attitude about your past visit to the land where whale teeth make jewelry.  I can't help it.  If I bring something home for you from the moon, let's say, what am I asking you to remember (souvenir)?  You weren't on the moon, so that's a blank.  Maybe I hope you'll remember that I went to the moon and was lucky enough to get back?  Maybe I want you to remember that the moon is not really made of green cheese?  I just told you my age with that last one, right?  I don't have any souvenirs of that, except the one at the top right of the page.  1978 that was!  Don't forget it.  Maybe if I give you a souvenir I want you to remember that I remembered that I would tickle you into remembering that I remembered to bring you something from the moon that would help you to remember that I remembered to make you remember by taking up more space on your nick-knack shelf?  
The kicker to this thing is this.  Our memories are deteriorating so fast that when we travel we forget some rather important stuff and it is lost forever.   But we don't forget to remember to make your remember that we remembered to make you remember that we remembered.  What?
Last part of the thought is this:  I know that the Voice from the kitchen doesn't agree with this.  So just don't tell her that I said this.  Besides she has already bought you all a French Fry from La Salette so that you can ...  you got the picture.  
PS:  We have 3,000 photos that you just HAVE to see.  The golden age of digital cameras with rechargeable batteries that NEVER die.  

NEW YORK, THE SOUL OF THE WORLD

Here is a narration nostalgic in its content and descriptive of the emotions that drove our vision of life as we were growing up.  The whirl of thoughts about the events recalled here were put out on the table during a social breakfast hour with some friends of ours.  After the morning Daily Mass, we invited them to  have coffee and croissant with us [our treat] at our favorite Vietnamese bakery/coffee shoppe.  As we sat around the table sipping coffee and nibbling on the croissants, the conversation turned to the grandchildren that we do not have and the single grandchild that our friends have.  It turns out that she is a very bright person and doing straight-A work in school.  So, it turns out that she qualifies for a study trip to Washington, D.C. and New York.  Imagine, with Los Angeles less than 100 miles away, bright students in Southern California dream of going to New York.  That reminded me of the dreams that we entertained of going to New York someday. [A mere 125 miles away]  New York, after all, is the navel of the world.  Everyone knows that.  EFR Dion used to say "Go to New York and see the world.  If it exists in the world, you can find it in New York."  This was really impressive for us, as children.  We knew that our father knew the City very well.  Therefore, what he was telling us had to be true.  Despite our dreams and the great admiration that our father had for New York, he was not the first to take us there.  We went there as a reward for being reliable and capable Altar Boys.  Just like the little Straight-A lady above.  The priests of the parish chose some ten of us, the cream of the crop among about 35 boys.  We were to go to New York in the morning, get there about 9:30 AM, do some sight seeing, go to watch the Yankees play the Red Sox and return home after the game.  Yes, these were times when day games actually outnumbered night games by a mile.  Going to New York was like going to heaven without dying.  We were dreaming of the Empire State Building, the George Washington Bridge, Yankee Stadium, the subway and finally the Automat, "automatic" food serving restaurant.  Actually, in my mind the Automat was the BIG expectation.  No, it did not live up to my expectations, but it was a lot of fun and I never forgot my experience there.  Over coffee this morning I had to tell the story of our ride on the subway.  We had to go from the area where we had lunch and get to Yankee Stadium.  It was engineered  that way by the organizers of the outing.  They wanted us to experience a ride underground.  There we are.  Eyes the size of saucers.  Rank smell, strange noises, running people and suddenly from the left the screeching of wheels in a turn and then the hissing of the air brakes and the precise stop to line the doors up with the painted boarding areas on the dock.  A voice says, "OK, boys."  My brother Denis jumps on to the train just as the same voice says, "Not this one." Swish, bump, too late!  The doors are closed and the train leaves the station.  The priest in charge says to me, "Don't worry, the people will take care of him."  I bravely, but also nervously assured the priest that my brother had been to Fenway Park [Boston] several times and so he would have an idea what to do.  I did mention that he did not have a ticket.  I was told that because we had a group reservation, the security personnel would see to it that he would be seated in the correct place.  Ya know what?  I believed all that.  Why?  I still don't know.  But I did.
As it turns out, the people on the train took care of him too.  They brought him to the ticket booth where the scenario that had been described to me by the priest was actually realized.  When we got to the ticket booth at Yankee Stadium, we were told that Denis was seated in the proper place.  Now was a that an "E-Ticket Ride" or what?  That was our [Denis and me] first trip to New York.  There were many more. EFR Dion made sure that we visited New York often and that he showed us as much of the real world as he could.  He succeeded in making us respect New York.  I am very grateful to him for that.  
I have lived in some great cities, including some rather famous ones, but I still brazenly state that New York is the soul of the world.