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memories

New York, Day 1, Part 1

So here’s the plan. We’re spending two days in New York City, so I’m breaking this up for the site. This post is about today, the first day. Tomorrow’s will, obviously, be about tomorrow.

While we’re spending Tuesday and Wednesday in New York City, I’m rationing out the rest of the pictures and details to get the site to the weekend. Everybody got that? Can someone explain it to me?

The sign at the train station. The Yankee’s dad dropped us off. We were running behind, but not so much as other people, apparently.

We made it into the city with no trouble. Got off at Grand Central, showed Wendy around the station, remember, she’s never been to New York. We walk outside and … these are the first four pictures I took of her and sent home to her mother. The top picture is the first thing she saw in Manhattan. Go figure.

If you’re curious, I created that little image with a handy little free app called Diptic. I enjoy it very much.

Anyway, one of the things Wendy had on her list was to see the Statue of Liberty, of course. So we hopped a bus and walked up to the Circle Line to take the tour.

This was my fourth trip in front of the statue, now, and each time I (still) have this little feeling of surprise at the thought of being there. There are a lot of places and things in the world that I admire from afar without having ever seriously considered the opportunity to see, but here’s one, and here we are.

The Yankee takes a picture. I bought those rings from Wendy’s father. Small world, gemologically speaking.

Some nice stranger took this picture for us. We gave them great shots in return. Do you ever wonder if those people wonder about you? How is that guy that took my photo just after the first of the year? But I digress.

From the East River, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in one picture. Also, a lot of other buildings thrown in for scale.

Still looks a little odd at the World Trade Center, but there’s a distinct change taking place here. The new construction is slated to be open in time for the 10th anniversary later this year — 10 years, difficult to believe. The first time I took the Circle Line (five years ago!) the guide spoke at great length, and with poignant eloquence, about September 11th and the loss and the first responders and about St. Peter’s, a local church with pews now scarred where those rescuers took breaks from their horrible task. Today the guide talks about what is coming to the site, and what has been gained in that part of the city and that was nice to hear.

She’s breaking the law.

And there was a lot more to the day. You’ll see more pictures of it on Thursday. (Tomorrow will be about tomorrow, naturally.) We caught one of the new trains out and headed back to Connecticut for the evening. The new trains are nice. They’ll feel out-dated before the end of the year, but still better than the brown on brown aesthetic of the old trains.

Here’s a brief interview I conducted with Wendy on the small town girl’s first day in the big city.

journalism / links / memories / Tuesday — Comments Off
24
May 11

Popular media publication

Just discovered I had a piece run in the Smithsonian Magazine. Sure, it was a submit-your-own kind of thing, but that hardly matters, does it? But I’ll take it and stick it next to “Published by ESPN and “appeared in almost every major broadcast market” as small professional successes.

Stumbled into each one of them. The major market work happened because I was at the scene of something interesting — the first victims of the DC snipers (John Allen Muhammad was executed 18 months ago), bad storms, my good timing to be in D.C. when the Iraq War started, sports scandals (Chris Porter is in trouble again) and so on. Just bumped into Jim Caple at the ballpark, which turned into a nice little photo gallery for ESPN, piggybacked on a nice package I did on Rickwood for al.com. I wrote the Smithsonian thing when I should have been studying.

See, kids? Procrastination can be good. So is timing.

In other news: I’m still sore from where standing water beat me up this weekend. Sometimes I feel a little bit better, and then other times I am less than ideal. This will take some time, it seems.

I’m not complaining, mind you. I have been perfecting that story, though: Did I tell you about the time my wife beat me up? She’s strong.

Or: Did I tell you about the time I leapt from a plane, thwarted three ninjas mid-air, lost my chute and landed in a convenient lake, cartwheeling to a halt with a bruised up body? Those ninjas weren’t nearly as strong as my lovely bride. (Sometimes we must suffer for our art.)

If you see me moving a bit slowly the next few days, you’ll know why.

Auburn / cycling / memories / Thursday — Comments Off
19
May 11

Oh, hello, Summer

Road around the better part of town today. It isn’t the largest city, by sprawl, but it is big enough when you’re on a bike. There is a sense of accomplishment, though, when you pass those city limit signs and you aren’t in a car.

Most interesting, to me, was when physiology finally kicked in. I haven’t been eating a lot this week for whatever reason. My medical diagnosis: I go through phases. (I’m not a medical doctor, clearly.) Seeing, though, that I am the person who’s appetite goes nuts upon extra exertion, I was surprised to find I wasn’t eating the cabinets off the walls to get to the food inside. So it became an interesting game this week: How long will this last?

And it lasted until I had about 13 miles and lots of hills left to go on my route today. There just wasn’t much more energy for my body to offer. But I pushed through, best I could, proud I went through another city limits sign, even if my route weaved me through the towns in such a way that put me back and forth between them. Who needs a cold glass or reality when “Oh look! You’ve changed cities again!”

This took a few minutes.

Random photographic interlude:

Saw this downtown the other day. This is in front of Auburn Art, another one of the downtown storefronts that has been turned into an extensive gift shop, hawking memorabilia where the authentic thing once stood. The little sign here is evocative of a bygone era, and that era was once inside those doors. Time marches on, only the nostalgic are looking for the past in handsomely framed portraits and paintings — which can all be found inside if you have sufficient credit!

