I’m writing this personal note in the press box as I wait for Grant to finish his 49ers grades before we drive home. I’m not working Monday because it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Actually, it became Rosh Hashanah tonight at dusk but I’m here writing, so there are many contradictions in what I do. When I was a kid, my family always celebrated the Jewish New Year. We didn’t go to synagogue although we were members of an orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn. The five of us stayed in the house, stayed together and talked and ate. It was a day to be together and to contemplate who we were and where we were going.

As an active adult I almost always worked on the Jewish New Year. I was always busy. But the last few years I felt guilty about it. I don’t know why. I imagined my dad staring at me sternly from wherever he is in the afterlife. I imagined him disappointed in me. Now I am an old guy and I want to honor my dad and tradition, so I’m staying home Monday and I’m not writing a follow-up column about the Niners or Raiders. They can live without me and I want to feel virtuous, or something like that.