The Trip Back in Distance and Time.
You may be wondering what does this have to do with an Arizona blog? Read on and you will find out. I returned to New York for my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary. Today is Day One, September 29th.
I'll leave out the details about leaving etc. I will eventually post this on my blog, Varietyviews.Well, I arrived in Newark Airport and of course the first thing that struck me were the crowds. Tucson is spread out, so you don't have that. There is a sense of space there.I left the Northeastern United States to drive to Tucson on my move May 18, 2003. The trip took five days. Flying back in a matter of hours is so different. It's familiar. I knew where I was going. It isn't "home" anymore. I took a familiar New Jersey Transit bus to Penn Station, Newark and got on the PATH train (Port Authority Trans Hudson). This is a subway system that goes from Newark to Manhattan.A little history. When there were competing railroads, for a long time the old Pennsylvania Railroad wasn't allowed to go into Manhattan. Cornelius Vanderbilt owned the New York Central and had the New York State Legislature in his pocket. The PATH is run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and is the outgrowth of that.The lower Manhattan PATH station used to be under, (you guessed it), the World Trade Center. A new station was thrown up quickly next to Ground Zero. The train comes outside and you look up at the skyscrapers. It was spooky, especially in the twilight. I got in the subway in the heat in the humidity. The subway has old stale air, your grandfathers air, my father calls it. I saw all the folks packed together in their business suits and thought, I don't miss this.Nothing else happened. It is Midnight here. My parents are watching the late local news. I already miss my cacti.:-(
Friday September 30th.
The Metropolitan was nice. They had a nice exhibit on Prague (which I've been to and one on seances and funky 19th Century Pictures).
I now realize my time in Tucson has changed me. My easygoingness doesn't work here. It was strange. It was like looking at everything through a one way mirror, even though I grew up here.
It is still the 30th. I had to go back out on the subway with my mother to Penn Station to get my cousins. (They flew in from San Antonio to Islip which is 50 miles East of New York. One of my sisters lives near there, so she picked them up at the airport and drove them to the Long Island Rail Road Station. Then it's an hour rail trip to Penn Station).
So it has been a longer night than expected.
Tomorrow, I am not going anywhere. It is my parents party.
October 1st. My parents party was held on the building rooftop overlooking New York Harbor. There were 80 guests. I made up with my aunt and cousins after twenty years. A good day. (My fathers sister and her kids).
That night, I had an interesting anthropological and sociological situation. I had to escort my mothers cousins to my cousins sisters house. My cousin Susan married and became a Hasidic Jew. They live a fifteen minute subway ride away further into Brooklyn. It's a neighborhood called Crown Heights. My mother grew up three blocks further East on Union Street. The Hasidic sect that lives there is the Lubuvitch sect (the largest one). They went to Crown Heights from Russia. Secular Jews haven't lived in the neighborhood for decades. The Hasids share the neighborhood in an uneasy peace with blacks. (There was a race riot in the neighborhood in 1991). My cousin Susan adores me, though to be a wiseguy I get her going. I dated a young lady from Trinidad in high school (my first girlfriend). Crown Heights has the West Indian Carnival every Labor Day. (Labor Day is the first Monday in September in the U.S.). The Hasidic men stand in from of the main synagogue at Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue, daring the million plus crowd to look at them. The Carnival is a mixed affair with folks coming from all over the city.
It was Saturday night, so my cousins husband was in synagogue. It was just her and her daughter. The Lubuvitch let the women do more "worldly" things. I had to laugh. My Alabama raised cousin now has a thick Brooklyn accent. She went on and on about the "schvartzes" and how luckily more Jews are moving in the neighborhood and running those animals out. My other cousins and I listened in stony silence. My cousin Yona saw visiting Susan as a duty she had to perform. Their lives are so different...Yona is glamorous. She will be 65 yrs. old tomorrow. Her husband Tom was a P.O.W. in Vietnam and career U.S. Air Force. Susan is an uptight woman who married this Hasid and got into this.
