My 9th blogoversary

§ August 13th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 9 Comments

http://freenynyfrombushtoday.blogspot.com/

My original URL–I had no idea what a URL was! fitting–I can’t seem to get this to link!

9 years ago today the RNC was coming to NY. I won’t go into the two million reasons people very peacefully protested with banners from their windows. My building didn’t allow that.

Coincidentally my friend said “lets start blogs.” I refrained from saying “what’s a blog?” No I knew but I knew nothing about blogging. I decided to make my blog into my protest. I was doing it for writing practice. I didn’t think anybody would read it. I couldn’t understand the comments I would get “move to France,” “you’re a traitor,” brilliant things like that.

I had no idea I would discover a blog exchange, blog explosion, put my blog in, go to sleep and wake up to 450 requests for link exchanges. One major problem. I had no idea what a link exchange was.

I had no idea by April it would be the top ranked baby boomer blog and in the top one percent of all blogs. (Technorati) I also changed the URL to make it more user friendly. The first story that comes up is one of my favorites–well the edited version, not here.

Many of us who were “popular” were into something called “artistic integrity,” and didn’t make money off our blogs. My blog was proudly money losing–another very dumb thing.

I wrote a lot about the 1970′s to mid 1980′s because I was young and didn’t stay home–basically ever. I wrote about many subjects. At one point I was writing for 3 blogs–none for money but I blogged from 9 AM to 11 PM. And truly learned to write.

And a great editor had taught me how to make my non-creative writing truly shine.

So I wrote about almost every possible subject. I was the queen of sick comments. Blogs were started just to diss me. I learned never to comment unless the person was friendly because posts and comments were changed to make me look stupid.

They say if you’re hated it means you’re making an impact. They don’t frigging know blogging. The day I realized I could hit “delete” and not have to see hateful messages was one of the happiest of my life.

Yes I resent all the people who came later with battle plans and who were able to make money when their writing lacks depth and more.

But nine years in blogging years is probably the half-century mark in people years so I’m proud.

Cover stories, verdicts and dementia.

§ June 25th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 7 Comments

I’m working on a story that I’m convinced is the key to the rest of my life. The thing is it’s just not jelling.

Maybe because many of the background characters and one important one are Facebook friends. Maybe because I feel such a commitment to portray the Fall of 1968 perfectly–and everybody in the world is an expert on the 1960′s especially if they weren’t there.

Maybe and this is my big theory——dementia is setting in. Yesterday I was reading the news to Lucia on the phone——something we’ve always done. It’s calming.

Only there was a picture of a girl, no name, in an article Great Crimes on Long Island. I had been sent the article because Jesse Friedman’s conviction wasn’t overturned. I spent a year interviewing everybody involved in the case and writing almost-award winning cover stories about it.

One of the writers for the paper was that girl. The founding editor (won’t say his name to protect the guilty) liked to put us “on the same page.”Ha ha. Her first name was Amy and she was generally referred to as “the Long Island Lolita.”

I, of the perfect memory, couldn’t remember her last name. Dementia’s another thing everybody’s an expert on and I do believe that anybody who has it or has a spouse or parent with it knows more than dementia specialists (career number three). And I knew that I only had three hours sleep the night before, and the stock market, something that’s incredibly important to my life, was in free-fall so anxiety could play a part in my lack of memory.

But it’s not the first time it’s happened. I was a riot at the doctor’s last week; a regular laugh riot——they doubled the minimal dose of my anti—depressant and I didn’t even have to ask.

But when I finish the story I’m going to put it here. Hold me accountable please. And if I seem demented——well, how would you know the difference you ask? You will——tell me so I can start planning.

I plan on being a lot like William Shatner in Boston Legal. His mad cow was so enchanting. Oh gawd, only the demented would say that.

Please understand I take dementia very seriously and if this seems light hearted you should see me shaking!

If I had the wings of an angel

§ June 13th, 2013 § Filed under music, my father, my parents, New York Stories § 7 Comments

It never struck me strange that my father would sing these lyrics to us in all long car trips, at family dinners, whenever we asked him to, and often just because he wanted to :

Now if I had wings like an angel
Over these prison walls I would fly.

That was daddy’s song and we all–children and cousins–loved it. His lyrics were a bit different. Actually very different.

