The weather improved somewhat the day after our excursion into Manhattan, enough to allow me to take my daughter to Jones Beach to swim in the ocean. As I watched her play in the water as I did more than thirty-five years earlier, numerous memories came back to me: of splashing about the water and usually winding up with a mouth full of salt water at some point. Memories of trips to the beach with my grandparents and at least one trip with my aunt. Searching for seashells in the sand, and one occasion where a very strong wind blew in from the ocean creating a sandstorm while sending the large beach umbrellas flying through the air. But at least my daughter got to experience swimming at Jones Beach like her father had done decades before.
For some reason, I can’t recall where we went after the beach or what we did. I do remember that Monday was the reason I originally gave serious consideration for a trip back home. That evening was the varsity awards banquet for Baldwin High School. Each year since 1951, just months after he died, the school included an award named after my grandfather, originally bestowed to the most outstanding two-sport athlete. After the award banquet that evening I met a woman who had won the award in the 1970s, but now the award is only handed out to male athletes.
I arrived at the banquet that evening with no clue who was receiving the award or any background information about them. As it turned out, that relatively important information was emailed to me as our flight was enroute to New York. Fortunately, the director of athletics at the school jotted down the name of that year’s recipient, what sports they participated in, opinions of him by teammates, and where he was heading to college after graduating. Using just those few sentences, I set about drafting my presentation. As the award named for my grandfather is considered the most prestigious, it is the last one presented, giving me plenty of time to come up with something off the top of my head when my time came. For the next couple of hours I wrote and rewrote what I wanted to say, crafting something worthy of the award itself. The big challenge, though, was going to be the presentation itself, not having any opportunity to rehearse in advance; what I was going to say would be my speech’s trial run. I was just hoping I wouldn’t screw it up.
I’m not a big fan of crowds, wary of people I don’t know, and there I was facing both of those personal quirks while giving a public speech. Theoretically I should’ve been nervous, but the jitters were just not there. I was on a mission, to present an award named after a family member, I had to get it right with a presentation that would’ve made my grandfather proud, that would’ve made my father proud. Eventually my turn came to stand up behind the podium.
My speech began by introducing myself and how glad I was to be there that evening (usually just lip service, but I really was glad to be there). I pointed out that in years past two of my grandfather’s children had been there to present the award; that evening I was standing in place of my dad, my grandfather’s eldest child, who had passed away and could not be there that evening. That was immediately followed by how I never knew my grandfather, having died fifteen years before I was born. Nonetheless, I had come to know him in a way through the newspaper clippings in the scrapbook he kept, and by a first hand account from one of his few living contemporaries whom he had played high school football with in the 1930s. Through all these vicarious memories, he still lived for me, he still threw the football with great precision to his favorite receiver, Jerry McHugh, he still continued to pummel the defenses of the opposition. At that point I began the overview of the award’s recipient for 2008. Perhaps five minutes and all was said and done, speech given, award presented. With that the banquet was over. A number of people introduced themselves to me afterwards, but damned if I remember any names as overwhelmed I was feeling at that moment. Hopefully my presentation was good enough to make my father and grandfather proud.
The next day was wind down day, time to get ready for the flight home the next day. But there were promises to keep, and miles to go before I slept. Kept the promise to myself of shopping at Modells before we left town. Visited the Broadway Mall where my wife bought souvenirs for family back home, and I got to pick up a replica 1939 Brooklyn Dodgers hat and visit the New York Islanders store (heaven, pure heaven to me). That evening my aunt and uncle took us to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant, whose name and location completely escape me that the moment. After returning to her house, my aunt completely surprised me by breaking out a bunch of old family photos, of my father, my aunt and uncle, grandparents, great-grandparents, for me a treasure trove of family history. Not having access to a scanner and not being able to take the pictures with my, I did what I needed to do in that situation: I took pictures of the pictures. Hey, it worked, and I have my own set of those photos.
Our flight left from the same runway at LaGuardia that we had landed on a week before. After a delay (go figure) our plane began its race down the runway. The “Welcome to New York” sign off to the side of the runway raced past the window as I looked to my right. The plane started to bank to the left as it climbed to altitude. Out the port side windows I could clearly see Manhattan, essentially the whole island. My heart ached, like I was leaving home for good. New York was once my home, it isn’t now. Everything’s changed and the places I knew and remembered as a child have permanently and irrevocably changed. But it had been a really great visit and more of a revelation of family history than I could have ever had hoped for. As the landscape below lost its details, becoming a tapestry of various shades of green, I knew then that it would not be thirty years before my next visit back.