I know the neighborhood as we headed the two blocks back to the Nostrand Avenue train station in the Brooklyn twighlight. If anything, the local blacks took a look at my 6'4" broad shouldered cousin Tom and at me and cleared a path for us.
I was glad to do it for my cousins, but it was a strange night.
Today was the last day of the New York Mets baseball season. I went with my childhood friend. We went to Chinatown to a favorite Dim Sum place then to Little Italy for Cannolis and Coffee. Then back on the subway to Queens and Shea Stadium. It was the last game as a Met for one of their greatest players, catcher Mike Piazza. (I played catcher, so I understand it all too well). The Mets were destroyed by the Colorado Rockies 11-3. I was teasing my friend that I would cheer for the Rockies, because they have their Spring Training in Tucson. (I can walk to where the Rockies play).
Rode back on the Subway with a new New York City High School teacher and two Danish women. The Danes were escorting exchange students in the teachers high school. I was making contacts (which is why a friend in Tucson thinks I should run for office).
Went back to my friends house and watched his train videos shot in England in May. Came home and had leftovers. I hope to see my friend Rita tomorrow.
Monday October 3rd
Well, I went off to meet Rita. She always looks good. Some of you saw the site I posted from Bill Clintons latest venture about improving the world. She's the one who was a facilitator for that. We sat in Cafe Reggio in Greenwich Village. Nice time catching up. I am trying to come up with marketing ideas for her consulting.
Now I am back at my parents. Tomorrow, I get to go see my sisters kitchen...
Tuesday October 4th
Well, I went to see my sisters kitchen. It is still being worked on. My father is a Professor at Pratt Institute. That is in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Fort Greene is just East of where I grew up. (Everything in Brooklyn is East of where I grew up).
Recently, Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News was escorted by the historian David McCullogh on camera through parts of Brooklyn. McCullogh just wrote a book called 1776, about the decisive Battle of Long Island in the American Revolution. They covered three spots in Brooklyn:
Brooklyn Heights.
Greenwood Cemetery.
Fort Greene Park.
Brooklyn Heights is the point from which Washington just escaped General Howe's army and rowed to Manhattan. Howe almost trapped Washington, thus ending the American Revolution there. Greenwood Cemetery is the burial place for many prominent Americans. Fort Greene Park has a monument dedicated to American soldiers who died on British Prison ships in New York Harbor. Allegedly bones of some of these men are under the monument. The other famous resident of Fort Greene was the filmmaker, Spike Lee (a childhood friend, but I can't get you a movie part. I haven't spoken with him in 30 years).
Anyway, Fort Greene has made European tour sites and we passed a bar that said "English Premier Football every Saturday." A Gray Line tour bus passed at one point, a double decker open on the top and packed in the warm sunny weather.
We saw sisters kitchen then went to lunch across the street from a friend on Vanderbilt Avenue. The restaurant is a wonderful new Italian place called Grizellas. I highly recommend it. The friends place is painted purple and now has a plaque on it that says "Purple Palace." We didn't have time to stop. We went to Target instead. It was funny watching my sixteen year old niece who is lazy fill out an online job appllication. Her need of spending money overcame her laziness.
As much fun as my parents party was and seeing people was, I am glad to be going home. Many things had changed and I have changed. It is familiar in many ways, but it is not my home. I will also admit there is a bit of arrogance. In Tucson, I have my hiking and my activities. In New York, I melt into the woodwork. (My body is also melting with the humidity, but that is a whole other matter). I look forward to the flight home and seeing my cats etc.
I was really homesick from the moment I took off on September 29th from Tucson Intl Airport.
Can't wait to get home.
I returned home on October 5th. I saw saguaro from the plane and a tear formed in the corner of my eye. New York is where I was raised. Tucson is my home.
posted by CactusCorner at 11:55 PM
|
0 comments
