Yorkville Stoops to Nuts: New Year's Eve

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Stoops to Nuts Wishes Everyone A Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from "Stoops to Nuts." I'm thankful for this past year. It's a short ride I do my best to acknowledge the brevity and embrace whatever time I'm given.

Thank you to all my neighborhood buddies who snagged a copy of my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood." I hope my stories cheer you.

After you finish the book could you please give me a few honest words about the book on Amazon and/or Barnes and Noble.
(You do not need to buy anything or give credit information to leave a remark.)

Your critique helps me and your comments encourage others to check it out. Please give it a shout.

Thank you, to the 44 readers who have given the book 44 five star ratings on Amazon, and the 19 readers who gave it 19 five star ratings on Barnes and Noble.

The book is available locally at Logos Book Store at 1575 York Avenue; and sold online at Amazon, B&N and other booksellers.

"I Hate the Dallas Cowboys"

Pat & Bob @ 12.31.67

John & Tommy 12.31.93

My New Year's toast goes out to Mom and Dad seen here on New Year's Eve 1967 dancing the night away (not really). And the toast continues with a pix from a great Maplewood New Year with the Harveys' many years ago that included a slew of balloons with paper fortunes in them that we busted at midnight, one fortune example:
In the near future you will make many new friends. Unfortunately, this will occur in prison.

Whiny TMR postcard

Here are two postcards I wrote to my parents during my two visits to Ten Mile River Boy Scout Camp in Narrowsburg, New York in 1967 and 1968 ~ as you can read, by the second year at TMR I got the hang of it ~ Our Troop 654 out of St. Stephen's of Hungary on East 82nd Street was led by Al and Bobby Hauser. We had a ball and those Boy Scout stories are on my stove. They include Sammy the Catfish, too many C batteries, too few Lps and one Panasonic portable record player, the Muck track, why Menesick and I out canoeing decided to ram and flip a war canoe in the middle of the lake filled with ten Brooklyn scouts singing "Kumbaya", one girl named Helen who lived on the other side of the lake, learning a large raccoon gets first dibs on my *Nanny Cuckoo's Bundt cake that came by mail, and cans of tuna sent by *Nanny Dutchie without mayo or a can opener.

*Nanny Cuckoo ~ had a German cuckoo clock and Mom loved calling her mother-in-law, Nanny Cuckoo, and telling Rory & I to do same.

*Nanny Dutchie ~ in the backyard of 1616 York Avenue the next door neighbor had a beautiful German Shepherd named, "Dutchess." Nanny Dutchie did not mind her nickname, unlike Nanny Cuckoo.

Getting the hang of it TMR postcard

Spooky Sleigh Ride @ Central Park

Toulouse, France @ 12.31.07

30 Rock Straight Up

Tommy & Rory, 1962, Bethesda Fountain

Casey & Tommy

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Brand New Day, Same Ol' Tree

Walking west side to east side on the last day of the year I saw an old friend, my favorite tree in Central Park. She overlooks the transverse two blocks inside the 97th Street Fifth Avenue park entrance.

I've been nuts about this beautiful tree since 1969 when I played football for the OLGC Rams on the dust bowl that ran from 97th to 99th St just west of Fifth Avenue. Its not a dust bowl anymore, it's a rolling green lawn, but the tree remains the same. Twisting up, around, out and in, branches curling insanely trying to top each other's strange path dipping through the sky like dolphins in love.

There are many candidates for best tree in Central Park, one is majestic on the east side of the Great Lawn and several others line Poet's Walk, but the 97th Street Lady stands alone, 160 years after a man dropped three seeds into the new park's freshly turned soil, it inhales bus and car fumes from the transverse every hour, every day, and tells the people driving, "I'll be here when your children's children are old." That makes me content.

"It's a brand new day," Brand New Day ~ Al Kooper

Here are more pix of the tree and a few photos from the west side on the last day of 2012.