Sad sad and lonely

Sitting in a cell all alone, all alone

If I had the wings of an angel

Over these prison walls I would fly…..

When I was in my 20′s and met my best friend Lucia we were talking one night and she said her father used to sing “you are my sunshine…” to her. “Oh how nice. My father sang “sad sad and lonely. Now I had the wings of an angel.” For the first time I realized this wasn’t a normal father love song!

¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶

My father never cared what other people sang, what other people did or what other people thought.

“Look out the window,” he would say to me when we lived in the garden apartment court in Queens, “look at all those people. You’re smarter than 95% of them. Why do you want to be like them?”

Because I was a kid who was struggling just to be accepted? But that was later when I was eleven or so. Earlier I just wanted everybody to like me. I might have loved my father’s song but I was a prisoner of rock & roll. I listened to music constantly. Someday I was going to learn the key to life and I was going to learn it in a song. Nobody had to tell me that; I just knew it.

Aside from music——except for that one song my father sung, he listened to this horrible radio program “Make Believe Ballroom” that made me want to put cotton in my ears——I thought my father was just about perfect.

He was a CPA who slept every morning until 9 or 9:30. At first I didn’t realize it was because he was self-employed, visited clients all day, came home and had dinner with us. After dinner he worked until 2 or 2:30 AM.

My father was the hardest-working person I knew but it came so effortlessly it took me years to realize how hard he worked.

I couldn’t wait to become a grown-up for many reasons but a big one was the ability to sleep late and stay awake late. Wow did I learn differently.

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

I have a subway poster in my living room. A subway poster is six feet tall and usually goes in a subway (no!) It’s for a play that was going to become seminal in the 1970′s. My father’s friend/client designed it. Every week the poster and I watch Mad Men together as my father, the consummate family man, the moral center of many circles enjoyed people in the arts. He liked the Don Drapers of the world. I was very happy when Don finally made a friend this year. And that he’s a Jewish doctor was the icing on the cake. (Though I know my mother was affair material she would have died…..)

Occasionally my father would go into the city in the middle of the night to bail out a friend from this very cool place called “alimony jail.” I thought it was a place men went to to get away from their current wives and play poker. My father of course thought that was hilarious. My mother thought differently: “Pia these men left their first wives and children. They’re in jail. Jail——because they’re living high on the hog and letting their first wives starve.” She didn’t tell me this until I was about twelve. I understood. Still I found my father’s friends beyond cool.

¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶

The poster looks like the beginning of Mad Men; it enjoys seeing relatives. The man who designed it began that “school,” of poster art. In the 1970′s he wrote and produced a play about a group that changed most of our lives. My father never told me that he offered me a job!

When I was in high school we visited that friend and his then wife in London. He offered my sister and I admissions to all night clubs. My father said no. Later in the visit he told us that Charlie Watts and some other mates were coming over. Did we want to hang out? Hello! I was seventeen. There was nothing more in life that I would have liked than to have hung out with a Rolling Stone. I began to imagine how my life was going to change. I was going to be popular. I was going to have the most wonderful life…..

I had to have the only father in America over 50 who knew who Charlie Watts was. He suggested that we go to the all night clubs. And we had an incredible time. But the night I could have had!

I don’t know how many times my father stopped me from meeting Mick Jagger, himself. I stopped counting as it was so tragic. There was a part of me that was glad. I probably would have fallen through the floor. But I never let my father know. Nor did I let him know that I understood why he didn’t let me meet him. Actually I only understand half the time!

This is a brief summary of much longer stories(about 3 chapters) that will be in the book I really am writing. Have a wonderful Father’s Day!

My Father’s Moustache

§ June 8th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 10 Comments

In this week before Father’s Day I will continue talking about the father I knew best.

In the summer of 1969 my family flew to Mobile, Alabama for a family party. My parents insisting on vetting my wardrobe so that I didn’t bring anything that would mark me as a hippie princess.

My wardrobe passed inspection. I could dress both English mod and Pucci New York if the occasion demanded it. I don’t remember how many second cousins were around my age but there were many as Great Uncle Max and Great Aunt Ethel had five children all of whom had propagated and except for Ricki and Peter didn’t stop at two. Each one took me into the closet in the kitchen where they would take the one telephone for privacy and ask the same question: Could I get them any pot? “Why me?” I would say pretending to be shocked, “I wouldn’t know.” Meanwhile back at the Long Island Gold Coast college….

