Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year!


I wish everyone a healthy, happy and peaceful New Year.
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I'm leaving my affordable housing job February 19th to write full-time.
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I'm taking terrific memories of being part of a team that rebuilt Coney Island with new small homes from Cropsey to Seagate & Surf to Neptune and all the way to Bayview Avenue on the Bay. Our programs saturated the Bronx,
Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island and many other Brooklyn neighborhoods with new houses and apartments for first time owners. Nothing gave me me more satisfaction then being part of a move-in celebration at a development. I'm a laborer at heart, and the tangible pleasures derived from the affordable housing Homeownership programs were countless, it was all hands on: assembling sites, developing documents for sale, swaying the Board of Estimate to support the programs, running my hand over the wood framing on a single family home going up, walking an unfinished concrete floor overlooking the north end of Central Park. I had many affordable housing jobs, this one was my favorite.
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I'm eager to start my new adventure.
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Happy New Year, everybody... hugs, Tommy
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Our Town, a Manhattan newspaper, published an abbreviated version of one of my stories today. Link to the story is below...
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

A Snowy Walk Through Hunter College, A Long Time Ago


I attended kindergarten, grammar school, high school and college in Manhattan. It was natural.

September 1972, I entered Hunter College with 16,000 other matriculating students.
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I was way in the back of the line when they gave me my first class schedule. I had little choice in picking five classes and the guy who put my schedule together handed me a card and shook my hand, "This is the worst schedule I've ever seen."
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Monday, Thursday 8-11am; 3-5pm ~ Wed 8-10am; Friday 8-10am; 4-5pm.
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I played football for the Bronx Warriors, and broke my fibula a week before my first Hunter class. My first two weeks I was on crutches. Most kids avoided the slow elevators. I took one to the 10th floor then went back and forth hopping the staircase from 7th to 10th floor to class. I held the crutches in one arm and took one step at a time on my good foot while a thousand kids ran around and through me. It was impossible to hold the giant heavy door open alone and get through it before it closed back on me. I needed help and usually slid through when a gang of kids went through, or sometimes...
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late for a class, I was on the stairs with a few stragglers. At the 9th floor door, a very pleasant Chinese student smiled towards me, and apparently was holding the door for me. He appeared happy. I said, "thank you," and put my crutches in place under my arms and put my head down to go through the doorway. The pleasant smiling student let the door go, it whacked me in the head, and with my arms locked to the crutches I moon-walked backward quickly across the landing, slammed into the huge radiator and fell into a heap.
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That first semester, I took a course, "Probabilities & Statistics," for two purposes: improve my weak gambling skill and satisfy my Math & Science requirement. 8am, Mon & Thurs, I dreaded the first class, I don't wake well. Got there late, opened the door, and saw a tall thirtish teacher, one goofy guy and forty nursing students, half of them Irish with those cute little noses. I was never late again.



My last year at Hunter, I hung around with Susan. We met in a Flemish Art class, Susan looked like The Girl with a Pearl Earring, this made absolute sense to me. Museum guards at the Met threatened us three times with expulsion. On a class trip, our teacher scolded us, "Seriously, you two, need to grow up." Susan and I took this as a compliment. We bought 25 cent bagel sandwiches in the High School building and put a ton of free Mayo on the one slice of Swiss or Bologna. We went to the Zoo when we should have been in class, and went to class when we should have gone to the Zoo. Susan made Hunter better.




My favorite teachers: Robert J. White, Classics, he imitated a werewolf and launched tribal mating calls in class, Dr. White turned me onto Edward Albee and Pasolini films. Professor Richard Barickman taught me: Poetry, Hardy, Elliot, Thackeray, Dickens and Henry James. He always wore riding boots like Heathcliff with the pants tucked in and taught me critical literary analysis.
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Professors White & Barickman led me to a rich appreciation for ancient civilizations, and in literature: D.H. Lawrence, Mann, James, Romantic and Victorian poetry (I still own my Washington Square Press paperbacks edited by William H. Marshall). These two men loved language with all their hearts and we soaked it up.









































building on 65th Street and Park Avenue, just looked pretty against the sky





















Monday, December 21, 2009

Central Park Showing Off ~ Pilgrim Hill 1964

After the snowfall Saturday night, the City put on its winter best.

December 1964, It snowed days straight and remained cold during the beginning of Christmas break. Every day, we mushed through the streets with our sleds to Central Park. Our usual stop was Cherry Hill at 79th Street. But that year, we developed ten-year old guts and visited the tougher ride, Pilgrim Hill, at the 72nd Street.

Pilgrim Hill had rocks jutting out of it to hit or avoid, and a heavy-duty fence at the bottom of the ride. The fence had a missing section six feet wide where the older kids built up a berm allowing you to hit the walkway where another berm was added to lift you out and onto frozen Sailboat Lake to finish your ride.

If you were confident, stupid, or reckless the best ride in the park was touching the Pilgrim statue on top, flying over a few rocks on your sled, narrowly missing the fence on the bottom of the hill, along with a free trip to Lenox Hill's Emergency Room, then bouncing over the two berms onto the lake. Even the older kids nodded their heads in admiration if you nailed it.
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Friday, December 18, 2009

41 Mondays to Go


I have 41 Mondays left to commute. Come November, my Sunday night sadness turns to vapor. My affordable housing career ends. Full-time writing begins.
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I've inherited a candy store and I don't like candy. But I'll guzzle the soda until my belly is round, and devour the comics, and there ain't nobody throwing me out of the shop.
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I can't wait.
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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Nice Jacket, Where Are My Pants?


New York Press published my story, "Drop-off Dry Cleaning," today ~ page 14 @ 12.08.09 issue.
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Story happened during a Yorkville snowstorm right before Christmas in 1964. Dad was not happy.


http://npaper-wehaa.com/nypress/2009/12/08/#?article=683156

Sunday, December 6, 2009

December 19, 1981 ~ How Bout Those Boys?

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Dad died seven years ago, but he and I get together every Sunday in the fall, and with luck our reunions continue until early winter.
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Since people would think I'm nuts watching New York Giant games with my dead father, I usually watch them alone, with Dad.
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We have many victories together, none as sweet as December 19, 1981 against the Anti-Christ Cowboys.
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I was too young to enjoy the successes of the late 50s' and early 60s' Giants football club, but I was just the right age to suffer through the horrible Giant teams in the 60s' & 70s'.
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The Giants needed to beat the Cowboys on the last day of the 1981 season to make the playoffs for the first time since 1963.
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Dad drove to my apartment the Saturday before Christmas, we wore our blue best, and the Giants prevailed 13-10 on Joe "The Nose" Danelo's foot. No matter, they lost that year in the playoffs to the 49ers, they were back in the mix.
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Over the years, Dad and I won two Super Bowls together, and his spirit haunted me all night, gleefully, after the Giants beat the Patriots two years ago.
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Sweeping the Cowboys makes life brighter ~ Beating Dallas twice in a year ~ my personal World Series.
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My love to Joe Buck and all the bad haircut Cowboy fans out there.
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