{"id":49,"date":"2015-06-02T04:53:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T04:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/?p=49"},"modified":"2015-06-04T01:01:29","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T01:01:29","slug":"june-2nd-filling-a-blank-by-matsir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"June 2nd- Filling a Blank by MatSir"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Starsky was a bit different growing up. He was left-handed, in spite of the efforts of several teachers and relatives. He was very bright, but never seemed to be able to prove it at test time. He was the son of an honest cop living in a neighborhood of dubious transactions. And he didn’t have a middle name. All of his classmates had a middle name; some had wonderfully embarrassing names to spare, but not him. In the ‘middle name’ space of the birth certificate, there was just a blank.<\/p>\n

This anomaly was the result of a battle between the Starsky and Katz camps over what to name Michael and Rachel’s firstborn (who also had the luck to not only be the first grandchild on both sides, but also the first male in nearly 10 years). The day before his bris, debates were still going, and Michael, watching his wife fight back tears, found his voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuiet!\u201d he ordered the bickering mass. Then he knelt in front his wife and said, \u201cForget about everyone else \u2013 what do you want to call our son?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel only paused a moment before saying, \u201cDavid. I want to name him David.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Abra Katz, Rachel’s mother, didn’t say a word, just concentrated on the floor.<\/p>\n

Michael’s father, Nicholas, spoke first. \u201cAfter your brother? But, honey, that goes against tradition. It’s bad luck to name a baby after a living person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Rachel, no! He’s just missing; they haven’t… it’s only been 3 months, he’s just lost.\u201d Her father looked anywhere but at the photos on the mantel. \u201cAre you trying to bring sorrow to us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m sorry, Papa. I am. I don’t ask you to believe me, but I know David isn’t coming home.\u201d Days before the army’s telegram, she’d scared Michael by bursting into tears during dinner. He believed her grief; she and David had been closer than twins. She hadn’t really smiled again until she’d held their son.<\/p>\n

He laid his hand over hers, felt the tiny puff of his son’s breath, and smiled at her. \u201cDavid is perfect.\u201d Then he turned to face the others. \u201cHis name is David.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a tense moment, Leah Starsky, Michael’s mother, started talking again, pushing for the baby’s middle name to, at least, be in honor of one from their side of the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said his name is David. That’s it!\u201d Michael ignored the gasps and grumbles. Rising to his feet, he made his way to the front door and opened it. \u201cDavey’s got a big day tomorrow, so we’ll see you all at 2 o’clock. Thanks for coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grandfathers said nothing. Michael’s father, because a man should be shown respect in his own home, and Marvin Katz, Rachel’s father, rarely spoke at all after that day.<\/p>\n

As the quiet descended on the Starsky home, Michael sat next to his wife and son.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Hero.\u201d She smiled and kissed him.<\/p>\n

Thirteen years later, Dave Starsky, 2800 miles from home, grief-scarred, terrified and determined not to let it show, stood in his new school’s office. He was carefully filling in all the blanks on the forms, proving that being a lefty wouldn’t hold him back.<\/p>\n

LAST NAME: Starsky<\/p>\n

FIRST NAME: David<\/p>\n

MIDDLE NAME: __________<\/p>\n

He started to move onto the next blank, then hesitated. He was here for fresh start, a chance to become a man someone could be proud of, like Ma was of Uncle David and Pop. He stared at the empty spot. After all,<\/i> he reasoned to himself, when someone came to Temple and converted, symbolically starting a new life, a new name was part of that tradition.<\/i><\/p>\n

He filled in the blank.<\/p>\n

MIDDLE NAME: Michael<\/p>\n

Still my hero, Pop<\/i><\/p>\n

\"divider\"<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Author’s Note:<\/b> No religious or cultural slight intended. This was inspired by a discussion about Starsky sharing a (fanon) name with his father. (If Starsky’s father was alive when he was born, naming him ‘Michael’ would have been discouraged.) I got the idea for him to adopt the name from my (non-Jewish) grandfather who lost his favorite brother too young. Going to school, my grandfather added his brother’s name to his and kept both names the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

And a Thank You to Flamingo Slim, for helping me change horses mid(life)stream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Starsky was a bit different growing up. He was left-handed, in spite of the efforts of several teachers and relatives. He was very bright, but never seemed to be able to prove it at test time. He was the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fic","category-gen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2015\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}