We rented a car to drive us to New Orleans and then home to New York. Though we had made many road trips most of them were no further South than DC; North than the White Mountains; and West to Amish Country . This trip was different.

The car was rented and had a Kansas license plate. My father, normally the slowest driver in America, sped through the Blue Ridge Mountains. My mother, sister and I sat in amazement until finally I asked why he was driving so fast.

Oh it’s a Kansas license. Nobody will ticket me.

While there’s truth in that statement, I think it was something more.

My father grew a long moustache during the road trip. Forever after he would let it grow large and his hair way too long. I called him Einstein; he thought it was a compliment. Every time he cut his hair and moustache he looked ten years younger.

One day about 20 years later he asked me if he should shave half his moustache. I wasn’t shocked but simply asked him why: “So that when I go up there the people who knew me before will recognize me and so will the people who knew me after.” “Only if you want to look ridiculous in this life, daddy.”

The one where every baby boomer blogger continues to ignore me

§ June 7th, 2013 § Filed under bloggers, my father, my parents, New York Stories § Tagged baby boomers, new york 1970's. greatest generation § 4 Comments

I accidentally posted something I’m still working on or wasn’t planning to put in until Monday! Mea Culpa–hope you like this one!

I’m listening to the wind howl and thinking about how I can get out of a lunch date. It’s not that I don’t want to not go——it’s more indifference.

This morning I worked myself into a tizzy because I realized that I don’t fit into any blogging crowds. I used to. We were bizarre. We were fun. We didn’t blog about normal things but uh rewrote Ambrose Bierce’s dictionary (Doug); dissected the world and sometimes talked about twin set cashmere sweaters (Cooper) and so on.

Only Bone who writes the most incredible stories is still going….There were many more people. We reveled in our ability to fit and yet be so wonderfully eccentric. We were early to the blogging game when you didn’t have to have pictures in every posts or write a certain way or….I was older and people liked that!

And I didn’t even have to write about how I used to work with Marc B before he was Marc, doorman at Studio 54. I just had a facility for knowing club owners, managers, bouncers etc which is funny because I can’t dance, get paid not to sing and am not a big drinker. Though I have been known to . hoist three or five too many. Now I have more than two once every half decade. People used to buy me drinks, send bottles of champagne over––and being fussy I would only accept the good stuff.

I don’t miss those days. I do miss people congregating at my apartment as we spent the entire night deciding what to do. It was a time when friends were paramount and we didn’t need TV shows to tell us how to have friendships in Manhattan.

I have a feeling those days are starting once again——from the “I love and miss you. When can we have a roadtrip?” emails. We do need The Golden Girls to show us how to enter this era of life.

I’m sure not learning about how to begin and enjoy the third stage of life from blogs. Frankly I find most baby boomer blogs smug and morally superior. We didn’t invent good times after 55. No we sure didn’t.

In 1974 when I was 23 so my father was 59 and my mother was uh younger they went to the former Soviet Union. This led to trips everywhere Americans were allowed. One “exotic” trip a year combined with Europe or California/Hawaii depending on where they were going. One trip to Europe. One trip “down there” usually known as Florida to see family and friends and many weekends to The Berkshires and places like that.

My father never retired. He was a CPA who worked for himself and had a client list consisting of what now would be called boldfaced names and people who refused to be. While he had always had “interesting” clients many of his biggest clients came to him after he was 60.

We’re New Yorkers and perhaps New Yorkers are different than the rest of America but I don’t remember my parents being alone in their travels. I remember some of their friends taking college courses, mentoring young minority workers, and generally being involved in the world.

So what’s new about baby boomers being interested in the world around us or traveling to exotic places or even exploring their own cities? My father’s Manhattan tour for relatives included Christopher Street for tea dance and Harlem because it was an important part of New York. This was in the 1970′s and ’80′s when Manhattan was “bad” to the bone.

I have a great respect for the generation that came before me. My parents friends found me cool for caring about issues and stopping wars. Even if they didn’t agree with me.

