Backyard Memories

I’m processing my two trips to California in two months but in the meantime, here are some photos of the family backyard with some memories and other comments.

I realize I was privileged having such a large backyard growing up. It was on a heavily sculptured and landscaped hill. No grand football games, basketball court, or swimming pool. As our two story house’s two floors are circular, the landscape features two circular paths with staircases connecting the levels.

Needless to say, the circular structures in both the house and backyard lend themselves to endless games of tag and hide-and-go-seek. No dead ends. Also, we were very lucky in that the backyard has a gate that leads to a city park. This is where most of the elbows-in-the-face basketball games, ping pong, grand football games, tennis lessons, frisbee tossing, and general neighborhood squabbling took place. I could tell some stories about each of those. Neighborhood kids from across the street often used our backyard as a shortcut to the park. This was occasionally tolerated by my parents but often not, and they would padlock the gate. Different circumstances — losing the lock, losing the key, a combination becoming public — would often thwart their efforts. In our adolescences, this is where we would surreptitiously drink our Mickey Big Mouths and get stoned. Again, fodder for more stories…

The middle level of the backyard has two platforms populated with outdoor furniture, some appropriated from my grandparents’ houses. Some of these tin cans must be over 50 years old. You can still sit in them after a good rag cleaning. These concrete and tile platforms form the heart of our summer backyard parties being roomy enough for a couple picnic tables, a barbecue, and kegs and drink service.

My mother would occasionally make marmelade with the sour oranges that the tree on the left produced. Because of the growth of two large pine trees planted in the late 70s by my siblings (after a volunteer tree planting after a large fire burned down a nearby hillside), the orange tree isn’t get as much light as it should and is producing less fruit. There are lemon trees and bushes, a grapefruit tree, and an almost dead peach tree not getting enough sunlight anymore but my parents seem to be enjoying the shade the taller pine trees are throwing on the house for the time being. Mom has yet to retire and says she has lots of plans for the house when that happens. Oh, goody!

To the left in the photo below, you can sort of see where the built-in barbecue is. (The grill chef, usually Dad, stands on another platform below.) Over the barbecue is a contraption that lets you raise and lower the grill with a crank. When Mom retires, I really hope fixing this is part of the agenda. It was on this platform where I remember sipping my first PBR and getting my first beer buzz. As you can see there are geranium plants, jade, ivy and olive trees that aren’t getting enough sunlight anymore. The soil also probably needs some fertilizer at this point. Besides mowing the front and small back lawns (up top by the house, not pictured here), the olive trees were the scourge of our backyard chores growing up. They were forever shedding leaves and olives and needing stump shoots getting pruned. Olive trees are quite the sturdy beast.

And there you have the homestead backyard. I fondly remember it and pay tribute.

Update: Couple more photos…

Saturday at the Beach

I’m not really at the beach but I’m close to it and hanging at a hookah/coffee bar plus it’s a great excuse to post this photo of my Dad’s which is probably circa 1956.

Here are some things on the shelves. They also have a walk-in humidor for cigars here.

Hookah tobacco is like incense for the lungs. Sometimes it’s only half-tobacco while the rest is dried fruit, honey or artificial flavorings.

The Blue Park

Smurfs frolic here or they make smurfs here in vats of blueberries with lots of sky, ocean, space, and blue algae. There are aquariums with blue whales, bluefish, and aquatic murals on the walls with all kinds of fish.

I went for a ride today (to 71st and CPW and back if you must know) and my gloves weren’t cutting it. What does arthritis feel like?

Politics are on the backburner for the most part but Ken Silverstein lists the reasons Hillary Clinton should NOT be Secretary of State.

Trainwrecks Redux

Miriam Makeba collapsed and died onstage in Italy on Monday. Recalling that the same thing happened to Mark Sandman of the band Morphine in 1999 — in Italy — I took it upon myself to research the mysterious Italian Onstage Collapse Syndrome. Well, of course. People do it all the time all over the world. Shakespeare says,

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

A collapse or actual murder onstage is the performance cut short– the ultimate point at which life and art are savagely united.

Getting It Done

Conversations going on right now in this building:

  • Tango is dead! Tango is not dead!
  • You are going to your cousin’s wedding if I have to drag you by your ear!
  • Chicken or tuna surprise?
  • Is your homework done? I can’t help with your stupid math. Call your aunt. Turn that video off!
  • I think they’re making meth down the hall. Nah, this city’s on all-natural speed.

Pieces of a Marathon

One reason I don’t like crowds is you often have to put up with barriers. With a few modifications, they would make great bike racks for use when not herding sheeple but I guess They didn’t think of that.

GARBAGE!! I suppose it all gets recycled. (Photo from 2007.)

Deep thought: What kind of SAT scores do you need to get into Electoral College?

Eat Eggs, Don’t Throw Them


The Commerce Bank near me is now TD Bank. (What does that mean? To Do Bank?) Overnight they changed the entire color scheme from red, white, and blue to green and white. It looks less like Las Vegas at least. The diner near me used to called Happy Donuts. Things change.

Ok, I’m at the diner. A nice old lady sat next to me at the counter and ordered a scrambled egg sandwich and a carrot/celery juice. Very healthy.

She saw I was reading The New Yorker and asked, “What are they saying about the election?” Instead of saying what I wanted to say — “What election?” — I said, “This is an old issue,” which was true.

“Do you know if they endorsed someone?”

“Obama.”

“REALLY??!? I know New York magazine endorsed Obama but The New Yorker?!?” Granny from another planet.

“He’ll be a fine president.”

“I don’t know…”, she said with a quaver in her voice.

Wow. I broke eggs with the only Republican on the Upper West Side on Halloween.

Later in the day, I saw a kid dressed up in a gray ice cream cone. He sported a sign: Hurricane Katrina. Who dresses up as one of the most destructive forces in nature? What will he be when he grows up?

I’m just wearing a wig and some funny clothes tonight. Abbie the Yippie. Hugh the dude.

Old Paper Not in Use: Wingnuts of the Past

I was going through some piles and found this flyer. I wish I remembered where I got it from…

The grip of fear that motivates people can be powerful. Tasteless poisons! I scanned it in and you can read the full content after the jump if you want to. Continue reading “Old Paper Not in Use: Wingnuts of the Past”