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A Different Path

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Somewhere in my apartment there is a photograph from the 1960s of me and my brother Peter dressed as altar boys. This wasn’t a Halloween party or some kind of irreverent prank. Peter and I were both very briefly altar boys while we were on vacation one summer at St. Mary of the Mount in Mount Pocono. We were staying at a nearby resort called Merrill’s Breezewood Lodge, a place our family absolutely loved. Apologies if I’ve written about this before, but we had such great times there. The property consisted of three houses spread out through the woods, and we would stay at either The Vacationer—a lovely white two story building—or The Hideaway, which was well named, as the gray house sat up on a steep hill and was virtually hidden from the rest of the world. The place had a swimming pool down by the main house where my siblings would swim and I’d flop around in the shallow end. At night, we’d all gather with the other guests around the pool to shoot the breeze and lo...
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Losing Your Shirt

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I was standing on the Court Street subway platform with my sister on Friday when I caught this guy looking me over. We’d just had a lovely afternoon at Brooklyn Bridge Park and were heading to the R train to get back to Bay Ridge for dinner at a local Thai restaurant. But now I was getting the skunk eye from a total stranger. New York’s subway system has an… intriguing cast of characters riding the rails and stalking the platforms. In fact, these people are so interesting that I strongly prefer taking the express bus or the ferry—which is how we got to downtown Brooklyn in the first place. The guy was standing with a young woman and, as we got closer, his gaze intensified. Finally, he spoke up. “I like that shirt,” he said. Shirt? What’s he talking about? It’s just a shirt, guy. What’s the big deal? And then I remembered: oh, right, I was wearing my “Funcle” T‑shirt, which my sister had gotten me a few years ago. The word is a portmanteau of “fun” and “u...
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Pier Group

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I was walking through Shore Road Park on Friday night when I made three new friends. It was early evening, and I was on my way to the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge to attend the local 9/11 Memorial Service. Nearly 240 people from the neighborhood were killed in the attacks, and memorials can be found at local schools and on street signs. I decided to cut through Shore Road Park to enjoy a little greenery, and on the way in I ran into a young father and his adorable little boy. The kid was so outgoing and friendly; he gave me a big wave, and when I got close, we happily high‑fived. It was exactly the kind of moment I needed on this day. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, another equally adorable little guy approached me. It turned out they were twin brothers, both with lovely smiles and big, beautiful brown eyes. “What’s this fellow’s name?” I asked, pointing to my high‑fiving amigo. “Led Zeppelin,” their father replied. I was con...
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Gone To Graveyards

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I saw the faces, but I couldn’t hear the voices. Today was the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — a quarter of a century since the deadliest terrorist attack in American history. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I was standing across the street when the planes hit the World Trade Center, and it was a long, horrible trip home as the towers collapsed and spread toxic clouds throughout lower Manhattan. My mother was in the hospital for lung disease, which would end her life less than a year later, and my father marked his 80th birthday. Twenty-five years. I’ve returned to Ground Zero for some of the major anniversaries, but since I’ve started working remotely, the trips have been less frequent. When I can’t get there, listening to the reading of the victims’ names is an essential part of the commemoration for me. Today I had to be there. I hemmed and hawed about going all week, but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t make the effort. I was reluctant to...
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Baggage Claim

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I wonder what was in that bag. My luggage played a significant role in a dream I had last week, as did my brother Peter, who died over a year ago. I’ve forgotten most of it, but I remember stepping off a train that looked like the BART in San Francisco and seeing my brother. “Do you have my bag?” I asked, as the train doors closed behind me. Peter shook his head, and I turned around to see my bag sitting on the train that was slowly pulling out of the station. Things got fuzzy after that, but I don’t recall being particularly upset about the lost luggage. Still, it was very important to me. Okay, so clearly this dream was about loss. The case resembled an old style fencing bag, and since my brother was on Hunter College’s fencing team in the 1970s, perhaps losing it was symbolic of losing Peter. I still have these dark moments when I think about my brother and feel the terrible gap in my life. Then it passes and I feel better — at least for a little whil...
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Walk This Way

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I saw her coming from half a block away. She was an older woman, although as I close in on 70, I’m not very comfortable labeling people as elderly. This lady was walking up 72nd Street this morning, hunched over her shopping cart, which doubled as a walker. I recently came across the term dowager’s hump on Google — an abnormal outward curve of the upper back, formally known as hyperkyphosis. This was near the end of my 30 block walk around the neighborhood, my attempt to get some kind of physical activity since my latest back attack is keeping me out of the gym. The good news is that I’m no longer shrieking every time I make a move, and my sister and I were able to make our yearly pligramge to Coney Island for the fireworks show and a spin on the Spook-A-Rama. But I still can’t do my cardio-iron pumping routine at Harbor Fitness Go. I’ve always been a gym junkie, so being sick or injured makes me seriously antsy. But I’m trying to be sane about this. My logi...
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Primal Scream

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On Saturday morning I got out of bed without screaming. That may not sound like big news to most people but, given how I had risen to meet the morning on Thursday and Friday, it was quite an achievement. I did something to my back — big time. I suspect it started about ten days ago, when I was doing my daily qigong routine, one of the gentlest forms of exercise you can find. I reached down toward the floor, as the YouTube instructor told me, and turned to the left and then to the right — and something went bad. Of course, I tried to shrug it off. Of course, I went through my regular gym routine with only slight variations. And I didn’t feel anything, except perhaps some mild discomfort. In fact, on Wednesday, I went to a doctor’s appointment, picked up my laundry, and did my weekly shopping routine and didn’t feel a thing. But within a few hours I was in agony. I’ve had back problems for a long time now. Usually, it manifests as severe pain in my lower ...
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