The Luna Park Gazette

I’m glad I held on to that shoebox. A few weeks, I treated myself to new pair of shoes and, as is my custom, I held onto the box they came in, even though I didn’t have any immediate use for it. I’ve been trying to cut down on the clutter in my apartment, but it just seems wrong to get rid of such a sturdy container. And whenever I do toss out an empty box, I suddenly need one. It never fails. Last week I was working in my computer room and I just fed up with all the debris. I have piles of stuff that I’ve been threatening to sort out for years and while I couldn’t take care of the whole mess in one day, I decided to clean up one small spot near me. Whatever I wanted to keep would go into the shoebox. I sat down on the floor and got to work. I found a single chess piece, a pair of 3-D glasses I bought when I saw the movie Up back in 2009 (Yes, I cried), a St. Anthony medal I am now wearing, and a cover from Parade Magazine dated June 7, 1998 with a photo of George Cloo...

The first U.S. Census began on August 2, 1790. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had marshals take the census in the original 13 States, plus the districts of Kentucky, Maine, and Vermont, and the Southwest Territory, now known as Tennessee. Nearly 200 years later, in 1970, my parents decided to make a little extra money by becoming census takers. I was 13 years old at the time, and, while it’s all pretty vague now, I do recall my mom and dad had these plastic shoulder bags that bore the image of the American flag and the words “1970 Census.” They called people at night and went to their homes to interview the more reluctant ones, and they’d bring home stacks of completed census forms. Both my parents were in sales and they enjoyed connecting with people, so this was a good gig for them. I hadn’t thought about that little bit of family history until last week when my doorbell rang just as I was signing off from work. I rarely get visitors, even before the coronav...

Plaquemine is a city of roughly 7,100 people located in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. I had never heard of the place until recently and I have since learned that the city, which is also the parish seat, hosts an annual International Arcadian Festival that draws people from all over the world. Plaquemine is also known for a number of antebellum structures, and is the birthplace of the jazz pianist and composer Clarence Williams, who recorded such classics as “I Can’t Dance, I’ve Got Ants in My Pants,” and “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You, Rascal, You.” But I know of Plaquemine because it is apparently the home of Daisy Louise Tendergrass. I recently connected with Miss Tendergrass while researching a story about a large company, which I will not name, that is in deep financial trouble due to the coronavirus pandemic. I wanted to get into touch with a particular industry analyst but I had virtually nothing in the way of contact information except for his Twitter account. I a...

My God, how we have failed these people. Today is the 19th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, 19 years since I stood across the street from the World Trade Center and watched hijacked jetliners crash into the North and South Towers. Every year since that nightmare I do my very best to return to the spot where I stood on Liberty Plaza in 2001, outside a now-shuttered Brooks Brothers store, and pray for the people we lost. That was my father’s 80th birthday, a beautiful late summer day without a cloud in the sky. I was working at Goldman Sachs and the plan was to go home, meet up with my sister and take our father to dinner. And then the gates of Hell opened up. I couldn’t get down there today because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is especially painful since my office is located in the financial district and under normal circumstances I would be within walking distance of the ceremonies. I did listen to the reading of the victims’ names on television. I had to do t...

“When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the belly is forgotten; and when the heart is right, ‘for’ and ‘against’ are forgotten.” – Chaunt Tzu When I was a child, my father used to take me to Marty’s Shoe store on Fifth Avenue each year for a new set of footwear. I remember Marty and his employees as these kindly old guys—they looked old to me, anyway--who knew every single thing there was to know about shoes. I’d sit down, get measured me up, do a brief walk up and down the store to make sure the shoes fit properly while my dad shot the breeze with Marty, and then we’d leave with a new pair of Stride Rites. I’ll admit this is not the most exciting memory I could share, but these mundane recollections are becoming more important to me as the years go by and I realize how precious they really are. I hadn’t thought about Marty until my favorite pair of walking shoes wore down to a Charley Chaplin level of disrepair and forced me out of my Covid-indu...

The lights went out last week, but I still got big jolt from my electric company. I awoke early one morning and discovered I was in the middle of a blackout. High winds had knocked out the power lines on my block and downed wires littered the streets. I’m very fortunate to still have a job in the middle of the Covid-19 hell ride and while I can work from home, I do need electricity to make the magic happen. Only there was none of be had. The refrigerator came back on pretty quickly, which meant my food was safe, but the lights, cable, landline, and internet were all out of commission. I was getting more anxious as it got closer to showtime, so I called ConEd on my smartphone. And that’s when I got a real shock. “Hello, I’m Mr. Brown,” the customer service rep said. “How can I make your day better?” I couldn’t believe my ears. This guy actually sounded human. I’m so accustomed to hearing some soulless cyborg lip-synching a pile preprogrammed platitudes before pushing m...

I was working out in Bliss Park one recent morning when I felt a presence behind me. Oh, fabulous , I thought, a local loon is stalking me . I had this problem before in June when I was shadowboxing in nearby Shore Road Park and a homeless woman sat down on a bench where I was doing my routine. Bliss Park has a nice little plaza at the top of a hill that local theater companies have used to stage Shakespeare productions in the pre-Covid-19 days. It’s also a great spot for a homemade workout—as long people leave you the hell alone. I turned around and I saw an older Asian man, who was looking at me and gesturing at the ground. “Clean up,” he was saying with some difficulty. “Clean up.” Clean up what? We’re in the park, God’s sake, not the Vatican. Unless you work for the Parks Department, stop bugging me. But then I recalled that I had overreacted when that homeless woman sat down on the bench. I recalled the shame I had felt for being so thoughtless and I wanted to d...