A hand shook me and a voice whispered my name.
"What happened?" I asked anxiously, after all it's the middle of the night.
"Get up, hurry, hurry, we're going to Jaffa Street."
It took me a few seconds to come out of the dream, to realize that I was in bed and the hand holding my shoulder belonged to my mother. Unlike today, in times not so long ago, the attitude towards parental instructions was at the level of 'we will do and listen'. That is - did they tell you? First do it. Then there is a chance that you will win and they will explain it to you.
So I got up, got ready quickly, and we went down all sixty-nine steps from the third floor of the building at 16 Shivat Zion, crossed the road toward the Maronites, passed the carpentry shop, (Amram Vaknin is still there) the shutter shop, the flour factory, and the church with the blue roof, and in a moment we were in Jaffa, approaching Paris Square. But that was the strangest stretch of road I had seen up to that moment.
Moonlight Parade
The middle of the night, which was usually so quiet that I could hear the breathing of the wild pigeon perched on my windowsill, became frantic. People were pouring in from everywhere and it seemed like everyone's destination, including us, was the same. But that's the least strange part. The way they looked was what fascinated me on the one hand and made me giggle uncontrollably on the other.
Everyone, like me, got up quickly, and without any organized organization, who knows what they left the house for. Everyone was dressed, of course, but the thing that made me burst into wild laughter, 'The Joker' style, was how they were dressed. A large number were left with their pajama pants, flip-flops, and some kind of top that they threw over their shoulders. There was one who wrapped himself in a checkered tablecloth, oh my, from the top of the fifties, which extended and fell down to his knees. There was also one with a stocking cap in the style of the Palmach and checkered pajamas all over. Someone else wore high, heavy work boots and skinny, white shorts. And no, these weren't pants.
Oh well, I understand the madness.
By the time we got to Jaffa Street, I already understood the point. Tomorrow is Independence Day and the annual military parade is supposed to take place in Haifa. But the chance of getting close and seeing it amidst all the cheering crowds was very small, but we are a people of startups, aren't we? In other words, we understand something about combos.
The plan was to get up in the middle of the night, the night before the parade, to see the dress rehearsal that started somewhere near the Prophet Elijah's Cave and passed through Jaffa and Independence Street. That way it was much less crowded and much closer, in fact, to the front row – V. A. P.
So what if everything happens at a decidedly unconventional time, and then what if most of the spectators around us who cheer on our soldiers for their array of weapons, the motorized vehicles carrying Hawk missiles, and the fearsome tanks seem to be...
They just escaped from an institution for the mentally ill, and it's true that I felt like I was part of some zombie movie, so what...
The next day when I asked myself – how was it?
I answered with sparkling eyes – an experience.
Beautiful writing…! Indeed, it reads… and sounds… as an “experience”-ya-ya-ya…. Yo-yo-yo… ya-ya-ya…(in preparation!)😘☺️😂🤗✨️🙏😭
Thank you 🙏��
Did you go down the stairs from the 3rd floor????????
No!!!!! Really??
I went down from the 71st floor of the North Coordination Tower, all 4000 stairs.
Not in 2001 a year before because I had a bet with a friend on who would get down first….
(And I won.. 500 NIS profit)
We went down from the third floor. If we had gone down from the seventy-first floor, like you, the post would have been too long.
The length of the story is proportional to the effort.