I know living in small spaces is trendy now. Try doing it in the 1970′s when one wooden folding table was made. One! And most apartments in New York didn’t have either dishwashers or washer/dryers. Which could be horrible if you didn’t live walking distance to a laundromat and weren’t able to afford the services that washed and folded your clothes. Most apartments weren’t renovated with bad closets so it was a constant battle to keep everything clean——especially when you lacked the clean gene.

I somehow made my 450 square feet apartment into five rooms——at least in my head. I even had a full bed you couldn’t really see because of the palm tree room divider. My last apartment had 600 square feet and a real bedroom. But the monthly costs went from $595 to $1300 in eight years. That came on top of the purchase price as it was a coop! And I still lacked space for a dishwasher and washer/dryers——things that became immensely important to me.

My father never saw that apartment sadly but I know he would have loved it. It was on Riverside Drive but faced West End Ave and the side streets. When we had been apartment hunting he would always ask the same question: Why do you want to look at New Jersey?

The river, daddy, the river. Plus the new New Jersey skyline is incredible.

My father and I got together every Monday or Thursday night. Depending on when his poker game was playing. He also took courses at The New School. Once he asked me to take a course with Elizabeth Kubler Ross on death and dying with him. I was 25 and had other interests. I so regret it now as I did go to grad school, years later, where I focused on dementia and death and dying. Oh the ironies that make life interesting!

I miss the “Greatest Generation.” They had mastered the lost art of conversation and when you talk your way through life it’s never boring. Being a good listener helps too!

It’s a bit early but Happy Father’s Day daddy. I love and miss you. And so hope there is an “up there” where you and mommy are arguing and laughing your way through life!

I was writing this for psychology today but got all scatttered and sad and….

§ April 15th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 5 Comments

This hasn’t been one of the best weeks in my life. I’m obsessive. Usually I have my taxes done and in the bowels of the IRS as soon as possible. This year, for reasons I do know, I couldn’t care less. Then a week ago Saturday I felt different——hyper and crazed. I used to know that feeling well. There was a time I even liked it. It made me super-productive. It kept my weight down. It was like natural speed. Like every speed addict there reached a point when it came crashing down.

I thought I was having a breakdown. It turned out that problems that can be solved, or put to the side with meds aren’t called breakdowns. I was a bit disappointed as I thought maybe I could spend sometime in a treatment facility. One that offered rehab, and maybe could help with the problems I was just beginning to understand were spatial. But because I understand and because I was so darn rational I was told I didn’t belong in a facility.

Cut to last week. Once more I felt that feeling. All I could think about was my taxes. By the time I got to the preparer I forgot that I had put everything in order, did all the computations and basically was just bringing them to a storefront in Walmart (don’t judge) to confirm my work. I had to explain almost everything to the preparer. I didn’t have the computations in front of me but really––do people really need calculators to multiply, add and subtract? OK my Dad was a CPA and I guess his lessons took. I was faster than the preparer. He told me he felt wrong taking money from me when I was the one doing the work. I didn’t explain that if I hadn’t had somebody else do it I would have been convinced I did everything wrong even if it passed a computer program.

I went shopping. Just as I was about to check out I panicked. I was convinced I left all the documents in the ladies room. Can you imagine losing your identity to a Walmart customer or worker? Then I looked in my bag….

I was exhausted the next day. It used to be so exhausting being me. It still is sometimes. But the exterior of my house was being painted——nobody told me a wood house in the South has to be painted every five to seven years. I don’t know what I thought happened to wood. I didn’t even know about pressure washing. I know a lot about doormen but that really doesn’t help in a stand alone home.

That past weekend my next door neighbors were here for one of their rare visits. They made it very clear that they didn’t like turquoise. I had told them I was going to paint it turquoise months ago. They said: “that’s nice” or something equally patronizing. I guess they thought I was like them——always getting estimates and never actually doing anything. Once more they told me about the court’s “unwritten restrictive covenant.”

We’re the same religion——one that’s not common here and one that has often been on the wrong side of restrictive covenants. I told them that. Old Pia would have run and called the painters: “paint it back to gray.” New Pia didn’t buy a house in a court that doesn’t have a home owner’s association or any rules to be told what to do.

My next door neighbors are both lawyers. I suppose they thought that I would bow down to their more educated status. My neighbor on the other side is a lawyer also. I care about his feelings as he lives here all year and we take out each others garbage and do other neighborly things. He loves it. But I felt so guilty. As if I had committed a sin.

