Arlene's Scratch Paper

Provincetown Through My Window

2012-01-25T14:30:00.002-05:00

I faced Norman Mailer every day in Provincetown. It couldn’t be helped. My favored place to write at the Writers Colony was sitting at the Mailer dining room table, directly opposite Joel Meyerowitz’s photographic portrait of Norman. He reminded me to get back to work. Sometimes, it was difficult.

Light on the water, sun rising from east to west in an arc over the Cape Cod Bay, chatting gulls, dunes in winter, harsh winter light, sounds of waves hitting the steps of the deck at high tide, ducks bobbing in the water, weathered New England homes, smells of wood burning fireplaces, the beauty and the isolation . . .

Norman Mailer loved Provincetown. Now, I know why. I wanted to bring all of it back to my Manhattan apartment.

A December Ghost Story

2011-12-19T10:00:00.001-05:00

Written by the ghost long rumored to live in the Columbus, Ohio home of writer, James Thurber. This is his first essay, written to recommend our Ms. Schulman as a Writer-in-Retreat at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony. I take all the credit - she got in!

In this creative afterlife, I am simply an apparition, a figment, you might say, of one’s imagination, who lives in James Thurber’s old family home in Columbus, Ohio and who has been rumored to exist for years. I am a ghost of a Thurber cartoon. There we are, in black and white, my meddlesome wife lying across our chaise lounge, legs crossed, our dog Dibbles sitting next to her. I read the newspaper, glasses on, with my head swiveled towards her. She holds our candlestick telephone.

“Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?” she asks.

I guess there’s some logic here but after 12 years of this cockeyed nonsense, she was sent on an excursion boat down the Olentangy River, never to be heard from again.

So that leaves Dibbles and me. We roam the house at night, with time off for holidays and the occasional visit to my mother-in-law in Florida.

The house has hosted a fair number of writers in residence who roosted up in the attic of the Thurber House, including the aforementioned Ms. Schulman. I shouldn’t have to tell you that there’s nothing worse than these pretentious faux sophisticates from New York who call themselves writers. Please. These scribes would lie around smoking cigarettes and expect to be waited on with apple martinis and mini hamburgers. They left dirty socks on the floor and greasy dishes in the sink. People of pronouns took up residence for summers until funding ended the program. I know this because I turn on the office computers and read files when the staff leaves at night.

The last writer in residence from New York took one look at the deserted location of our home and fled. You would think we lived on the set of The Munsters on Mockingbird Lane. The house is deathly quiet in the evening, and the sound of the hallway clock ticking often startles me. We live in the business district with workers running to their cars at the stroke of five, leaving the writer alone in the attic.

When Dibbles and I would take a particular dislike to a scribbler, we raced up and down the stairs, slammed doors, cranked up the air conditioning until windows frosted over, rattled doorknobs, and turned lights and electrical appliances off and on. Typical garden-variety ghost treatment. That was enough to scare them.

I’ve learned over the years that the literati from New York move the most nimbly and bolt for the New York State Thruway faster than I can shout, “Boo!” We liked Arlene the best. At first, she was a little spooked by us but she hung in there. She turned on every light—they all do—and attempted to scare us away by playing Broadway show tunes on a vintage stereo at ear splitting decibels. I could see through this. But since I am the world’s biggest show tune aficionado, particularly songs from Funny Girl, I left her alone. I was too busy singing along with the music.

Her music calmed my spirits down. Dibbles and I stood together on the stairs leading to the attic and acted out every role. I loved playing Sadie, the married lady. That summer was the best I’d had in decades. Arlene left the music on all day long, even when she was out of the house, and we were in heaven.

Arlene was well occupied that summer, with the Thurber folks running her almost six feet under. She taught a writing class at Ohio State University, taught writing to kids at the Thurber Summer Camp, and her favorite, I could tell, was acting as a writing coach to reporters of the Columbus Dispatch. She always had a dining companion for Columbus’s version of chili dogs, called coneys; I don’t know how anyone can eat these; they’re hell on the stomach.
She didn’t use the kitchen much, and from what I gather this is for the best, so we were thankfully free from the smells of ancient fried fish and timid bacon that linger on until eternity. Arlene was the only writer I can recall who cleaned and washed as if this were her home. Not one other author stomped down to the basement to wash the bedding and clothes like she did. She may have even laundered the curtains throughout the Thurber House. Arlene left us chocolate kisses and plates of Buckeye donuts at the top of the stairs and said hello both coming and going, with a little wave. No one was ever that friendly. It’s just supernatural.