On a journey to the heart of darkness and futility.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Thursday, September 02, 2010
You can't go home again, Part II
Our first full day on Long Island was very much a Día de los Muertos. I wanted to go pay my respects to my paternal grandparents, but as things turned out, it was a bit more than that. With my aunt in tow as my GPS system, we headed off for our first destination, St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale. I knew my grandmother was interred there, but I had no idea of how many other family members were as well. We parked in the road next to the row where my grandmother’s grave is located. I knew in advance that her name was not on the plot, and I have a good idea why, but that’s another story for another time. As we approached the plot, I was taken aback when I read the headstone and its inscription. In large letters was the family name, beneath in smaller lettering, Elizabeth 1893-1956. True, my grandmother’s name isn’t on the headstone, but my great-grandmother’s is, and they were buried in the same plot. I had no clue and wasn’t expecting that, but was very pleasantly surprised. As many people do, I left a rock on the headstone as a sign that someone had visited the gravesite. But that wasn’t to be the last surprise. Located either a few plots away or a short distance away were the graves of more great-grandparents and my great aunt (my grandfather’s sister). My great-grandmother Curry gave me my very first camera when I graduated from kindergarten many years ago. I feel very lucky to have vivid memories of her. She died when I was eight, so I never got to go to her funeral, never got to say goodbye. And I didn’t say goodbye on this particular day either, simply a “Hello again, Grandma.”
From there we traveled a short distance up Wellwood Avenue to the Long Island National Cemetery, where my grandfather is buried. I’ve no recollection of being to visit his gravesite when we lived on Long Island many years ago. Actually, I don’t think I even knew he ever existed until 1978 when my grandmother passed away and his scrapbook of newspaper clippings was sent to my dad. Before we left for our trip to LI, I had printed out the plot number from the cemetery’s site. The problem then became locating his grave in section L. Row upon row of nearly perfectly lined up white marble headstone, each identical in size, every one potentially the one we were looking for. We parked and began wandering about the headstones, looking for the particular number that was his, etched on the back of the stone. As it turned out, I was the one to find him. There I was, for the first time, standing over the grave of my grandfather, a man I never got to know but wished I had the chance to do so. My second impression at that moment was just how rough and abrasive those headstones are. You see pictures of the rows of marble stones at national cemeteries and just automatically assume they’re all smooth. Nothing’s further from the truth. I took some photos of his headstone, and of the area around it. I wanted a shot of the headstones heading off at an angle, but with each step I took the perspective changed. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. We left rocks on his headstone and headed back to my aunt’s house.
My uncle and his wife came up that afternoon to see us, which was a nice inclusion to the trip. Unlike my aunt, I last saw my uncle in 2004 when he made an extra trip to come see my wife (to be at the time) and me a few days before our wedding. The day pretty much wrapped up with everyone heading out to a pizzeria near my aunt’s house, where my uncles (by blood and my aunt’s husband) and me ate pizza and drank pitchers of beer. Amongst family again, and it felt really good.
Everyone was up early the next day…no time to rest…time to drive to Manhasset and catch the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station and Manhattan. After a couple of transfers in the subway system, my uncle acting as a superb guide (as I would have definitely gotten us lost), we finally came to the South Ferry/Whitehall Street station, which is right on the edge of Battery Park on the very southern tip of Manhattan. I know Atlanta likes to call itself a city, but it’s not; it’s in essence a few tall buildings with a lot of suburban sprawl. Places like New York and Chicago, where you can snap your neck looking up at buildings literally reaching for the sky, now those are cities.
Our first destination was Ellis Island, but first we had to wait in a line that stretched back to where 12th Avenue and Battery Place meet. Waiting at the back of the line, looking up 12th Street, I could see the cranes at work where the World Trade Center used to stand. Being accustomed to living in places with a smaller sense of scale, I thought it looked like it was only a couple of blocks away. Later I discovered looking at maps that it’s closer to a 7-8 block walk. No quick jaunt in the park, to be certain. But I didn’t get the chance to visit “The Hole” on this particular visit.