The house came out gorgeous. I was in a better mood.But much, not great, is going on in my life. I still felt out of sorts.

Then the cable guy came to fix my TV and ever since then my gmail account’s been suspended. I don’t know about you but my life is in that account. Fortunately I have back ups of most documents. Unfortunately I don’t have another account with everybody’s email address in it. Fortunately I keep in touch with most people through text or Facebook. I sort of know somebody real high up at Google. I was going to call him.

Then Boston happened. I am a New Yorker who once had a very different life. It changed after 9/11. I lived in Cambridge and Boston for several years when I went to Boston University and worked on Boylston Street just a few blocks from today’s attack.

Once more my feelings changed. I’m sad——very sad. And I want my gmail account back!

Myrtle Manor–not a real post for not a real show

§ March 5th, 2013 § Filed under Hoarders, Joan and Melissa, myrtle manor, north myrtle beach, Real housewives of New Jersey, reality TV § 8 Comments

This blog is going to attempt to be sorta literary. That is it will tell stories suitable for publishing or framing or using as toilet paper or….

However I made a really big deal over the premier of Myrtle Manor a reality show about a trailer park in Myrtle Park. I live north of Myrtle Beach in a tiny, tiny city that prides itself on not being Myrtle Beach.

A friend named Cone (not his real name–change a letter) asked me to live blog Myrtle Manor. Fortunately I said no. Otherwise it would have been an hour of “uh” “ugh” “puke” “stupid” “uh.” “This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my life and I watch Hoarders, The Real Housewives of New Jersey (only) and Joan and Melissa–an amazing look at a mother who castrates her daughter, is incredibly lonely, must have an audience and some of the worst jokes.” It is Shakespear compared to Myrtle Manor.

I wish they had said Miss Peggy had just learned she had beat breast cancer for the second time. It would have made her skinny dipping poignant and purposeful. But no…

All Over the place

§ March 4th, 2013 § Filed under bloggers, blogging, facebook, NLD, non verbal learning disorder § 6 Comments

I need to get back to basics. To write because I love putting words together and telling a story not because I found a “blogging niche” or am writing a book. Lately I have been reading many blogs and they all have one common denominator unless they’re strictly a literary blog. “Look at me! I’m a blog and this blog isn’t going to make me rich, of course, but click on___to show you love my brand and the products that support me or will support me once you learn that I’m incredible.”

You already know what I am: a woman who posted 1,000 posts in three years and 200 in the next five! Blogging taught me to write as nothing or nobody else could. Blogging taught me that captured memories can be as real or as make-believe as photos. Every picture might tell a story but do they tell exactly the story in the photo? Or the ones we remember through years of looking at that photo and adding to our memory bank? Now that every phone has a decent camera and there’s instagram it’s probably different but we’re old school here. OK we’re still learning the iPhone we gave ourselves as a Thanksgiving present–it’s been a long winter and it’s not as intuitive as the iPad. We’ll leave it at that.

It was four years ago tomorrow we took a seventeen hour plane ride–the ride itself is only an hour and a half but there were delays and more delays and it was pouring and we loved rain then even less than we love it now–to start a new life. We freaked when we learned about nonverbal learning disorder (NLD) and stopped trusting our instincts which was about the dumbest thing we have ever done. Now we’re making a truly fresh start as we trusted a stock broker we had known most of our life. It was the great recession. He insisted. We kept saying “ten percent of nothing is nothing” but he kept insisting. It turned out we were right.

We bought a house and then dismantled it. This week we have to get it together to have the outside painted. We didn’t know that outdoor paint, guaranteed for ten to fifteen years in the North is only guaranteed for five years here. The sellers who were going through an acrimonious divorce, only she didn’t know it then, painted the house to sell it not to live in it. We all have done things like that so I can’t complain.

I thought I have been wasting a lot of time but last night it occurred to me that selling an apartment in Manhattan just as the market is first crashing, buying .and renovating a house while watching my whole known world turn on its face, establishing myself as a sorta expert on a disability nobody knows about and fewer people care about isn’t nothing. If you agree please tell me. I need to hear it.

