Happy 90th Birthday!

This week, someone I've known for about 50 years turned 90.

Not long after my late mother in law and father in law moved into their new house, in a brand new small development in a then-rural suburb of New York City, a family moved next door:   J, his wife M, and their children.

J, M, and the family that became my inlaws stayed neighbors for some 50 years.  During that time, additional children were added, and their families grew.  

For both of the families, life wasn't always easy, but the friendship survived and grew deeper.  

Eventually, I married into one of the families and became friends with the other family.  I especially became close with M, who grew up in the same part of the Bronx as I did.  We went to different schools and are of different generations, but there was a lot we had in common.

In the 1990's, both my father in law and J passed away.  In widowhood, the friendship between my mother in law and M. grew even stronger.

Eventually, in 2015, my mother in law moved to be closer to two of her sons, but she and M. never lost that friendship.  My spouse and I visited M. several times, the last time in September of 2019.  We spent wonderful afternoons with her.  M. is a great cook and insisted on cooking for us.

M. remains healthy and active into her 90th year. She still drives. She's maintained her house with help, and still lives alone. You would never, ever know her age.  She texts and uses social media. We keep in touch with texts, in fact.  

M. remains so busy, with her far flung family, that we never did arrange a visit in 2021.  This year, we hope to finally see each other again when the weather moderates.

This past week, her family, which has grown quite large by now, gathered in California, where one of M's daughters lives, and celebrated her birthday.   Pictures, of course, were posted on social media.

Happy belated birthday, M.   You've aged with grace, and have a zest for life I admire.   Here are some virtual flowers for you.

Gone Too Soon

Some people teach us how to live; some teach us how to die. Some teach us both.  And some just die too soon.

I hadn't opened LinkedIn in almost a week, and when I did, the lead post on my wall was one from my college alma mater.  You may have heard of the tragic fire in the Bronx (a borough of New York City) that killed 17 people in an apartment house.  Well, one of them was a sophomore at that college, a young woman who was planning to become a social workers. Her name was Sera Janneh.

The rest of her family made it out; she got separated in the terrible smoke and zero visibility the tenants faced when they tried to flee. One of her sisters was in critical condition the last I knew, her lungs damaged from smoke inhalation.

Every parent's worst nightmare is losing a child   That's not how things are supposed to work. And some of these families lost several members, all from smoke inhalation.  Nightmarish.

Gone too soon.  Then, there's other tragedies.

Bonnie was a Facebook friend and fellow blogger.  She was from Hawaii and lived in Brooklyn.  An avid sea kayaker and lover of the ocean, she expanded my horizons and showed me a side of New York City that I had never experienced in my 21 years of growing up in the City.  She was also a participant in the boat flotilla of September 11, 2001 which transported stranded workers from lower Manhattan  back to New Jersey so they could get home. 

I enjoyed Bonnie's photos of Brooklyn and her kayaking adventures.  She belonged to a paddling club in Jamaica Bay and was a fearless kayaker.  Her last job was with Scholastic, which must have been like heaven to a book lover like her (and me!)

Bonnie touched many lives in many ways.  I had no idea how many lives until she started her final voyage Wednesday, January 12.

Social media has brought people together who otherwise never would have known each other.  I don't remember when I discovered Bonnie but I am grateful I had the opportunity to experience a small slice of her adventures.

Yes, another pair of my socks.

Bonnie battled breast cancer once before (in 2016).  In March, 2020 it returned, just as COVID-19 hit New York City like a bomb.  Bonnie knew that metastatic breast cancer wasn't curable, but the doctors at the Manhattan hospital where she was treated bought her as much time as they could under the circumstances.  Bonnie remained upbeat on the outside all through the last almost two years of her life.  In December, she started to post pictures and reminiscences of the past on her Facebook wall, but didn't reveal (at first) that she had started home hospice care.

On January 8, she posted her last picture - a view of a group of kayakers in front of her, as they embarked on a voyage.

Rest in peace, Sera (and the others who died in the Bronx fire) and Bonnie.

Fifty One Years Later

Sometimes life takes interesting turns.

In March of 1970, I was a senior in a high school in the Bronx (a borough of New York City).  In June of that year, I graduated, and matriculated that September into a commuter college about half a mile away. 

In October of 1970, I met my future husband, who was in one of my freshman classes.

Several months later I met his family (who did not live in the City), including his sister, who was then in elementary school.  She always enjoyed her visits to New York City, and eventually moved there.  Meanwhile, I, who never liked the city life, escaped as soon as I could.

Fast forward to 2021.

We are a year into a pandemic, the scope of which would have been hard to imagine in 1970.

Yesterday, I got a text from the woman who became my sister in law.  She attached a photo.  She told me she just got her first vaccine shot, and asked me to "guess where I got the vaccine".

The photo was of the front entrance of my high school. I recognized it right away. It hadn't changed much in 51 years except I think the color of the doors is different. I haven't been in the building since I graduated. I was supposed visit it last year for an alumni reunion but COVID took care of that.

We texted back and forth a little. She told me about walking from the subway stop, and passing by my college on the way to my high school. This neighborhood is nowhere near where she usually travels in the City, and she was there only because it was where appointments were available.  But, here she was, walking (so to speak) in my 51 year old footsteps.

