A moment in time

Arranging meet ups with friends

I’m planning my trips for New York this year. From June until the end of the year I spend a lot of time there.

I was talking to a friend the other day, we were talking about all the meet-ups I had in New York over the years, you know, with friends from Miami, who happened to be in NY at the same time.

What’s interesting is that in the 1980s and 1990s, I did this a lot. I would meet friends from home/Miami and we would hang out in NYC for the day or whatever. But how did we do it? We didn’t have cell phones and I can’t remember how we arranged it.

I just know that on such and such date, at such and such time, we would meet up. I remember meeting my friend Albert in front of the Empire State Building and my friend Vincent came by my hotel and so many others would meet up with me.

I’m wondering if I made an announcement -” I will be in NY from Nov. 10 to 30. If anyone is going to be there, let me know.” I mean we didn’t have social media, did I just announce it to everyone at once? Did I tell people one-by-one over time? Whatever the case, we were at the appointed location, date and time. Always. I can’t imagine that happening now. Now we would text each other 20 times before we would ever end up meeting up.

Back then I would stay at my cousins’ house or at hotels but I don’t remember people calling either place to arrange to meet for lunch or hang out or whatever. So I am guessing we made the plans way in advance.

I’m just flabbergasted that we met at the exact place and appointed time. And I guess I made it known when I was going to be out of town. I had a lot of friends back then, so I really think I must have told each one of them one at a time what my plans were and if they were going to be in town at the same time, we arranged our meet up date. Amazing.

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Imagine

“The War on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy… As a human, and as an artist, I felt compelled to respond in the most significant way I could.” – Julian Lennon

Trades people mid 1800s

Found these old Daguerreotypes online – mostly from 1850s and 1860s.

Only a nickel, or maybe a penny

I saw this photo online and came up with the cartoon below, **which was published Friday**. This is an image from the Jersey Shore in 1905. It was entitled, “Ice cream sandwiches at the beach.”

As I looked at the photo, I was thinking, “They probably paid a nickel for the ice cream since back then everything was a nickel.” But then I noticed on the wagon it says the ice cream sandwiches were only 1 cent.

But usually whenever you hear of something from history – not even that far back, like say the 1940s and 1950s – things were a nickel – the price of a movie admission, the price of a sandwich, the price of an ice cream cone and of course the price of a pickle.

I suppose the cartoon could have taken place today, in a dollar store, where everything is a dollar, but I like historical things and drawing historical images.

I know I went overboard with all the items and prices, but I thought it made the image funnier.

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Check it!

Professional bartender serving a cocktail in the glass with one big ice cube on the bar counter in the blurred background

I heard someone say, “check it” the other day, and it all came flooding back.

One night in the late 1980s, I went to a club in NYC with two of my cousins. I had purchased a brand new jacket, a thick, expensive winter coat.

In the club, I layed my jacket over some sort of room divider or half wall or something and this girl comes by and puts her drink on it. The drink looked like this image, same glass, but with lots of ice and lots of dripping on my jacket.

I started yelling at her, “Look what you did! That’s my jacket!” She yelled back, “Why don’t you check it!” Now being from Miami most of my life, I am not familiar with coat checks, so I thought, “Why don’t you check it!” was some sort of insult. So I yelled back, “You check it!”

And life went on. I remember that same night on our way home we stopped in front of the NY Public Library on 5th Avenue and got out of the car and danced to Pump Up the Jam, which was new at the time. Anyway, that’s my remembrance of the night.

20 years later, in 2009, I’m watching a movie on tv, literally 20 years later – and one guy says to the other, “Why are you carrying your coat around, why don’t you check it?” And that sentence came flooding back to me all those years later and it dawned on me, right then and there, that the girl was telling me to check my coat with the coat check.

The funny thing is I never wore that jacket again. Not sure why. I think it seems too puffy. I still have it in the closet somewhere.

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The influence of cartooning

I saw this meme or whatever it is, on Facebook the other day, and I was transported back to being high school age again. It was sort of like when you smell something and that smell instantly transports you back in time? Well this did it for me.

I was working at a department store after school many years ago and I was in the cafeteria with co-workers, there weren’t many of us there, a handful perhaps. I can picture it now – dark lighting, red leather seating, black tables. Right there in the cafeteria, I drew up a little cartoon on a napkin that said something like this meme above – something about the managers getting paid to stand around and do nothing. And I guess it was a picture of a manger with his or her arms folded.

