Jewish Alzheimer's

A photo of the Ontario Science Center and Totonto, from Google Maps

“First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.”
Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

As I was sitting down to write this story, if it should even be called a story. I opened a new file, I named it, and then I went to Google 'Jewish Alzheimer'. I couldn't find anything, neither in Hebrew, nor in English. I mean I did find quite a few things, but not what I was looking for.
What I was looking for, is that I remembered that there was something called 'Jewish Altheimer's', where you can't remeber your friends, only your enemies. In my mind, this could be because your friends might be relatively new, after all we only moved here slightly more than two months ago, whereas your enemies, maybe enemies is not a good word, certainly not at a time of war, so maybe your rivals, the ones you like to argue with, usually have been following you for quite a while.
And one should also ask how this whole story with the Jewish Alzheimer's relates to the first, second and third thoughts. If you are trying to remember something, then the fact that you are trying to remember it means that you had a first fleeting thought, or rather the forgetfulness is the first thought, and the remembering is the second thought?
Be that as it may, these days I find myself recalling my high school days in Canada. The high school itself was in Montreal, but I'm thinking also, maybe even mostly, about Toronto. Somehow, Montreal has a lot more style, but Toronto, though my French is fairly decent, is a lot more practical.
I remember we went one weekend, maybe as early as 1985, to my mom's friend ZH (I'm not sure that the correct description is 'my mom's friend', maybe I should say that ZH's mom was a friend of my grandmother's) in Toronto. I remember her young kids were very much afraid of flies, and how I, I think I was at the beginning of the 10th grade at the time, a fairly big and bungling adolescent, had to chase for a whole hour after one fly, because her younger son was afraid of it. I think I never managed to catch it, but eventually it ran away.
I also remember how ZH was going on and on about how clean Toronto was, She said she was walking in the Haifa central bus station (at the time it used to be the one in Bat Galim, now it's just a deserted concrete giant, and there are two other central stations), and she stepped in a huge pile of sunflower seed peels, whereas here, in Toronto, everything is so clean and tidy. My mom was really annoyed by this story, but I think she managed to hide it, which is not typical.
Then in the school in Montreal I was very straightforward. To this very day I like to recount how during my first lesson at the school, a Canadian Geography lesson, and really Canada has a lot of geography, and a little history, as I used to joke with my sister, the teacher was talking about density of population. At the time the density of population in Canada was one person, or maybe two people per square mile. The teacher, an aging hippie, who was made fun of by the students because he smoked like a chimney, and thought all the students were Capitalist Pigs, asked me what was the density of population in Israel. I told him that I thought it was about 150 people per square kilometer, and it should be more per square mile. He yelled at me that it should be less, and then I told him that it should be more. After some time I gave it up, which is not typical, but at the end of the lesson I went to the board, and I drew a square kilometer on it, and I told him that this had 150 people, and then I drew a square mile around it and I said that there are the more people.
I used to like math classes. I was pretty good, and I liked to argue with everyone during the lessons. I would simply say to people: 'you're wrong.' I was not alway right, sometimes I was wrong, but that's what I used to do.
I would also tell everyone that they should make Aliyah to Israel. That Israel was the only place for the Jewish people. I don't think I convinced anyone, but I certainly made them laugh!
In our yearbook in Canada, which is not how it is done here, each one of us could write our own personal message. We got a quarter of a stencil paper, with 160 marked blank character spaces, and we were supposed to fill it in. I remember the message that my friend J wrote to me: 'eh hello, eh you're wrong, eh goodbye' the 'eh' was his way of making fun of my Israeli accent, or rather of my Israeli prosody.
At the end of grade 10, I made it to the finals of the Bible Contest in Canada. The finals were in Toronto, and on the way to Toronto, with the bus, we stopped at the Ontario Science Center, which in a typical Torontonian way is not really in Toronto, but its address still says Toronto. It's a wonderful place. To this day I want to go back there. To this day I think my life could be a lot simpler if I were a Toronto Hebrew teacher, and I can also teach how to read the Torah, than to be an English teacher here in Ma'alot Tarshicha. But these are just my first thoughts.
My second thoughts are that I'm not willing to give up yet.

View from my balcony, my photo