Now, imagine someone came to me in March of 1970 and told me about these parts of my future.

Would I have believed them?

Nok Hockey and other Nostalgias

The present can be so painful, I just want to retreat into my memories sometimes.  No, not the violent memories of growing up in the 50's and 60's.  I want to go back to my playground days.

The other day, on Facebook, I saw one of these "do you remember?" pictures.  It was a picture of a nok hockey game.

At this point, either you are going to leap up and say "Yes!" or ask "what the heck was that?"  If it was the former, chances are you grew up in the Northeast United States.  Or maybe not, as my spouse (who grew up in a city just to the north of New York City, had never heard of it.)

Yes, nok hockey was a "thing".  In fact, it's still "a thing".  

From the company that introduced Nok Hockey in 1942. 

Nok hockey is basically a board, a puck, and two sticks.  Two players.  Nothing electric.  No special skills, unlike something like jumping rope (or, worse, Double Dutch). 

This is what playing it looks like.   We didn't have plastic hockey sticks, though.

In my 1950's youth, we went to the local playground (in my case, across the street from the housing project where I grew up in the Bronx) and asked if the nok hockey board was available for takeout.  Chances were it wasn't.  So we'd wait patiently.

Then, when we finally could get a board, we faced off. The rules were simple: drop the puck onto the center circle.  We would hit sticks together, chanting "Hockey One, Hockey Two, Hockey Three".  On three we would try to gain control of the puck. There are variations but we would take turns trying to hit the puck into the "goal".  

Playing it is all about angles. And once you can get into it, you could play for hours (except on the playground, because people were always waiting eagerly for you to finish.)

With all the pandemic shutdowns, I wonder how many modern families have discovered how much fun nok hockey is.  It's perfect for indoor play, unlike something like hopscotch or potsy, or the Indian Stapu.

It made me wonder how many games of the past have regained popularity during our pandemic, and how many will continue to be popular after it is over.

Do you have any childhood game playing memories you'd like to share?  I'd love you to comment below.  It might take your mind off what is happening today for just a few minutes.

Lilacs and Geraniums

When the lilacs bloom, I think of my mother, who passed away in 1965.  We did not have any lilacs in our yard.  In fact, we did not have a yard.  I grew up in a small apartment in a New York City housing project.

She loved a talcum powder called Lilacs and Roses.

I was fortunate to buy a house that had one lilac bush on one of my property borders.

Eventually, the white lilac of my other neighbor grew big enough that part of it hung over my property.

Several years ago, we planted a third lilac.  This was supposed to be yellow lilac - as you can see, it is not yellow, but no matter.  We love it, anyway.

Our house also came with a climbing rose that our one neighbor told us was possibly 50 years old, but it is now in rose heaven.  But we still have the lilac.

So, last week, I took some of these lilacs and did a little experiment in using kitty litter to dry lilacs so I can use them later in potpourri.  I also am drying some lilies of the valley which will be ready (if it works) later this week.

Once more, I let the scent of lilacs, bring me back, bring me back to the 1960's....

I escaped, and gradually made my way to a little house in an upstate New York village, free to pursue my life and my lilacs. 
Today would have been my mother's birthday.  She couldn't have lilacs but she grew beautiful geraniums.  Now, I grow geraniums in my garden, too.

I've been staring at the screen, wondering how to end this post.  Maybe I'll just end it here, and say, happy birthday in Heaven, Mom.

50th High School Reunion #blogboost

Yesterday, I received a "save the date" postcard for June of 2020.  This will be the weekend of my 50th high school reunion.

I've only been to one class reunion and it wasn't mine.  It was my husband's, and I'll blog about it later this week.

Strangely, for someone who graduated from a high school class that had more people than many peoples' high schools in total (or the town they grew up in!)  I am, as of right now, only in touch with three people I went to high school with. 

Will I go?  I don't plan to go to the dinner (which is in New York City, and with a dress, a hotel and the cost of the dinner, I've decided to pass on) but there is a Alumni Day at the high school the next day, and I may well go to that.  I have not been in the building since the day I graduated.


The high school I went to was the Bronx High School of Science, currently considered one of the 50 best in the United States. In a way, Bronx Science saved my life - if I hadn't passed the entrance exam, I would have gone to my local high school, which definitely was not one of the 50 best.  Or one of the safest.  In fact, it was closed down in 2008 (although, carved up into several small schools, high school students are still educated there.)

But enough times, I wondered how I ended up there. I'm not a "geek".  I'm not an intellectual heavyweight.  I'm just grateful that they admitted me.  Isn't it sad, to be afraid of going to your local high school due to crime and violence, even back then in the late 1960's?

No matter where you go to high school, one thing is for certain.  You remember yourself and your classmates as young people.   And then you go to a reunion.

To your shock, you realize you went to school with a roomful of senior citizens.

Where did the time go?

Day 20 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost

Place and Patience #AtoZChallenge

Today, I am blogging about two Places - the bookends of my life up to now, in a way.

My backyard is popping with spring.  Sometimes plants can literally pop up overnight, as these bloodroots can.

 Soon, they will be gone, replaced by other flowers and plants in the Parade of spring.

