Wednesday, September 25, 2002

A fine blog called Brooklyn Memories inspired me to jot down some of my own. Here is the first part. Part 1. Brooklyn Memories There were the Stoop, the Block, the Park, and later the outermost Streets - Flatbush Highway, Avenue U. My world was circumscribed by these simple boundaries of time and place - my neighborhood. Brooklyn, 1950. As good a time as any to be born. There was a certain tenor of simplicity to those times; the war was over, good and evil had been starkly defined, the moral compass was unambivalent. In that very southern tip of Brooklyn, a settled middle-class quality prevailed, soothing, quiet, a gentle peace only marred by the occasional stereotypical bully. My grandmother Dora and grandfather Herman lived down the block, at 2121 East 35th Street. For a while Dora had a tiny dress shop of sorts in the basement apartment downstairs. We lived at 2103, second house from the corner in a block of red brick row houses all connected, and with a front porch that was my cowboy fort and lookout onto the greater world. Neighbors had metal boxes with lids on their porches, for the home delivery of bottles of seltzer water or milk. The mailman would go down the block, and rather than go up and down the steeps to every house, would just clamber from porch to porch. I would crouch in wait by the door slot, and when he came to our door and opened the slot to push the mail through, I would snatch it from his hands. Lord knows what he thought. Grandma doted on my little brother and I, always bring us Chicklets gum and treats from the corner candy store. I have an early memory of sitting on the floor of her bedroom, with a round tin of costume jewelry of many hues. I was entranced by the sparkling light reflecting off of the facets of the brooches and pins. Was there a particular flavor to growing up in Brooklyn that distinguishes it from say, Manhattan, Kansas, or Snyder, Texas, or Columbus Ohio? We did not farm, hunt, chase rabbits or grow chickens. Our backyard was small and narrow. The sidewalks were our domain, the lines in them serving as markers for innumerable ball games. The alleys or side walls of candy stores served as the backdrop for endless games of Chinese Handball. I remember the sound of the pavement grinding under the metal wheels of my skates. They were ineffectively tightened with a large metal key, and were always falling off of my Keds sneakers. The pavement reflected the summer heat, or became cold under the winter snow and ice. It glistened magically through the lens of my first magnifying glass, ants and specks of quartz looming large through the glass. Pavement, alleys, streets marked my terrain. There is a debate in my family that has not been resolved. I distinctly remember the last remnant of a bygone era, the trucks or wagons of scissor sharpeners and junk dealers slowly moving down the street, cowbells clanging. The question is this: were they horse drawn, as I seem to think, or just trucks? I remember wondering where on earth the stables were.....Maybe the junk dealers were horse drawn, and the scissor sharpeners used trucks, and we are both right. But of course there were the little white Good Humor trucks with their jingling bells, as well as the carnival ride trucks that sold rides for a nickle. Our house had a brick stoop going up to the porch and first floor. With a good Spaldeen ball (25 cents at the corner store), or the less expensive (15 cents) but less lively pastel colored ball, I spent many the long hour throwing it against the stoop and catching the rebound. I am sure I was improving my eye-hand coordination, a skill necessary for the social survival of Brooklyn youngsters. There was a clarity to the air, a fresh scrubbed smell; after all we were just a short hop from the ocean, on the other side of the marsh by Avenue U. I remember hearing the horns of the ships at night or early morning, and that unmistakable crying sound of the occasional seagull overhead. A special treat was to sit on the front of my father[base ']s bicycle, in a little black metal seat mounted to the frame, as they rode on the Boardwalk at Coney Island on Sunday mornings. The best part was the cool sea air, and then our lunch of french fries and hot dogs at Nathan[base ']s. I looked longingly at the little mechanized horse rides at SteepleChase Park, and fruitlessly begged my parents to let me ride them. I never did go into SteepleChase, and it closed for good in 1964. I was a voracious reader, even at an early age. My mother had enrolled me in some sort of book club, where I picked out and received paperback books from a catalogue. My imagination opened and blossomed to the tune to the classics -Treasure Island, House of the Seven Gables, Last of the Mohicans, Gulliver[base ']s Travels, and others. I used to read late at night by the light of the corner street lamp shining through my window on the second floor. I felt relatively safe, within the boundaries of my world. The urban environment of Brooklyn sheltered my early years, and was a steady counterpoint to the rich and inward world of my own mind. 10:08:11 PM

