DOV TALES
by Dov Burt Levy

Sunday, Sept. 10, can be a day of remembrance and joy before 9/11, a day of remembrance and sadness. Both days are very important.

Sept. 10, as every first Sunday after Labor Day, is Grandparents Day, a national holiday since 1978.

Let's talk about grand parenting.

Some of my friends have called me a "professional grandfather" because I was lucky enough to have spent a good part of ten years, three or four afternoons a week, caring for Michael and Jenny, my Israeli grandchildren.

And four years ago, I moved back here, north of Boston, to enjoy and influence the childhood of Emily, my American grandchild.

I'm a lucky guy.

When my two daughters were growing up, like many of you reading this column, I worked the usual 40-60 hours a week. I thought I gave my two daughters more time than most fathers, but the truth is I have given a lot more to my grandchildren.

By the time my grandchildren were growing up, I was a writer making my own hours, and my first priority was those grandkids. In addition to my regular gigs of childcare, I was like a taxi driver or pizza store. Call me any time, day or night, I would show up in 15 minutes to begin the best job I ever had.

I have seen the most formal, ostentatious, ramrod straight citizens fall full-length down on the floor, clowning for a smile or laugh from a one-year-old grandchild. As the quotable Doug Larson put it: "Few things are more delightful than grandchildren fighting over your lap."

I have friends who spend three or four months a year, like itinerant peddlers, going from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to Brooklyn, N.Y. to Sharon, Mass. to play with their six grandchildren. Diplomats of the highest level, they have never told their children that anonymous truism, "If I would have known being a grandparent was so great, I would have done it first."

Grandparents usually have the time to remember and save those marvelous precocious grandchildren moments. I urge my friends to write them down and make them into stories for their speech at the grandchild's bar/bat mitzvah or graduation. Or better yet, compile the stories into a booklet.

May I tell you my own?

Mickey, now a 19-year-old Israeli army soldier, was five when we discussed genes and heredity. I told him we are made up of all the people who came before us and then asked, "What do you think you got from me, Mickey?"

Without a moment's hesitation, he said, "My brain, Saba." That's a really smart kid!

At age 7, Jenny, now 17 and a high school senior, spent a full afternoon with me at the Mevasseret-Zion shopping mall. We had lunch, a movie, and I bought her a CD of her choice. When I brought her home, she jumped into my arms, gave me a hug and kiss, and said, "Sabi, today was the best day of my life!" Hyperbole? Yes. Did I love it? Yes.

My Danvers granddaughter Emily, now 10, at age six, must have figured out that my hearing was less than perfect. One day, she walked over to me, put her hand over mine, and announced, "When I grow up, Sabi, I am going to become an ear doctor so I can fix your ears." Her aspirations have changed several times since, but my memory of that moment always gladdens my heart and makes me smile.

Visit the Internet site www.grandparents-day.com to learn more about Marian H. McQuade, mother of 15 and founder of National Grandparents Day, and the organization created to cultivate intergenerational activities all year round and to draw compassionate attention to the eldest of the elderly — those in nursing homes.

Coincidently, Sept. 10 is also the opening of the exhibit "Remembering the Jews of Revere," sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of the North Shore at Congregation Ahabat Sholom in Lynn. Bring your grandchildren to eat a Revere Beach hot dog, see the exhibit and recount your experiences on Shirley Avenue and the beach when you were their age.

Grandchildren and grandparents are about love and bridging the generations. Nothing could be finer or more important.