And there's my trillium.  I bought this plant five years ago. Trilliums, which produce one flower in early spring and then go dormant for the rest of the year, take years to be of blooming size.  One thing you need to grow trilliums is Patience.

The first three years there was no sign of a flower.    Last year, there was a flower bud but it never opened.  I figured "this is the year!"But spring 2019 had arrived, the plant wasn't coming up and I feared it had winter killed, just like  number of my other herbs and plants did.  It wasn't the harshest winter ever but something wasn't right for my garden.

So last night I walked in my yard after work and - there it was, leaves and flower bud at the ready!

Patience....

Which brings me to the other bookend of my life - my childhood neighborhood.

Not too many people can say that they can jump on You Tube and see lots of pictures of their childhood neighborhood.

I am one of those who can, and it's partially because I grew up near a train station in the Bronx (a borough of New York City).  Actually, make that three train stations.

First- a stop on what was once called the Pennsylvania Railroad, then became Penn Central, and finally MetroNorth.

Then, there was the Third Avenue El, which ceased to exist in 1973.  The tracks were torn down soon after but I grew up listening to the screeching of elevated trains rounding a curve.  That sound was not disruptive but, rather, soothing.  Although the train ceased operation in 1973 it remains forever in my memory.

The video above details the last train station which I used all through the first 21 years of my life, Gun Hill Road. If you look to the left about 0:25 of the video, you will see several tall buildings.  Those are part of the housing project where I grew up.

If you look at 2:32 of the above video you will get a glimpse of the neighborhood I grew up in through the windows of the train.

Another video from You Tube; one I used several years ago on my blog. This still is the Immaculate Conception Church.  I used to hang around this church (very beginning of the video) with friends. Sometimes, if there was a wedding, they would allow us to throw rice at the happy couple.

Many of the buildings in this video existed when I was growing up.  The neighborhood has changed greatly, but the buildings (in a way) remain the same.  Just much, much older.

I am amazed at the numbers of fans of trains who post videos on You Tube.  But to my surprise, there's even more.  I grew up across the street from a fire engine company.  They would have open houses and I can remember visiting the station as a child.  They even had a Dalmatian.

Their sirens, when they woke me up at night, reassured me.  They never bothered me at all.

So, imagine my surprise when I found videos of that fire station in action.   There are others but I liked some of the views of the fire station I remember from some 60 years ago.

A Pizza Parlor from my later childhood still exists, in a neighborhood that has changed so much. It started its downhill slide around 1968, perhaps a little earlier.  Many People are working to bring this Part of the Bronx back - people with love of Place, Plus Perseverance and Patience.

Thinking of growing up in the Bronx brings back so many memories and feelings - a Plethora of memories, perhaps.

Can you see pictures of your birthplace on You Tube?

"P" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme - Finding America through Photos.

Potsy and Playgrounds #AtoZChallenge

Memories of my childhood sometimes seem so fresh.  I can just turn inward, and my childhood growing up in the 50's and 60's in the Bronx (a borough of New York City) comes to life for me.

In those days, our parents (normally, a stay at home mother) encouraged us to stay outside whenever we were home from school.

There was no such thing as a helicopter parent.  It may have been a little easier for me, growing up in a city housing project which had a couple of small playgrounds in its design.  There was a larger playground across the street, Magenta Street to be exact.  It is called the Gun Hill Playground, and still exists today.

I never knew the origins of how Magenta Street was named, until I read this online:

"The naming of the color celebrated the victory of a battle in which an Italo-Franco alliance defeated the Austrians and helped to bring about a unified Italy. Prior to 1900, this Bronx neighborhood was inhabited by a small colony of French weavers as well as by a growing number of Italian immigrants. The street was named Magenta to signify the Italo-Franco unity that once characterized this portion of the Bronx."

When I looked at pictures of the Gun Hill Playground online, I was amazed to find a painted Potsy board.  We would have scorned something that official, preferring to draw a large board in chalk.

Potsy, in many parts of the United States, is called Hopscotch.  In New York City, it is called Potsy,and these are the rules.

Basically, the board had a double row of boxes, numbered from 1 to 10 (10 was a semi circle at the head of the rectangle.  The first player would take the "potsy" (a rock, or a penny, or something similar), throw it into the box numbered "1". You hopped into box 2, then 3, then 4, all on the same leg. When you reached 10, you reversed direction and hopped back.  If you touched any line or lost your balance, you were "out".  If you made it to the last box, you leaned over, still on one foot, picked up the potsy.  Now, you got to get back on two feet, as you threw the potsy into box "2"and repeated the process.

I'm surprised that I have balance problems as a young senior, as I played enough of this game on the sidewalks and playground of the Bronx.

Hopscotch is, or was, a universal game.  Do they still play it where you live?

"P" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Flowers #AtoZchallenge #SkywatchFriday

I never imagined I would be able to take pictures of the sky and post them on something called the "Internet", where people all over the world could view them?

April 2 Binghamton, New York

April is a time of new beginnings.  Soon, this tree, stark against a blue sky with clouds, will be budding out in its own form of flowers.  But today - rain and cold.   We are under a flood watch.

Besides #SkywatchFriday, which I encourage my blog readers to visit and see skies from all over the world, I am participating today in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. 

