Alison and Tommy Love Beaching It

Walking down Second Avenue yesterday, I needed a soda after the gym. I took a dollar out before I went into the first store, and thankfully found an ice cold Diet Doctor Pepper can in the fridge. I gave the guy the bill, he said, "$1.15." I put the soda back and took my buck. A block later same scene, that guy said, "$1.25." I took my dollar and left the soda on the counter wondering what the guy charged for vig when you hit him up for a friendly loan. I smiled on the way out when he sarcastically yelled, "You could put it back!"

I've officially turned into my father. I no longer accept the gall of people charging what they do for so little: "No bang for the buck." I will never pay more than one dollar for a can of soda for the rest of my life. I swear on my record albums.

This incident caused a flashback to Yorkville in 1962. Soda selection was important business, read the story at the link below:

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/first_person/2007/04/25_pryor.shtml

Two of my favorite songs that remind me of being at the water.

Freda Payne's, "Band of Gold," brings back Davies Lake in 1970 and cold chocolate milk out of a cooler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPzO3xmyWJc

The Buckinghams, "Susan," reminds me of long walks on the Rockaway Boardwalk in 1969 from Beach 43rd Street to 116th Street with a Julia Richmond redhead named Susan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIacsdOfKAQ&feature=related

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