The Luna Park Gazette

I wish I could remember that young man’s name. I was just thinking of this fellow I met at the end of my vacation to Denver and Nebraska last October. It was quite a trip. I had finally kept a promise to myself by going out to the Cornhusker State, and I got to meet up with my family in the Mile High City. Not bad, I thought, reaching around to give myself an imaginary pat on the back. And now it was time to go home, which meant getting on an airplane, of course, which, in turn, meant I was a nervous wreck. Things had gotten off to a rickety start when the airport’s automated train system got stuck in the tunnel as I was heading to the JetBlue terminal. Being a New Yorker, I immediately had a flashback to far too many subway shutdowns I’d experienced over the years. Now that I work from home, those incidents are much less frequent, but the anger remains in the wings just waiting to take center stage. So, the one time I come to Denver, the goddamn train system goes down, ...

On June 21, 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren submitted his resignation to President Lyndon Johnson after 15 years as the nation’s highest‑ranking judicial officer. On the same day, the St. Lawrence Seaway was closed after operating and maintenance workers went on strike. Hugo Vihlen, an airline pilot from Florida, ended his 4,100‑mile solo trans‑Atlantic voyage 25 miles from shore on this day and came home aboard a fishing yacht to a hero's reception. He had been within 6 miles of Miami the night before, when his six‑foot sailboat, April Fool , was pushed back to sea by offshore winds and the currents of the Gulf Stream. The single‑handed sailor had started his 84‑day voyage from Casablanca, Morocco, on March 29 of that year. Mort Sahl was appearing nightly—except Mondays—at the Village Gate through June 30, and My Fair Lady , starring Fritz Weaver and Inga Swenson, was showing at N.Y. City Center. In the world of fashion, Satori’s in Mamaroneck, NY, was selling Nehru ...

“Hey, do you remember Intercrime Island?” I ran the question by my brother Peter to see if he could recall a key element from 8th Man , one of our favorite cartoons when we were growing up. It was just another one of these strange memory flashes I have when something from my past pops into my head for no apparent reason and I can’t shake it out. Of course, I didn’t get an answer since Peter died nearly a year ago, but I was feeling pretty low and a bit isolated, so I addressed my question to an empty chair on the other side of my kitchen table. This is the first Easter without him, as the Curse of the First rolls along. I’ve written before about chair work, a method of processing trauma, grief or personal tensions where you speak to an empty chair and imagine it’s someone from your life who is no longer here. I’ve done this with my mother, and though I did a lot of sobbing, I found it to be quite helpful. Usually, I make my chair work practice a solemn occasion and do...