Today, our posts begin with the letter F.  My theme is "Traveling Through Time and Space."

As a young girl growing up in a small apartment in a housing project in the Bronx in the 50's and 60's, I wanted so much to be able to grow my own flowers.  I loved plants.  My Mom grew geraniums in a west window, and I wanted to be just like her.

One day, I saw a package of dwarf marigold seeds for sale in the local supermarket.  I asked my Mom to buy it for me, and she did.

I planted the seeds in a flower box she bought for me, with some potting soil, again from the store.  I had read about growing flowers from the World Book Encyclopedia my parents had sacrificed to purchase me - in those days, no Internet to conduct research on.

I'd love to say the plants germinated, grew, and flowered.  And indeed, in several days, they did germinate.  I watched, fascinated, as what looked like little loops came up.  The tiny baby plants straightened up, and then put out their first leaves.  They liked the window they were in.

They grew. Before my delighted eyes, the first blower buds appeared.  And then....

One day, I came home from school, to find the plants covered in what looked like spider webs.  Soon, it was apparent they were infested by some tiny insect.  I researched, and it was spider mites.

My Mom bought me some bug spray, but it didn't work.  I tried washing the plants daily.  It only worked temporarily.

I did get a few blooms, but, eventually, the plants died. (I know now that it is really hard to fight spider mites).

But the fire in me to grow flowers didn't die.  It stayed dormant, until, as a grownup, I finally had a plot of land to grow a flower garden on.  The rest, they say, is history.


Now, living in a small city in upstate New York, I want to share pictures of some flowers I took on Sunday.

Iris reticulata (I think).  Feel free to correct me.

White and purple striped crocus.

Snowdrops.

And, my very own crocus.

"F" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge as my memories allow me to travel through time and space.

Local Saturday - Loving, Remembering and Escaping

Fake news has struck again.  Or at least, bent-into-a-pretzel news.  Both left and right, I find that I am thinking once again of abandoning Facebook.  But, instead, I thought about what I did know to be true.  I decided to become serious for a few minutes today.

Virginia Welcome Center, I-81

But first, a picture.  Such a simple word.  Too bad it is in such short supply in our world, as we seem to veer closer and closer to war.

Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Our country remembered it by...oh, I am coming too close to becoming a political blog.  But someone on Twitter did not forget. 

What happens when the last of the Holocaust survivors die, I wonder?  

Today is the 31st anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

With two astronauts dying in the last month,  wonder if we in America will ever walk on the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else.  

So, I decided, with news overload to turn to other matters.  Perhaps it was a mistake.

Originally, I was going to blog today about the 81st birthday of actor Alan Alda, who, like me, is from the Bronx.  He is a good topic for a "Local Saturday", just one of many famous people from the Bronx.

M*A*S*H , a TV series Alda starred in, is considered one of the greatest shows of all time.

Here is a list of some of its best episodes.

But it is his after-M*A*S*H work he should be more noted for, and be continued to be noted for.


But then, yesterday, two actors died:  Mike Conners of Mannix fame, which was one of my spouse's favorite shows. 

And, Barbara Hale, perhaps most noted for playing the secretary of attorney Perry Mason, dead at 94. Along with Mary Tyler Moore and Noel Neill, Barbara Hale's Della Street character was a role model for me.

And then, this afternoon, I heard of the death, at age 77, of actor John Hurt.

So there is only one place where I can escape to.  My blog, which, in turn, leads me to a decision.

I am so close to becoming more political.  But I've resisted so far (well, mostly resisted - it gets harder and harder) because these times demand that we all speak out.  So, I may do just that, on one scheduled day of the week (perhaps Sunday).  I haven't made up my mind yet.

But, we also need a place to escape to.  And I believe, for many of my readers, my blog has become a few-minutes-of-the-day refuge.  We need that, too, just as much as we need those who speak out and put themselves on the line.

Which is why I've decided, for now, to keep trying to find the beauty in our world, and (mostly) stay away from politics.  I will try to concentrate on love, hoping that it will, in the end, trump hate.   I hope you will continue to join me, as my blog would not exist without you, my readers.

Thank you, every one.

Day 28 of #blogboost the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Remembering Home

Forty two years ago today, I spent my last evening as a resident of New York City.

I was born in Queens and grew up in the Bronx, both boroughs of New York City.  My neighborhood had rapidly changed (and not in a good way) during my teenaged years. I spent my last evening, as I did with so many late spring and summer nights, listening to gang members gathering to wile away the hours under my apartment building window while I dreamed of escape.

I wasn't the only one who dreamed of escape.

The Bronx holds many memories for me.  But it wasn't what I wanted.

I was never a big city person.  While everyone I grew up with (as far as I know) left the Bronx, some never left the city.  But I did.

Although I've been back to the city,  I've only returned to the Bronx a handful of times, most recently a quick drive-through in 2004 to show it to my then-teenaged son.

Every May 31, though, I think about my old childhood neighborhood.

Thanks to You Tube, I can be transported to my old elevated subway stop, and (starting about 2:36) see the housing project where I grew up. (It also amazes me people love these train videos.)