I’m exhausted from answering this question so yes, I’ve seen Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit on Broadway, and we pop in a DVD of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir every Christmas. I would like to clear my name, though. James Thurber wrote the short story “The Night the Ghost Got In.” This was not me. He experienced this nocturnal visit 47 years after the Ohio Lunatic Asylum burned. This is just crazy. Folks have reported seeing the ghost of a man who committed suicide in the house. But Herb’s long gone. He found a good therapist who studied under Jung, and moved to California.

Let me get back to Arlene. I should warn you that she has a pretty good sense of humor and very often she and handbag vibrate with laughter. The specter of her levity still haunts me.

She’s a damned good writer. Norman Mailer, may he rest in peace, would have liked her. I can feel it in my bones. They were both passionate about the sport of boxing, although she wrote about it 20 years after he did. She channels him in the pugilistic sense and in her own style. I have a signed copy of her book, The Prizefighters, stolen from her room, in a trunk in the basement and it will be treasured forever.

Arlene gets into the guts of people when she’s writing. Like Norman, she doesn’t pull any punches, Her style is constantly evolving, like any great writer, and it isn’t just about moving from stretch pants to designer clothing. It’s about shape and subject, form and function. I like alliteration, alas.

I’ve given the dear a little help but please don’t let on that I’ve told you so. I would see her, head in hand, suffering from a pinch of writer’s block. When she left the house, I would turn on her laptop and add in a few works and phrases. I don’t think she noticed. It’s my everlasting gift to her.

Simply put, Arlene just lifted my spirits. I don’t get out much. And it’s kind of lonely here without her. I think she would do your house some good.

Sticks and Stones: A Tribute to Joe Frazier

2011-11-08T13:03:00.018-05:00

          Once, a long time ago, Joe Frazier and I sat crammed on a hotel stage filled with heavyweights, both literally and pound-for-pound, posing behind large tables and a podium for a boxing awards dinner. These men fought for championship titles in front of thousands, at a time when tv sets were all tuned to fights at the same time. Our chairs faced an attentive crowd of mostly men, as starry-eyed waiters placed plates of steak in front of us and fans lined up hoping for an autograph and a handshake. Not from me, I might add.
          As the only one on the dais wearing my nervousness at speaking in public like a crown, I patted my underarms with paper towels in the ladies room before pinning a colorful necklace of buttons to the waist of my dress.
          Joe Frazier and I crossed paths many times over the years, at boxing matches and at dinners, and I trekked down to north Philadelphia to interview him at his gym for my book, The Prizefighters. A man of great pride and sensitivity raised in the segregation of South Carolina, his eyes still looked bewildered when he described how Muhammad Ali had treated him.
          "His words hurt me, me and my family," Frazier said. "He called me a gorilla, the white man's champion, telling me that I was stupid. Why did he have to say this?
          Vietnam, it was not my place. I'm not about war, I'm not a politician. I'm a world champion. My job is boxing."
          His daughter, Jacqui, was 13 at the time of the 1975 Thrilla in Manila.
          "People went for what Ali was saying about my father. They thought my father was ignorant," she recalled. "My father is a very loyal person. He didn't say anything. All he could do was focus on fighting. He was completely shocked and betrayed, and he had to go through it publicly."
          Small for a heavyweight and with a devastating left hook, Ali would not have been Ali without Frazier. With Howard Cosell as a sidekick, they came along at a historic time in this country for legendary fights of the centuries.
          At the boxing awards dinner, men on the dais called for an intermission after resting their knives and forks, and rose from their seats. I rose, too, and exhaled. My belt of buttons exploded, with a kaleidoscope of brightly colored plastic buttons showering the carpeting.
          “Oh, no!” I cried out.
          On my hands and knees, I crawled under chairs and tables to collect them in a dinner napkin.
          “Got some for you,” a voice called out.
          I looked over.
          There was Joe Frazier, the heavyweight champion of the world, kneeling down and picking up buttons, and holding them in his fists.

Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: The Art of the Obituary

2011-10-19T18:51:00.004-04:00

Tombstones and mausoleums and their epitaphs summing up lives lived may serve as permanent markers of the dearly departed but obituaries serve as concrete public proof in novella form denoting that a person has lived and died, grim reminders of our own mortality, with evidence appearing daily of one’s departure or expiration. But obituaries are only as concise; witty; dry; culturally, politically, historically and medically accurate; and reflective of their subject as the writer who dissects and molds what we read and the publication in which they appear.

The first recorded notices of one’s death first appeared in 1731 in The Gentleman’s Magazine, a London periodical, and included short biographies of the deceased. Obituaries from their beginnings to the present day were/are selectively culled from the masses, based on the whim of the writer, the editorial bent of the newspaper, or social status. They often appeared as brief as a line or two by anonymous writers of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle during the 18^th and 19^th centuries but longer if the subject was a prominent member of the community, or as three line novellas by Félix Fénéon in Paris’ daily newspaper, Le Matin, in 1906, to longer obituaries prevalent in the more modern day New York Times. As a contrast in styles, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted the passing of one of its citizens (and now former reader):

"5 November 1857: Fatal Result of an Accident.—Charles Gorzork the young man who was accidentally shot near Greenwood Cemetery on Friday by a companion with whom he was out gunning, died at the Hospital yesterday from the injuries then received."

Felix Fénéon’s declarations of the dead notices are a bit more succinct, prosaic and leave more to the imagination of the reader:

"In Marseille, Sosio Merello, a Neapolitan, killed his wife. She did not wish to market her endowments."

The writer Luc Sante acknowledges Fénéon as a master of brevity with a singularly distinguishable style: Each item is a literary performance, just as each is nameless, evanescent, consumed in an instant and then used to wrap fish. Obituaries are as much a reflection of the deceased as they are of the writer. In The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries, author Marilyn Johnson compiled offbeat prose reports of the dead, noting a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph in 2005:

"Jeanette Schmid, the professional whistler who has died in Vienna aged 80, performed with Frank Sinatra, Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich; she had been born a man and fought in Hitler’s Wehrmach before undergoing a sex change in a Cairo clinic."

And for many, the publication of an obituary is part of the ritual of their death, just as a wedding notice might appear or the awarding of a prize significant to their field. The well known, renowned, notorious, and infamous are guaranteed obituaries by dint of their accomplishments. Johnson dissects the process, insisting that the subject of the obituary nets a more full report in the hands of a more mature, seasoned writer.

But writing the tales of the dead should not be left to the fainthearted or the young, she writes. "It’s a challenging section to edit, and never more so than when a famous person dies unexpectedly, like late in a three-day weekend, during a snowstorm, when there’s no advance obit in the bank, and the only available writer is too young to know much about the subject."

One of the more modern day literate writers of obituaries, Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. of the New York Times attacked his subjects with dexterity, mirth and cleverness and compiled a legion of fans. In a book compiling Thomas, Jr.’s best obituaries, 52 McGs, Thomas Mallon writes in the forward:

"You read them first with your morning coffee, or the subway, or waiting for the computer to boot up—always while you were moving headlong into another day of busy and ordinary life.. .About Anne Hummert, the creator of over a dozen soap operas, he (Thomas, Jr.) asked: “Can a career woman who sacrificed her leisure to keep a nation of enthralled housewives glued to their radios for the better part of two decades survive a heart-wrenching regimen of producing as many as 90 cliff-hanging episodes a week to live a full, rich and long life?” Beautifully alert to verbs—“Hal Lipset, a storied San Francisco sleuth who helped elevate, or rather reduce, electronic surveillance to a miniature art”—Thomas wrote as if he’s never heard of an exclamation point, let alone thought of using one. In his hands, irony was not the all-pervasive, self-congratulatory thing it is today."

How the writer of the obituary tackles the death of a subject can influence society’s attitude toward death. In an informal reading of New York Times obituaries, details such as the method or cause of death are now widely acknowledged: cancer and specifically, the type of cancer; suicide; tragic murder-suicide in the case of the elderly who want to take control over their deaths; this avoids the inevitable “what ever happened to. . .. ?” Michael Largo in his book, The Portable Obituary: How the Famous, Rich and Powerful Really Died, notes that the art of the obituary has often changed to match the society’s attitude toward death.