After our prerequisite wait and veritable body cavity search security screening, we loaded onto the ferry and headed out into New York Harbor. The ferry stopped first at Liberty Island, home of the Statue of Liberty. The whole time we lived in New York I had only seen the statue from a distance; this was the first time I got to see her up close. The green patina of her oxidized copper skin stood out from the hazy skies that day. From there it was a relatively quick trip to Ellis Island, where the wonderfully restored Renaissance Revival main building awaited. The next few hours were spent wandering the halls, looking at displays of items brought by immigrants, pictures and logs from ships that carried them across the sea, and of items found during the restoration of the building that were left behind when Ellis closed in 1954. I particularly taken by the Great Hall in the main building, a substantially sized room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling where immigrants were processed after arriving. There were wooden benches along the sides, but during the height of the period of “new immigration” from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, those wooden benches would’ve been set across the room, in multiple rows, seating hundreds of people.
We caught one of the last ferrys back to Manhattan, having used up a better portion of our day on the island. Once back, we took the subway north to Times Square, “The Crossroads of the World.” Once upon a time that area was named Longacre Square, until April, 1904, when the New York Times moved its headquarters to the area and the crossroads were renamed Times Square. As a kid I had been to the city a few times, but never to this place. After one look, who wouldn’t want to live in New York City? The lights, the buildings, countless people all heading off to destinations unknown…except for me, as I broke out my camera and started snapping off shots. Our destination at that moment was on West 44th Street – Carmine’s Italian Restaurant. If you’re ever in New York City, I highly recommend it. It’s kind of pricey, but it’s really worth the money. We no sooner got into the restaurant when the sky opened up with a monsoon-like downpour. The vendors who had been selling t-shirts on the street corners just moments before suddenly had supplies of umbrellas for sale. Crafty fellows, those vendors.
By the time we were done ingesting massive amounts of Italian food, the rain had let up. My daughter wanted to head across the street to the world’s largest Toys R Us store. As we walked into the store, I could have sworn I felt the credit card in my wallet cringe in fear: four stories of toys and games, a full sized ferris wheel, a 20 foot tall animatronic T-Rex, a Barbie playhouse. Certainly potential financial ruin lay in wait here. I was starting to feel like a three-legged gazelle on the Serengeti. She and my wife rode the ferris wheel as I browsed around the store, as I’m basically just a big kid only my toys are more expensive these days. Not long before we were ready to go, the skies once again opened up with another downpour. We staked out a place near the front door as people began congregating there. I noticed that if I looked over the handrail I could see part of the electronics section on the first floor. I also noticed that there were employees down there with mops and buckets, as the first floor was beginning to flood. And there, just outside the front door, were the vendors; and the t-shirts they were once again selling when the rain stopped completely disappeared, replaced by umbrellas.
It was a rainy run to the subway a few blocks away, and a rainy train ride back to Manhasset where we had parked. A completely unfitting end to a great day. But there’s so much to see and do in the city, that to try and take in as much as possible in one day, well, the city just sits on your head until you scream uncle.
To be concluded.
From there we traveled a short distance up Wellwood Avenue to the Long Island National Cemetery, where my grandfather is buried. I’ve no recollection of being to visit his gravesite when we lived on Long Island many years ago. Actually, I don’t think I even knew he ever existed until 1978 when my grandmother passed away and his scrapbook of newspaper clippings was sent to my dad. Before we left for our trip to LI, I had printed out the plot number from the cemetery’s site. The problem then became locating his grave in section L. Row upon row of nearly perfectly lined up white marble headstone, each identical in size, every one potentially the one we were looking for. We parked and began wandering about the headstones, looking for the particular number that was his, etched on the back of the stone. As it turned out, I was the one to find him. There I was, for the first time, standing over the grave of my grandfather, a man I never got to know but wished I had the chance to do so. My second impression at that moment was just how rough and abrasive those headstones are. You see pictures of the rows of marble stones at national cemeteries and just automatically assume they’re all smooth. Nothing’s further from the truth. I took some photos of his headstone, and of the area around it. I wanted a shot of the headstones heading off at an angle, but with each step I took the perspective changed. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. We left rocks on his headstone and headed back to my aunt’s house.