For all that my childhood neighborhood has changed since the late 1960's (and it has changed a lot) some of the old buildings are still there, and it makes my heart ache just a little to see them in this video. 

Even if you don't play the above video, you see a still of a church.  On weekends, I, with other neighborhood children, used to throw rice at some weddings (when they let us).  One of my cousins, in fact, was married in that church.

The funeral home pictured was there when I was growing up, as was the post office.

Now, living in upstate New York, I think of the green hills surrounding me every morning, and I know I made the right decision.  But, sometimes, the urge to visit the Bronx again comes back. 

One day, when things are safer, I may be back, listening to the rhythms of the #2 train, remembering the old Third Avenue El, and walking the streets of my project once again.


Or, it may just be in my dreams.  Sometimes, you can not go back.

X-Ray #AtoZChallenge

When I was ten years old, I would play outside after school in good weather if I didn't have too much homework.  (That's what we did before the Internet and video games.) In the fall of 1963, I was doing a lot of roller skating.

In 1963, roller skates were a heavy, clunky affair.  They were metal skates (four wheels each) that you locked onto your shoes (using a skate key) and away you rolled.

On a Friday afternoon in late October, I was skating with friends when suddenly I was on the ground.  I had tripped on a sidewalk crack.  Coming down, my right skate slammed down on my left leg, just above my ankle.

I couldn't get up. It hurt.  It hurt a lot.

I was on the grounds of the housing project in the Bronx where I grew up.  A friend ran to get help from the housing police.  Two policemen came, and, holding a nightstick between them, one policeman on each end, I was boosted up and carried to the elevator of my building.  They delivered me to our apartment, where my Mom was cooking dinner.

Medicine isn't what it was like 50 years ago.  In some ways, that's bad.  In other ways, it isn't.

My Mom called our family doctor and he came right over. (Doctors still made house calls in those days).  He examined the leg, declared I had a bad sprain in my ankle, taped it up, and instructed me to walk on it.

I walked on it all night, even after the leg became swollen.  The pain got even worse - so bad I can still remember it today.  But I was a dutiful little girl and did what I was told.  I didn't even try to wake my parents. 

In the morning, my parents took one look at my leg and took me to the doctor's office.  I ended up being sent to the hospital for x-rays.  They revealed I had fractured my leg in three places.   I was put in a heavy plaster of Paris cast, from just past the tips of my toes to the middle of my thigh.  Two months of being taught at home by a teacher sent by the district, missing a field trip to the UN and the game show Concentration, and no Halloween trick-or-treating that year followed.

And yes, my cast became covered with autographs and various words of wisdom scrawled in magic marker by the other neighborhood kids.

Thank heavens for those x-rays, which allowed the doctors to know what had happened.

I think of my childhood as being a museum piece.  Playing outside, the black rotary phone my Mom used to call the doctor, the doctor who made a house call, the lack of immediately ordering x-rays for me...it seems like something that happened long ago and far away. 

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of our Lives.

"X" day for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  Only two more days to go!

Winter Wonders - Win Your Own Movie Theatre!

Did you used to have a favorite movie theatre growing up?

I did.  This contest made me think back to my childhood, growing up in the Bronx (a borough of New York City) in the 1950's and 1960's.

Back in the 1950's and 1960's, instead of going to the local shopping mall and going into an cinema with multiple screens, you went to a local movie theatre.  There was one screen, and you got two pictures for your admission fee.

My parents were far from wealthy, and we rarely went to a movie.  But when we did, it was a big event. This is a picture of the local movie theatre in my childhood neighborhood in the Bronx.  Several blocks away was a bigger theatre.

But the best one of all was the Loew's Paradise.  I graduated from elementary and junior high school there.

Where I live, near Binghamton, New York, there are no more family theatres.  The remains of some, abandoned for years, exist, slowly crumbling.

So what better thing would there be to do on a cold winter's day in upstate New York than to sit down and write an essay so that I can own my very own movie theatre.

No, I'm not going to write that essay.  But I am so intrigued by this contest, I wanted to share it with my readers.  

I am not a cinema buff but perhaps one of my readers is.  And I know at least one of my readers lives in Maine. So..(disclaimer: I do not know these people, and I am only reporting something I saw online.  I am not at all connected with this contest or responsible for it in any way.)

To quote from the Temple Theatre website:

" The Temple Theatre is at the center of Market Square in historic downtown Houlton, Maine. The Temple building is over 6000 sq. ft. on each floor, built to last in 1918 of wood, steel, and brick as a proud architectural addition to Houlton.....

• The theatre and building are in fully operational condition.
• The theatre has run almost continuously since 1918. There is space and approved plans for expansion of theatre space.
• The Temple Theatre is the quintessential small town movie theatre. There is steady attendance and good community support for the theatre."

The new owner will also win $25,000.

 There is even a video on You Tube showing the theatre.

Houlton, Maine is a town of about 6,000 close to New Brunswick on the Canadian border.  At one time, it was rich due to its logging and potato farming industries.  Those times have passed.

I have to wonder about a town that still has a neighborhood movie theatre.  What an interesting town it must be.

Would you like to own a movie threatre? Do you remember local theatres?

A Charlotte Russe Memory

Can a food be lost?

Can a bakery be found again?