Obituaries today address the evils of death, whether someone died of excesses of alcohol or drugs, complications from AIDS, cancer, heart disease, obesity and suicide, following the openness of Americans to discuss beginnings and endings without shame.

Many readers of the New York Times turn to the obituaries first but these reports are sanitized versions of lives. They spare the details and minutiae of how the other half lives: they don’t reveal how many times a world famous fashion designer or renowned surgeon or Oscar-winning actress had to be tracked down by police with a flashlight as she wandered away from home, how many times he or she left the stove on, how many times he or she forgot her husband’s or wife’s name, and how many times he or she telephoned 911 when they were lonely.

Fame and accomplishments, in conjunction with readership and demographics and the obituary writer determine news of the dead. The middle and working class, unless they have achieved some sort of notoriety or have been killed in the commission of a crime where news accounts serve as their obituary. The New York Times is the holy grail of obits: unless one is a celebrity or a politician, famous author, actress or sports figure or a peg who fits squarely in the hole of pop culture, he or she will not be assured of a New York Times obituary.

A highly accomplished plumber who fixes sinks, toilets, and bathtubs all over the city is unlikely to receive any acclaim in print. He is of little interest to the newspaper or media or to the writer unless he invented a contraption of note or ran for the public office, complete with scandal. But there’s a glimmer of hope offered of newsprint immortality, thanks to the New York Daily News, which now regularly publishes obituaries of the middle and working class next to illustrious counterparts from the rich and famous. The local reports are distinguished by personal details and lesser accomplishments. One example, from Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 noted that its subject, “frequently played video games, which he picked up from his grandchildren. His favorite game was “The Legend of Zelda.” Schoolteachers, office workers, electricians and other components of the foundation of the city share space with headliners, politicians, and celebrities but theirs are filled with such achievements as the enjoyment of taking walks and fixing cars.

The obituaries below, in the vein of the newspapers listed above, pay homage to all. And they, too, are only as entertaining, mundane and informative as the writer. A little fantasy, a little macabre but it was a life worth living.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

11 June 1885: Fatal Result from Apples.—A melancholy incident occurred on Pineapple Street near Court Street yesterday which involved the death of a 105 year old woman. Arlene Schulman, a local baker, was smothered by several bushels of apples in her apple orchard. A verdict of accidental death was rendered.

Le Matin - A la Félix Fénéon

A baker caught her husband entwined with a fruit vendor in her apple and pear orchard. She flung apples at the pair; all were bruised.

In her orchard, inflamed by her love of apples, which caught her eye, Mme. Schulman was befelled by bushels of apples and smothered. The doctor was kept away.

New York Daily News – Nothing Left for Dunkin’: Big Apple Loses One of Its Best Apples

Arlene Schulman, a baker, died on Tuesday. She was 105. Schulman was born in the Bronx and grew up in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn and Medford, Long Island, and baked donuts for over 90 years.

She turned to baking apple cider donuts after marrying her fifth husband, who insisted that she become a housewife. Intent on growing the perfect apple, she converted the bedroom of their upper West Side apartment into an apple and pear orchard widely known around the world for its variety of species. Frequent guests to her home enjoyed apple cider, apple pie, apple cider donuts, and apple burgers.

In her free time, Schulman photographed her apples, reading and walking around New York City wearing a Big Apple pin and carrying a bag of donuts. She watched television on occasion, particularly enjoying reruns of Jeopardy and The Sopranos.

Her late husband, who died after being hit by an apple on their second anniversary, once called her “original, iconoclastic, eccentric but not crazy.” Her cat, Buster, survives her. Services were held simultaneously at Hunter College and at The New York and Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. The Kenny Funeral Home handled the arrangements.

New York Times – Arlene Schulman, Big Apple Baker, Dies at the Ripe Old Age of 105

Arlene Schulman, a noted gourmand of apples, died at her home at the age of 105. Her culinary preparation was legendary while she kept her recipe for apple cider donuts a secret not even Martha Stewart could coax out of her. She’d rather canoodle with a crabapple, as she often said, and her gluttonous tendencies towards baked goods with apples were enormous.