My uncle and his wife came up that afternoon to see us, which was a nice inclusion to the trip. Unlike my aunt, I last saw my uncle in 2004 when he made an extra trip to come see my wife (to be at the time) and me a few days before our wedding. The day pretty much wrapped up with everyone heading out to a pizzeria near my aunt’s house, where my uncles (by blood and my aunt’s husband) and me ate pizza and drank pitchers of beer. Amongst family again, and it felt really good.
Everyone was up early the next day…no time to rest…time to drive to Manhasset and catch the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station and Manhattan. After a couple of transfers in the subway system, my uncle acting as a superb guide (as I would have definitely gotten us lost), we finally came to the South Ferry/Whitehall Street station, which is right on the edge of Battery Park on the very southern tip of Manhattan. I know Atlanta likes to call itself a city, but it’s not; it’s in essence a few tall buildings with a lot of suburban sprawl. Places like New York and Chicago, where you can snap your neck looking up at buildings literally reaching for the sky, now those are cities.
Our first destination was Ellis Island, but first we had to wait in a line that stretched back to where 12th Avenue and Battery Place meet. Waiting at the back of the line, looking up 12th Street, I could see the cranes at work where the World Trade Center used to stand. Being accustomed to living in places with a smaller sense of scale, I thought it looked like it was only a couple of blocks away. Later I discovered looking at maps that it’s closer to a 7-8 block walk. No quick jaunt in the park, to be certain. But I didn’t get the chance to visit “The Hole” on this particular visit.
After our prerequisite wait and veritable body cavity search security screening, we loaded onto the ferry and headed out into New York Harbor. The ferry stopped first at Liberty Island, home of the Statue of Liberty. The whole time we lived in New York I had only seen the statue from a distance; this was the first time I got to see her up close. The green patina of her oxidized copper skin stood out from the hazy skies that day. From there it was a relatively quick trip to Ellis Island, where the wonderfully restored Renaissance Revival main building awaited. The next few hours were spent wandering the halls, looking at displays of items brought by immigrants, pictures and logs from ships that carried them across the sea, and of items found during the restoration of the building that were left behind when Ellis closed in 1954. I particularly taken by the Great Hall in the main building, a substantially sized room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling where immigrants were processed after arriving. There were wooden benches along the sides, but during the height of the period of “new immigration” from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, those wooden benches would’ve been set across the room, in multiple rows, seating hundreds of people.
We caught one of the last ferrys back to Manhattan, having used up a better portion of our day on the island. Once back, we took the subway north to Times Square, “The Crossroads of the World.” Once upon a time that area was named Longacre Square, until April, 1904, when the New York Times moved its headquarters to the area and the crossroads were renamed Times Square. As a kid I had been to the city a few times, but never to this place. After one look, who wouldn’t want to live in New York City? The lights, the buildings, countless people all heading off to destinations unknown…except for me, as I broke out my camera and started snapping off shots. Our destination at that moment was on West 44th Street – Carmine’s Italian Restaurant. If you’re ever in New York City, I highly recommend it. It’s kind of pricey, but it’s really worth the money. We no sooner got into the restaurant when the sky opened up with a monsoon-like downpour. The vendors who had been selling t-shirts on the street corners just moments before suddenly had supplies of umbrellas for sale. Crafty fellows, those vendors.
By the time we were done ingesting massive amounts of Italian food, the rain had let up. My daughter wanted to head across the street to the world’s largest Toys R Us store. As we walked into the store, I could have sworn I felt the credit card in my wallet cringe in fear: four stories of toys and games, a full sized ferris wheel, a 20 foot tall animatronic T-Rex, a Barbie playhouse. Certainly potential financial ruin lay in wait here. I was starting to feel like a three-legged gazelle on the Serengeti. She and my wife rode the ferris wheel as I browsed around the store, as I’m basically just a big kid only my toys are more expensive these days. Not long before we were ready to go, the skies once again opened up with another downpour. We staked out a place near the front door as people began congregating there. I noticed that if I looked over the handrail I could see part of the electronics section on the first floor. I also noticed that there were employees down there with mops and buckets, as the first floor was beginning to flood. And there, just outside the front door, were the vendors; and the t-shirts they were once again selling when the rain stopped completely disappeared, replaced by umbrellas.
It was a rainy run to the subway a few blocks away, and a rainy train ride back to Manhasset where we had parked. A completely unfitting end to a great day. But there’s so much to see and do in the city, that to try and take in as much as possible in one day, well, the city just sits on your head until you scream uncle.
To be concluded.
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