Saturday, I blogged about being invited to a 104th birthday party for my spouse's last living aunt.  She lives not that far from my childhood neighborhood in the Bronx.   In fact, I grew up about two and a half miles (four kilometers) from the restaurant where the party will be held.  It's in a part of Yonkers that is heavily Irish, and within walking distance of the Bronx border.

I haven't been to that restaurant in over two years, and the first time I ate there (for this aunt's 100th birthday) the strangest thing happened.  I couldn't resist walking after the 100th birthday party - I needed to stretch my legs.  I went out walking with my sister in law and my spouse.

As I walked down the street, I passed a bakery, an Italian bakery.  It had an old sign on it, a sign that may have dated from the 1960's.

Suddenly, something seemed so familiar.  I couldn't shake the feeling that I had been on this street long ago.

My mind took me back over 50 years, back to when many bakeries in the Bronx featured a special treat that is only made by one or two bakeries any more.  It was a street dessert called the Charlotte Russe.

I loved this special treat.

The Bronx Charlotte Russe was simple- a round piece of spongecake, with whipped cream and topped with a cherry.  You bought it in a push-up cup - you pushed it up from the bottom as you ate.  It was more of a cool weather delight.

I remember taking a bus with my mother to a place in the Northern Bronx where I got my hair cut, and she would visit her life insurance agent to make a monthly payment on a small life insurance policy.  Then, she would buy me a Charlotte Russe.

Yesterday, on Facebook, someone from the Bronx posted a picture of a Charlotte Russe.  I knew what it was right away.  Some things you never forget.

The Russe was sitting on a box from the Holtermanns Bakery in Staten Island.  So I went online, and, sure enough, Holtermanns still makes these gems of sweetness.  Although, perhaps, not for much longer, as the push up cups are becoming harder and harder to find.  And, it seems they don't always use the spongecake - they use pieces of pinwheels or other cakes that didn't sell.

But Staten Island is a long way from the restaurant where the 104th birthday party will be held.

So, perhaps before or after the party, I will wander into that Italian bakery with the old sign.  Who knows what I may find there - maybe even a missing piece of my childhood.

Do you have a favorite food that is no longer made?

Music Monday - On the Streets of the Bronx

I haven't discussed my childhood in the Bronx very much on my blog.  A couple of years, I wrote a memoir manuscript that I will try to return to one day, to start the hard and painful work of editing.

Suffice it to say that I spent my first 21 years in two different New York City housing projects - one in Queens for my first five months, and the remainder of that in a New York City housing project in the Bronx in a neighborhood called Williamsbridge, just off Gun Hill Road.

So what does that have to do with music?

A lot, if you are into hip hop music, because it was being born around me when I was busy trying to go to college and escape from that very same housing project.  It was born in a housing project some four miles from where I was growing up, not long before I left.

Hip hop is not a music that I get into that much, although there are some exceptions.

Today, I want to introduce you to some music by a man who now calls himself Afrika Bambaataa.

But this man, born Kevin Donovan in the Bronx in 1957, had taken a very different path at the time I was growing up.

At one time, this man was the warlord of a major gang called the Black Spades.  My neighborhood was part of their territory.  My memories of their presence are not happy ones.  But now, when I read about these men who are in their 50's and 60's, I see something much different than what I saw in the 1970's.

Something happened to the Kevin Donovan and the Black Spades as they transformed themselves from a powerful street gang to something else.

They entered into a peace treaty with other gangs. They became interested in social justice, and....in music.  If you enjoy hip hop music today, you owe a great debt of gratitude to Afrika Bambaataa and others of the former Black Spades.

This mainly happened after I left the Bronx for good in 1974, but it makes for some fascinating reading, if you are interested in the subject of what became (and still exists as) the Universal Zulu Nation.

 And if you aren't - there is the music, which will make you want to dance.

If you have about seven minutes, listen to the story of Yellow Benjie, of a different gang called the Ghetto Brothers -  I have read the graphic novel Ghetto Brother, and highly recommend it. (There's a twist to Yellow Benjie's life that I especially identified with.)

This is day two of NaBloPoMo - head on over and enjoy some other bloggers dedicated this month to daily blogging.

Sustainable Saturday-Aging in Grace

 As some of my readers know, my spouse and I are long distance caregivers for my mother in law, who is in her mid 80's and went through radiation treatment for cancer earlier this year.  We are also advocates for my spouse's youngest brother, who has a developmental disability called autism.  By choice, my mother in law has chosen to keep that son at home, and has refused other housing choices for him.

There is a movement in my country, the United States, called "aging in place".   The hope, for many aging people, is that they can remain in their homes, perhaps with some various modifications. And, part of this movement involves entire neighborhoods. Sometimes, as communities evolve, they become what is called Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities.

For example, this is the biggest Naturally Occuring Retirement Community in the United States.

This is Co-Op City, in the Bronx, one of the five boroughs of New York City.  When it opened in late 1968, many people I knew moved there - people raising families.  Now, those people are retired, and many are still there.  You can say that a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community is an organic expression of a true community, as people of all ages live together, and all of their needs are met.

My mother in law, miles away, has lived in her house for some 50 years.  During that time, it has gone from being in a semi-rural community (she lived near a chicken farm, right off a dirt road) to a suburb of New York City. 

