I was born in New York City. I can’t shake the place. I might try to fit in as a Texan or Floridian but I am a New Yorker at heart. I find an odd homey comfort in strolling through the streets of New York just listening to the ever-present din of ambient street sounds. I know. To some people the thought of that is a living hell but for me it transports me to easier times in my life (i.e. before all the responsibilities of the real world climbed onto my back and started repeatedly kicking me in the back of my head).
One of those quintessential New York experiences that always makes me smile is when I find myself walking down a crowded sidewalk on a busy avenue and then turn onto a strangely calm and quiet side street. Within seconds the loud street noises fades to the background until I pass the front of some residences and suddenly you are accosted by the familiar sounds of regular people just living their lives. Thick Brooklyn accented ladies with kerchiefed hair loudly bitching about god knows what from thier front stoops. Young guys trying to sound a lot tougher then they really are as they bust each other’s chops. Multiple forign accents and languages layered on top of each other. Is it strange to wax nostalgic about things that would annoy most people?
Even if it is just for a short visit I enjoy being emmersed in the City. That’s what we call it up there, The City. As if there are no other cities and to folks from New York, there is no other. Living in Texas I have learned there is a huge similarity between New Yorkers and the Dallas Cowboys, you either love them or you love to hate them.
When I was in Junior High School I moved to Florida. The person I am today has definitely been shaped by the combination of the fast paced New York lifestyle and the laid back beach life of Florida. I miss both places. As much as I need my occasional New York fix I also need to walk on a beach and listen to the ocean. There are beaches in New York but rather then seashells the shore is often littered with bottle caps, broken glass and god knows what. Of course sometimes I wonder if I miss the actual places or do I really miss the particular time in my life that I spent there.
My wife and I usually find someway to travel to a beach every year but getting to New York is a little harder. To get my fix I sometimes go to the New York Daily News web site. It’s not as stiff as the New York Times but not quite as low-brow as the ‘National Enquire’-like New York Post. Every few weeks I click on to see the world through a New Yorker’s eyes and I feel a little less lonely in the world.
With my recent move deeper into the northern suburbs of Dallas (or ‘Oklahoma’ as the folks downtown call this area) I have a mountain of unpacking that needs to be done but on my day off Wednesday I decided to do very little and recover from the past few weeks of intensely packing. I slept late (for me) and eventually sat down in front of the computer. I drifted onto the Daily News website and ended up on one of those lists of famous people that passed away this past year. Of course the list was somewhat ‘New York’ biased; I do not think that Grace Paley and Brooke Astor made most of the national lists.
As I scanned the article one of the names that jumped out at me was Charles Nelson Riley. I had forgotten that he had died in May. As a little kid I knew him from an insanely bizarre psychedelic Saturday morning show I used to religiously watch called Lidsville (I can still sing the theme). Most people do not remember Charles Nelson Riley from his long acting career but rather for his campy appearances on old game shows like Match Game.
When I was young I used to walk home from Elementary school. I would get home a little after 3:00 and not long after that my Mom would often turn on the TV and the sound of Match Game would echo through the house. That must be why hearing of Charles Nelson Riley’s death triggered the same wave of nostalgia as being in New York does for me.
Things eventually turned even more morose on Wednesday as I scanned down the list wondering what it will be like to watch all the famous icons my generation grew up with die. The other star of that freaky Lidsville show was Butch Patrick, the kid that earlier played Eddie Munster. He’s not that much older then me, I wonder if he is famous enough to someday make the Daily News’ year end dead celebrity list?
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