	Friday, September 13, 2002

This was written several years ago, as part of a chronicle of motorcycle journeys with my alter-ego Joey-The-Kid. He is quite a character. Brave Helios, wake up your steeds, Bring the warmth the countryside needs. -Moody Blues Short trips just don't cut it. The rhythm and flow which inevitably develops during a long journey eludes me on these short jaunts. My month has been an assortment of ridiculous journeys; a quick dash or two to Madrid, or Taos, or a day spent learning Motocross with Motocross Dave. (If an aging street rider wants to learn about a heck-of-a-workout, try motorcross sometime, it[base ']s great for adding to your collection of assorted aches, pains, and stiff muscles). Partly it is the weather; April in New Mexico boasts a collection of seasons as schizophrenic you'll find anywhere. It gives new meaning to the word fickle, snowing one minute, balmy as a spring day the next, and all the while the wind is ready to tear your head off given half a chance. Last Saturday Lightning Girl and I mounted RavenStar and headed South, away from the insane pressures of life in Santa Fe. We had a day to flee the grind. We rolled through Ribera, the river valley not yet green, and then Villanueva where we stopped and guzzled mineral water and peanuts. Sitting on the bench in the sun outside the general store, we gazed at the little white Spanish church, quiet and clean in the stillness. We strolled the dusty lanes of old adobe, and pretended we were in Old Mexico. Later we rode through Encino, then paralleled the railroad tracks of the Santa Fe, heading west. Out here there is not much of anything, just miles of empy road and limitless sky. No people, no cars, a little town or two - Estancia, Tajiique, Chilili, Escobosa, Las Tiejeras, names far fairer than the reality. RavenStar just seemed to run smoother and smoother, we were all happy to be out, the day a heady wine, tiring but perfectly fulfilling, 275 miles of longed-for solitude. Due to irrevocable, incontrovertible, and irreconcilable considerations, I can't be irresponsible and take the week or so off that I desperately need to re-enter my motorcycle mythology in a proper fashion. Hopefully when Mercury and Mars go out of retrograde (May 7) things will open up and start flowing again. I am reminded of my long-ago college days, when my drug of choice was Mescaline. It had the unique property, once the effects began to be felt, of turning the world into a magical, crystal domain, a Brigadoon on the horizon, advancing closer and closer until it was right in front of you, and then you were fully immersed in the wonder of things-as-they-really-are. Your ego gently dissolved as you played in the timeless, eternal joy of the Tao. And of course, as the effects wore off many hours later, you could only helplessly watch as these geometrical, enchanted realms of wonder slowly receded away from you into the horizon, leaving you stranded once again in the illusions of mundane reality. In such a fashion my motorcycle mythology is approaching on the horizon once again, in cycle with the seasons. I can see it, almost feel it, but it is yet just out of my grasp. Joey-the-Kid is waiting for me just a little further down the road, on the other side of the valley, in the gulches of old town Bisbee and in the back streets of the mining town of Silverton, high up in the Colorado Rockies. He is waiting in a blaze of sunset over the western hills of Socorro and Magdalena, and he is riding the trails besides the Rio Grande. He is one with his life, and he is standing in grace and beauty. If you see him, tell him to wait for me. I'll be along. 1:36:35 PM

	Tuesday, August 6, 2002

This radio stuff is harder than I thought. So for now, I am taking the easy way out, and posting the story, (it is short enough) here. When I can find my photos, I will add one later. So here it goes, the title of the last post was supposed to be St. David Are You Tired of Your Little Iron Box Yet? "8/4/02; 10:16:19 PM" Sept. 23, 2000 The wind is blowing the grass, hard, in the Holy Field of St. David. We are not in the big Abbey where my spirit felt so stifled, hemmed in by the hollow spaces of vaulted stone. The air was thick there - not with sancticity, but medieval politics. St. David himself (purportedly) lived in a little iron and wood box hidden away in the back of the church, like an afterthought. When I sat and meditated next to this box, I caught a glimpse of a wild Spirit, free as the Celtic landscape I am now sitting in, with the afternoon light slanting hazily across the grass, and the ocean breaking against the cliffs in front. A damp chill passes through the air now, clouds obscuring the sun. I look up, as one seagull crosses the sky. This is the present moment. I have always been here. St. David you were born here, in a little stone hut in this damp field, and now this is but a dream to you. And now I am here, and you are but a dream to me. And through it all, the green fields, the little Holy Well, the footpath and the ocean, the wind ceaselessly blows. It is rich and clear and bracing, as I imagine St. David to be. 11:44:24 PM