Now she is a widow living on social security in a place where taxes are high, and food and other things are way more expensive than where we live in upstate New York. But, she doesn't have access to many of the services she would be eligible for if she just lived a couple of miles south of where she does live.  She's in a county that is still basically rural, and the services she needs just don't seem to be there. 

Her area is not in a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community.  She's struggled to keep her independence, but the house that seemed good for her and her family when she and her husband were raising several children is now a trap for her.  It is a split level, and her mobility continues to deteriorate.  She has knee issues, and her physical condition rules surgery out.  There are stairs everywhere. 

I certainly didn't take aging into consideration when my spouse and I bought our house.  We were in our 30's. I didn't yet have a bad back and arthritis in one knee.  We are fortunate, because we have everything we need on one floor except our washer and dryer - when we bought our house it was a ranch, and we added a second floor after our son was born.  And, we live in a community with more services for seniors than some other counties in New York State.

It could be better.  But it's a lot better than the community where my mother in law lives.

Yes, we all make decisions that seem right at the time, but times change.  We can all hope that we get the opportunity to Age with Grace. 

Soon, we, and her, are going to have to make some hard decisions.  The one piece of good news is that my spouse's application for guardianship of his brother in law is moving forward, and will be heard in court sometime in June.

As a result of the latest events, I may be rerunning some classic RamblinwithAM posts in the coming weeks.  I hope you enjoy these glimpses of material from the five years of this blog.

She Won on Jeopardy!

In the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I went to Manhattan with two of my high school/college friends, and watched a taping of a game show called Jeopardy!

The set looked a lot smaller than I had expected, but I had a good time, and I came away wanting a job in television. (No, I never got one.) The Jeopardy! I watched being taped, incidentally, was the original Jeopardy! of the 60's and 70's - with the host Art Fleming, immortalized in the above video.

For those younger than 40:  yes, there was an original Jeopardy! that didn't have today's ageless host, Alex Trebek.

For the benefit of those who don't live in the United States, where Jeopardy! is an institution, the game is easy to explain.  You choose from a game board that gives you answers.  You must guess the question.  

The person at the end of three rounds (called Jeopardy, Double Jeopardy and Final Jeopardy) with the most money wins.

It's a game of trivia, and families will gather together to play, shouting questions at the TV screen.

Being able to get onto the actual game as a contestant is difficult. Quite difficult.  Winning is even more difficult.  But one of my high school friends, Priscilla, did it and, this week, her show aired. (Full disclosure, Priscilla is a faithful reader of my blog.  However I can not promise that all faithful readers of my blog will succeed on Jeopardy!)

Priscilla facing a Daily Double Question

She won her first game, beating out her two opponents in Final Jeopardy! by being the only one to question a tough answer correctly.    One of them was a six game champion who is going to use some of her winnings to build a memorial to her late mother. 

The next night, Priscilla was on again.  Someone even blogged about the game.

I wish I could say she went on to win five more games.  But she didn't.  She came in third. She didn't get the Turtle Wax or the Rice-A-Roni.  But, unlike the man in the music video, she was not a complete loser.

What can you say?  Many, many people were cheering for her.

Priscilla and I have some things in common.  We're from the Bronx.  We went to the same high school.  We both grew up "in the Projects" (different ones).  We both escaped.  She's a successful businesswoman. We are both smart, funny people. (I hope I'm funny, anyway). 

She took the leap of faith that she could succeed on Jeopardy!

As far as I'm concerned, she did just that.
(And, in case you are asking, I am not planning to follow her.)

Have you ever been on a television show?

My NaNoWriMo Memoir - A Slice of the Bronx

NaNoWriMo 2013 is over.  In this fiction writing "contest", your goal is to write at least 50,000. words during the month of November.   The aim is just to put down words - the editing comes later.

For me, it seems the editing comes never.  I am not sure I will do anything with this work in progress, or, for that matter, my WIP of the year before.

This year, my second, I decided to write my memoir, or at least a manuscript that would eventually become my memoir.  The year before, I had done a fictional memoir. (Is there a common pattern here?).  It's working title was "An Insignificant Life".  You'd think a memoir would be easy - after all, it's non fiction.  It writes itself - right?

To that, I maturely respond "Hahahahahahaha".  In reality, I found out how hard memoir writing is, and I haven't even gotten to the hard part yet.

I fought distraction, major distraction, for the first two weeks.  I almost didn't make my 50,000 words.  I needed  a couple of days of epic, 3,000 plus words locking-myself-away efforts to get back on track. (My spouse having cataract surgery, and sleeping for several hours while I was home on a day off helped some with that.)

One of my faults personality quirks is having to research everything.  Just mention something, and off I am on a research mission.  So, instead of pouring out the words, there I was researching the facts of my life.  Did the Third Avenue El cease running in 1973, as I remembered?  (Yes). Was it true that the land where the housing project in the Bronx I grew up in was, before the project was built, occupied by a goat farm? (Possibly).

One advantage of growing up in a big city is that you may find a lot of online resources. Thus, to my delight, I found this short, modern video showing a piece of the neighborhood I grew up in, and what it looks like today.   It shows a lot of landmarks of my youth. The post office, the funeral home, the fire station, the housing project, a church, were all there when I moved to that neighborhood in 1953.