Karen (her real name), one of the supervisors/managers, saw it and asked me to tear it up. I refused. She was really upset over it. I don’t know what happened next, but I don’t think I got in trouble, and I don’t think I tore it up either.

I was maybe 17 or 18 and Nancy, the boss, was maybe 25. It’s so funny to think about it now, we were kids. On that day, at that moment, it gave me the knowledge of how important and influential cartooning was. I’m sometimes a packrat but I don’t think I saved that cartoon. Wish I had. To think, this napkin drawing, which was never published and probably ended up crumpled up somewhere, had such a huge effect.

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With one foot in the past, just how long will it last?

The last few months I’ve been driving a different direction than usual and I pass a school that I dealt with for many years. I used to print school newspapers (well, I was a print broker, and handled printing the newspapers) and I drive by one of the schools I had as a client for 20 years. They were the longest running school client I had.

Now each day as I drive by, the 1980s and 1990s flood into my mind, mostly the 1980s – and I go back in time. I can picture myself in the office, speaking to the ladies there, picking up the job, delivering the completed newspapers – for 20 years! The ’80s flash by in my mind.

The other morning I saw a report on Tears for Fears, who to me, was the sound of the 1980s. The report was about them getting back together and going on tour this summer with a new album. So of course I dug around for one of my favorite albums, “Songs From the Big Chair,” which I couldn’t find, so I download my favorites from that album.

To me “Shout,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and “Head Over Heels” scream 1980s – the best decade for music and just about everything!

I’ve been listening to this in my car and yesterday, as I drove by the school with the song on, I went back in time – like a time machine. I was back in time. It was surreal.

There are so many great songs from the 1980s, but for some reason, these three songs from Tears for Fears bring me back to that era and shout, no pun intended, 1980s.

I had it blasting so loud in the car, that I couldn’t hear a truck driver yelling at me and calling me names because I passed him on the road. I was in stuck 1985 anyway, out of his realm.

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My dad’s brother

I was visiting my dad in the hospital (nothing major) and a nurse came into the room to see him. She asked if I was his brother!

Should I be insulted? But when I think of it, he looks younger than his age, so maybe it was a compliment to him. I’ll take it that way.

It reminds me of when people ask women if they are pregnant, or when are they due, and they aren’t even pregnant!

West Side Cowboys

Have you been to The Highline in NYC? I came upon these pictures online, which preceded The Highline and the Elevatated tracks that are The Highline now. But these pictures depict an interesting time in NYC.

The trains used to go right up 11th Avenue, they literally were on tracks, sort of like trolleys. They started in 1846 for industrial reasons – bringing goods and services to that area, which became the Meat Packing District among other things.

So freight trains shared the streets with horses and buggies and eventurally cars and trolleys. But here is the amazing part – people would get hit by the trains at times. I don’t know how you don’t hear a freight train coming down the street, even at slow speeds, but people would acutally get hit.

So the City Council hired men to ride horseback in front of the trains and they would yell out to warm pedstrians. They became known as West Side Cowboys. In the early 1930s the Cowboys days ended because the trains were taken off the streets and became elevated (Els) and eventually went underground as subways.

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Italian-style Christmas?

We had a great Christmas despite the fact that we lost a lot of people this year – mainly my mother, my aunt (a second mother to me) and a cousin. We didn’t do Christmas last year due to the pandemic, so it was nice to get together. I have a large family and a few were missing due to illness and one niece was pregnant so she and her husband couldn’t travel – they had the baby last night btw.

Anyway, on Christmas Eve, we were at one of my brothers’ houses. One niece (let’s call her Marsha) and my nephew’s wife (let’s call her Jan) got into an argument. It got heated. I joked that it seemed like a Thanksgiving thing to do.

The next day, Christmas Day, we were all at said nephew’s wife’s house (with my nephew of course). I was the first one there. She (Jan) came up to me and said, “I’m concerned about Marsha. Do you think she’ll show up today?”

I said, of course, she traveled here for the holidays, she’ll come with her parents.

Jan then said, “That’s what I love about your family – it’s so Italian. There’s a huge blow out and it’s over in five minutes. If that was my family no one would speak to each other for months.”

I laughed and didn’t realize we were like that. I don’t really remember arguments, but we do talk loud and maybe that seems like arguments to her, who knows.

I do have a friend whose family don’t speak to each other for long periods of time over stupid things. They’re Italian, so maybe they are the exceptions who prove the rule.

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