Being born may be a beautiful thing but it’s also messy and incredibly stressful. And that’s if it happens in a hospital and you go home to a warm safe place. Mom focuses entirely on you and Dad has an intimate relationship with Duane Reade picking up diapers and other baby supplies.
So what happens if there’s no hospital, no safe warm place, no Dad and no Duane Reade? You make do. On a fire escape you build a nest of scraps in a corner against a window gate that hasn’t been opened in a hundred years.
I have no problem with pigeons, like all birds I enjoy their aerial shows. When I was a boy, the fellow on the fifth floor in my 83rd Street building had a large pigeon coop on our 517 roof. I loved watching his birds take off and come home.
When I saw the babies last week on the fire escape with the noticeably cautious mom right there with them, my wonderment kicked in, and I recalled the nest on my apartment’s fire escape when we moved into Yorkville on June 20, 1957. Mom didn’t like that. When she saw the birds she gave Dad a look, and took my brother & me for a surprise ice cream trip. The birds were gone when we came back. When I left the mom and babies last week, I wished them lots of luck.
*****************************
The next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show on Tuesday, Aug. 16 at 6 p.m. at Cornelia Street Cafe. While you swim you'll hear great tellers and songsmiths, The Amygdaloids, Lindsey Gentile, Rachel Pertile Goldstein, Jed Parrish, Thomas Pryor and Andy Ross. It will change your life. I don't know how we do it, but we do. The Cafe requests $7 admission to cover their expenses then they turn around and give you a free drink, a swell deal.
Cornelia Street Café, @ 29 Cornelia St. between W. 4th St. & Bleecker St.
No comments:
Post a Comment