If you don't watch the video, what you see above is a picture of a church, the Immaculate Conception Church, built in 1925. This building, to my delight, even has an article on Wikipedia.  It was one of the landmarks of my youth.  I, along with other neighborhood youth, used to throw rice at weddings.   We went to the annual bazaar.  I learned to ride a bicycle in the parking lot.

So many memories - some good, some not so good.

I invite you to watch the video.  It will give you a short view of a slice of the Bronx.  This is not one of New York City's wealthier neighborhoods, but it is important to note that New York City is a city of people, a city of neighborhoods, and not just a bunch of art museums, fancy stores and skyscrapers.

It was nice having some of this information online - but, in other ways, I wish I hadn't been so distracted.

Have you ever tried to write a memoir?

Through the Eyes of a Tourist

Now, this is the kind of blog that I would have loved to have written if I had never moved out of New York City - assuming that
a.  I had been interested in architecture 40 some years ago, and
b.  I had a cell phone camera.

If you check out the "Scouting New York Guide" on the above blog, you will find an awesome (and I don't use that word lightly) guide for anyone who plans to visit New York City.  Or, better yet, already lives there. 

Because something strange happens when you live in a place - many times you just don't notice it.  If you live in New York City, well - you have to make a living, raise your children, make dinner and file your taxes.  Inbetween all of those things, are you running around with a camera and visiting top New York City attractions?

I would bet money that you aren't. 

One of the best things that ever happened to me was leaving New York City.  Because now, I look at "the City" through the eyes of a tourist.  I'm "that person" who you curse at on the Brooklyn Bridge because I am blocking your way as you walk or bike the bridge for the 4,509th time.  Meantime, it's my first time out, and I have my camera out.  (One day I should post some of those pictures, taken several years ago.)

Or, I'm the idiot stopping on Madison Avenue to take a picture of this building. I looked it up when I got home and this is the Carlton Hotel, Madison Avenue and E. 29th Street, built in the Beaux-Arts style, and restored in 2008.

But if I lived in New York City and worked in the area (this is four blocks from the Empire State Building), I'd probably be rushing past it every day, not giving it another thought.

So, I was especially thrilled when one of my high school friends shared a link on Facebook, from that same Scouting NY blog, about the lobbies of Bronx apartment buildings.

The Bronx is one borough that doesn't get much respect - but I spent 21 years in the Bronx, and I spent many happy hours on the Grand Concourse as a child.  My years in the Bronx did not end happily, however, and if I ever complete my "chicken memoir", you will find out why.

But still...reading about the places I once knew makes my heart beat fast. 

Have you ever become a tourist in your own home town?

Happy Birthday to a "Lost Friend"

Somewhere out there is a friend from my childhood I've had no contact with since right around the time we started high school.  Today would be her birthday.

Although we spent a lot of time together as children, we grew apart in what is now called the pre teen years.  We spent a lot of time playing Barbie and Ken.  I had a Barbie, she had a Ken.  Oh, if only I had that Barbie now, it probably is worth a bunch of money.  It must have been purchased in the first couple of years after Barbies came out.  It had blonde hair in an early 60's a la Mad Men hairstyle, and a small wardrobe including a red pencil skirt and a (my pride and joy) wedding gown.  Its arms and legs would not bend (I so wished they would be able to) and its feet were shaped to only accept high heeled shoes. 

Her Ken had brown hair, plastic.  Its arms and legs didn't bend either.  We would take our dolls on "dates".  My Barbie was her Ken's fiancee.

We did other things too, not just playing with Barbies.  I loved being in her apartment, with the plastic covered furniture.  Everything was so clean.  There was a reason for that.

Her mother had a heart condition and was ill.  She needed to be on oxygen.  Yet, she was very kind to me and after my mother died, I would sometimes go down to her apartment (we lived in the same apartment building) and she would feed me breakfast. Then, my friend and I would walk to junior high together.

When we had our junior high graduation, we went to a beauty parlor early in the morning and had our hair done together.  The graduation was at the Loews Paradise in the Bronx, one of the most beautiful movie theatres of all time.  Of course, at that time we never realized what a treasure we had in our own back yards (so to speak - we had no back yards in our apartment building.)  (My high school graduation was there, too.)

Why did we grow apart?  It's complicated but....in the City there were very few options if you lived in a school district that had terrible schools.  Our local high school (now closed, in its original form, broken up into several smaller schools inside the building) was Evander Childs.  At one time it was considered an excellent school.  By the mid 60's, one did not aspire to go there (later it became even worse, which is why it was finally closed.  Consider this:  both the junior high and high school I went to were closed down because they were so terrible.)  I escaped that urban blight of a high school by passing an exam and being accepted to a high school called the Bronx High School of Science. 

My friend?  She didn't, and went to Evander Childs.

At any rate, I have not seen her in about 40 years.

Whereever you are, friend of my childhood, I hope you've had a good life.  I've looked for you on Facebook without success.  So I hope you are alive and well.  Happy birthday.  Maybe one day we'll find each other, and maybe we'll find we have something to connect us once again.  I hope so.