As I need to write in this blog so that my stories, the stories I want in my book–I have many and need more–will begin flowing again. Please encourage me. You can also tell me the royal we is stupid in a New York Russian Jew who dreams of big cities that are never quite really New York.

Must learn to leave the Facebook tab closed. Must. I could live my life on Facebook telling myself that I’m learning about NLD. Learning about the world from a non-NLD perspective though of course I knew all that before. The truth is I love Facebook. I can show my wit. Can make friends much easier than I can here. Yes I finally said it. This isn’t NY or Cambridge or any place I have ever known.

I know Miami would have been much easier for me. Diversity–or Jews and Latins, my people. Culture. Public transport that didn’t end six months after I bought a house. Streets with sidewalks. Galleries. Incredible restaurants. It was the city I have wanted to move to ever since I can remember. So why didn’t I? Perhaps I love torturing myself. Perhaps I saw something here that truly spoke to me. Perhaps I figured I could write without interruption.

I forgot one major component. I, like most everybody, needs stimulation. The sounds of people walking. People arguing. People talking about important things. People talking about their work as if the world will rise or fall on one paragraph that will be meaningless the next day.

When I finally remembered I said that I will make my own stimulating scenarios. Not so easy. I don’t want to live my life having anxiety attacks and all I need to do is check the stock market for that. Facebook NLD? How many times can I participate in “differences between NLD and Asperger’s or High Functioning Autism as it will be called now.

That reminds me–Shana–our Shana’s younger son Carter was diagnosed with high functioning autism last week. Shana being Shana already has a facebook page and a blog.

Back to stimulation. I have made some friends and need more. Now that I have written it down it doesn’t seem so daunting. Life’s never daunting when you have a blog. Just don’t ask me to document every moment of my life. To be all perky and filled with cute anecdotes about kids and/or dogs. Don’t expect me to write about growing older–unless I feel like it. Retirement? Some of you laugh and say “she’s had it so easy. What does she know about work?” A lot actually. And anybody who thinks making back money or making new money as some say is easy has never known sleepless nights and bag lady nightmares.

I laugh when people say they devote three hours a day to blog business. When I was writing posts everyday blogging took ten to seventeen hours. Between writing posts–and practicing becoming a better writer–and commenting on other blogs I barely had time for life. I’m not complaining. It got me….OK it seemed normal as I had been a compulsive worker.

I know most people won’t comment on this blog. They only comment on “important” blogs. The blogs that will get them exposure and possibly a future. That makes me sad as it proves my point that blogging is no longer something somebody does because he loves telling stories or has a point to make or….

Shall I take the coward’s way out otherwise known as the easy way and ask you what you think blogging has become? Is personal satisfaction still important or is it only satisfying if making some money’s involved?

Last Night Central Park Was Grand–originally posted 10/01/05

§ December 31st, 2012 § Filed under Uncategorized § 2 Comments

This was my first New Years Day blog post. Maybe my only!

Happy New Year. It’s a beautiful day. I hope that bodes well for the coming year. Were my mom on this earth she would tell me to get out and take a walk. But I was in Central Park until one Am last night, so she might have excused me on those grounds.

We walked passed Tavern on The Green. Last year there had been ice sculptures and everybody was allowed into the grounds. This year it was balmy and Benny E King was singing outside in the courtyard of the restaurant. Remember him from early childhood “There is a rose in Spanish Harlem.” and other great ’50′s song.

At the band-shell there was a DJ who basically played techno music when he wasn’t playing Frank’s version of “New York, New York.” There was hot chocolate, tea, coffee, a mini-marathon, and the night reminded me of everything that’s good about New York. The crowds were further downtown. We had our own fireworks in the park.

I’m the dodo who asked Lucia and Little Luce what time the fireworks would be. Glad I could be of some amusement value.

I had a bottle of Moet left over from the election. It was the bottle of champagne we were going to celebrate with. (Not the double L’s; it was a school night and Lucia usually stays home when Little Luce has to go to school the next day.)

When I was growing up my parents would go out every New Years to a fancy dress party or costume party. My parents went out every Saturday and I assumed that I would when I grew up.

Well I got married without ever having been on a real date and we had known each other for four years so I don’t know why I thought I would live a sophisticated life.