Both the historic Toomer’s Drugstore and Auburn Hardware have morphed into a similar fate, more boutique and peddling more trinkets than their names would suggest. We can sell the ethos, but in another generation will the trinkets be of bygone gift shops themselves?

Tonight I … vacuumed. Can you tell I have a book report to write? Some habits never die. I have a heavy tome on two-and-a-half centuries of media to consider and write about within the next week. Naturally I choose to finish the laundry and otherwise make the place look a bit more respectable.

Also, tomorrow, I pick up my best girl from the airport!

Auburn / cycling / iPhone / memories / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
May 11

Warmer and just as perfect in every way

Nice ride on this sunny, warm morning. Down the hill that is daring to wreck me. I hit a big bump there this morning I hadn’t discovered before. It was so big, and the speed so great that I swerved and wobbled the rest of the way down the path. And this is how I know I’ll never be a good bike rider: the speed I reach on this downhill is what the best bikers in the world do when they are simply pedaling hard.

So there’s that. Up the subsequent follow-up hill, through the stores of temptations — the cupcake boutique, the ice cream shop, the donut factory and more. I meandered back toward campus, turning by the old dorm that is now an apartment complex and work my way into a road full of traffic, including an intersection where I almost became a hood ornament. And then back to the quieter roads, past a golf course and the airport, onto another big road and then down the slow, gentle hill that means you’re almost home. There’s only one more big stretch after this, and that’s where a truck decided to get as close to me as possible and honk his horn. I passed him later and it was tempting to return the favor, but I didn’t. He was in a big truck, I was on a carbon frame.

Somewhere midway through the ride I challenged two guys on Harleys to a race. They just laaaughed.

One day I’m going to do a video of all of this. Nothing like a little multimedia humility as you work your way through the gears.

Went to Niffer’s tonight, because I wanted steak fries. I was going to grill, but I had no charcoal. The realization of which also made me think Grilling for one is silly. I’d watched an episode of The Pacific last night and at one point a Marine gets a little reprieve from the horrors of island fighting and goes back to a hospital and is talking with a psychiatrist. There are fries. The Marine picks one up with a curiosity and amazement that turned into this bemused expression “I just saw all of the things I saw. Here’s a fry.”

Whenever a food is reduced and elevated like that, I figure you have to seek it out. So I wanted steak fries and Niffer’s provides. The waiter took my order — and I am the guy that orders without need of menu, so this is easy on him — and disappeared. A young lady brought my food. Another waiter offered me a refill. My guy was gone until it was time for the check. Behind the pole, above, you can see his arm. He was complaining of having less than $200 of sales for the night. “How is that even possible?” Oh I have an idea.

But I enjoy Niffer’s, this guy aside. It is the town’s quirky decor, with cutesy names on the straightforward menu place. It is one of the remaining locally authentic places found on the ever-shrinking list of “Places where we hung out when I was in school.” They are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year. I’ve ordered pretty much the same thing every time. Their first menu is hanging on the wall. That sandwich would have cost me about four bucks in 1991.

I suppose my first visit there was 15 years ago. Keely, the owner, was on the floor then as she still is now. Seldom is the place not hopping. Tonight was one of those nights, but I got there late, on a Wednesday and the university is between semesters. She comes to visit our table every so often. She doesn’t know me from anyone, but every so often she brings free food with her. Not much has changed about her place in most of that time.

Towns change. Businesses thrive and fail. People retire or get bought out or the rent gets too high or whatever. Graffiti is painted over. New people come and institutionalize their memories as being The Memory of how it should all be just so. You can’t begrudge them that, but you’d like it if a few more things had remained, all the same.

Learned the magazine to which I submitted an article last night is going to run another essay I wrote earlier this year. It actually relates to the idea above, which is both coincidental and sad. Not every part of my day is like that, I promise. Re-reading the thing, though, I cringed at a few points and beamed with pride at a few others. I wrote that. It is a running goal, write something with sentiment that doesn’t become maudlin.

family / iPhone / memories / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
26
Apr 11

Picture day (Show and tell)

This weekend my grandmother was talking to The Yankee about how she used to decorate her trees for the grandkids at Easter. You see it every now and then still, but when we were young this became the colorful yard decor of spring. My grandmother strung plastic eggs through her giant show trees on colorful strands of yarn.

She invented this decoration. Ask her, she’ll tell you.

Anyway. My grandmother went on the search for photographs to complete the story. Before my grandmother’s birthday dinner I looked through a few of the pictures myself, which is how I ran across this one.

These are my great-grandparents. The back of the photograph said it was their 60th anniversary, which would put this snapshot in early 2000. He died just under two years later. She died earlier this year. He was a farmer, she was a homemaker. I’ve written about them here from time to time, so I’ll try not to repeat myself. In sum, they were sweet, lovely, kind, gentle, Christian people. I miss them a lot.

Just to put all the pictures from around the site in one post …

I found this picture of them last Christmas at my aunt and uncle’s home. This would have been their youngest grandchild, if I am not mistaken:

This one is on the wall at their home. My great-grandfather was going off to Europe as a medic. The little boy is my grandfather.

As far as we know this is the last picture of the two of them together. We buried them each with a print.

(None of these are particularly sharp, obviously. With the exception of the last photograph they are all cell phone pictures of a print. The last picture is an upsized version of a digital image that’s been floating on my hard drive for a decade.)