Okay, we had gone out on about five real dates, but even back in the late ’60′s early ’70′s we traveled in packs. Our idea of a big evening was sitting around looking at each other; our idea of a really big evening was sneaking into the Fillmore East before the main act. (I know that we girls passed for groupies; but I’m not sure what the boys passed for, probably roadies–I mean rock stars, of course.) Or going with a minimum of 20 people to Hong Fat in Chinatown at two AM and running into 40 more people we knew.

I’m thinking about this because the first time I remember meeting INYTBA (an affectionate acronym) was at the Band-shell though we lived on Long Island; and had met there many times. I think the Jefferson Airplane was playing.

The spring before, when I was still in high school, I had seen Country Joe & The Fish “One two three four what are we fighting for,” there. I thought about those lyrics a lot last night. All these years later and I’m wondering again, and the country is polarized once more. I thought about the Band-shell, Central Park, the Be-In’s, the many concerts I have seen there and all the other ways Central Park has been important to me.

I did end up living a somewhat sophisticated life for a number of years. When I lived across from the park in the East 60′s I would have a small New Years Eve party every year for six to ten of my best friends. Then I would have a
First Saturday After New Years Party or Lucia’s Annual Surprise Birthday Party for anywhere from 75 to 200 people. The parties would end somewhere about dawn. I don’t pine for them or the times but sometimes think that somebody else was living my life. I couldn’t have known all those people. Me? But I did.

My friend Patrick would have fancy dress dinners with five courses, and many forks. As my father had been a waiter summers during high school and college, I could set a perfect table by the age of eight.

But Patrick would get so crazed that Lucia or I would use the wrong fork, I would use a wrong fork on purpose just to see his reaction. Patrick and his lover would buy huge tins of Beluga caviar something I proudly hate, and I would feed Patrick my portion by slipping him my portion, by putting my spoon into his hand under the table, so I was never uncouth. It was fun watching Patrick being scared that we would embarrass him in front of his friends from Sutton Place.

I thought about Patrick last night and all the free operas and symphony’s we had attended in The Park.

My Central Park history goes back so long I don’t remember ever not knowing it. My dad would take fave sis and I to climb on rocks–just like the ones he had climbed on when he was growing up in East Harlem, and Central Park was his backyard. Only we wouldn’t go to the northern part of the park then because it wasn’t safe. It is now.

It felt great to be in a place that brings back pleasurable memories and to know that Little Luce was storing her memories in her memory bank to be handed down to still another generation.

It felt great to get away from the real world and its problems for a few hours.
Even the anti-war memories were filtered through a hazed over moon.

Be safe!

§ October 28th, 2012 § Filed under Uncategorized § 2 Comments

I live in North Myrtle Beach SC where hurricanes bypass (just south of the Bermuda Triangle) and go to the NorthEast. Some told me not to move, from NY to the South because of___. Life is ironic. Funny–hope it’s funny. Filled with love and abundance.

It’s so weird not to be in New York now.

« Older Entries

My 9th blogoversary

§ August 13th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 9 Comments

Cover stories, verdicts and dementia.

§ June 25th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 7 Comments

If I had the wings of an angel

§ June 13th, 2013 § Filed under music, my father, my parents, New York Stories § 7 Comments

My Father’s Moustache

§ June 8th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 10 Comments

The one where every baby boomer blogger continues to ignore me

§ June 7th, 2013 § Filed under bloggers, my father, my parents, New York Stories § Tagged baby boomers, new york 1970's. greatest generation § 4 Comments

I was writing this for psychology today but got all scatttered and sad and….

§ April 15th, 2013 § Filed under Uncategorized § 5 Comments

Myrtle Manor–not a real post for not a real show

§ March 5th, 2013 § Filed under Hoarders, Joan and Melissa, myrtle manor, north myrtle beach, Real housewives of New Jersey, reality TV § 8 Comments

All Over the place

§ March 4th, 2013 § Filed under bloggers, blogging, facebook, NLD, non verbal learning disorder § 6 Comments

Last Night Central Park Was Grand–originally posted 10/01/05

§ December 31st, 2012 § Filed under Uncategorized § 2 Comments

Be safe!

§ October 28th, 2012 § Filed under Uncategorized § 2 Comments

Self-Promotion

Categories

Archives

Blogroll

Pia Around Town

Recent Posts

Pages

Meta