Her interest metamorphasized into unadulterated pleasure when biting into an apple one day at a fruit market. “Feh! I can do better,” she groaned. The Harvard Business School adopted her famous remark as a slogan. Her donuts were an amalgamation of apple cider, applesauce, apple baby food, and mashed apples all pureed into one elegant and snappy batter. The noted gastronome feted neighbors and celebrities with zip-lock bags filled with apple donuts sold under the label Arlene’s Big Apple. Former Mayor Ed Koch was known to consume at least six a day and St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s main spokesperson Joe Zwirling confirmed that just before last rites were performed, there were many requests for Schulman’s delectable, mouthwatering donuts.

An epicure with only one dish, she would seethe and smolder at critics who chafed at her solitary endeavor. “Getting one dish right is quite an accomplishment,” she said getting a little crisp around the edges in an interview with the Times in 2011.

Schulman was born in a tiny hamlet in the Bronx in 1976 and moved to Brooklyn when she was less than a year old. Her parents had no culinary backgrounds, although her father was a night manager of a frozen food company supplying prepared foods to the airlines, hospitals and schools. This shaped her taste buds as she refused to eat any foods that had been previously frozen. A graduate of Hunter College, she was so fond of her alma mater that a philanthropic gift of $5 million accompanied by seven-dozen apple donuts caused the college to name the West Building, “Arlene’s Big Apple Building” in her honor.

“I always say, an apple a day keeps the digestion moving”, she said, handing out apples. She continued to take classes at Hunter until the day before her death.

Decidedly non-euphuistic, she took to growing her own apple and pear trees in her apartment, giving new meaning to growing your own. She was so successful that she hosted busloads of Japanese tourists, presidents of foreign countries and researchers from the New York and Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. She cultivated a new species called the Arlene Crisps, which were considered culinary masterpieces for baking, snacking, cider and as substitutes for darts.

Schulman, decidedly noted for hating vegetables and the founder of the “Stop Canoodling with Carrots” campaign, is survived by her sixth husband, Kenny Katlowitz, a fellow baker, and a cat. Her orchard will be overseen by horticulturists and apple fanatics who will commemorate her life by eating an apple a day on August 13, which would have been her 106^th birthday.

“How about them apples?” she used to say, biting into a Granny Smith.

Correction: Due to an editing error in earlier editions, Arlene Schulman was listed incorrectly listed as 110 when she died. She was actually 105.

Correction: Due to an editing error, Arlene Schulman’s sixth husband Kenny Katlowitz, does not survive her; he died after choking on a 12-inch apple in 2005.

Correction: Kenny Katlowitz was Arlene Schulman’s fifth husband.

Correction: Arlene Schulman had no cats.

The Prizefighter at Gleason's Gym

2011-09-25T21:06:00.001-04:00

The Prizefighter, one of my photographs from the book, The Prizefighters: An Intimate Look at Champions and Contenders, was part of an art exhibit focusing on boxing at Gleason's Gym this past weekend. The exhibit, featuring paintings, sculpture, photographs, posters, and jewelry, drew hundreds of people who turned out for the DUMBO (Down Under the Brooklyn Bridge) Arts Festival.

So, bringing a bit of the boxing world to you.

The NYPD: Examine Thy Own

2011-09-18T16:54:00.006-04:00

The predator who entered my neighborhood in upper Manhattan several weeks and allegedly raped a woman at gunpoint turned out to be a New York City police officer. This latest police misbehavior occurred not long after two police officers escorted a drunken fashion designer to her apartment; one lay down next to her and crooned Bon Jovi songs while his partner napped on the couch. So who is protecting us?

Men and women of the Police Department are as physically, psychologically, and culturally diverse as the rest of us. From sensitive and committed to angry and abusive, bullies and bigots, obsessively organized or sloppy, heavy drinkers and non-drinkers, some are street smart, confident and emotionally intelligent while others are fearful, threatened, and insecure. One may have witnessed horrible acts of violence out in the street while another handles bloodless paperwork; some may have been bullies as children while others still are; some despise women or men, others love them; one shudders at the thought of gay marriage while another makes plans to marry his or her partner; some are loners, others have many friends; some are dating online, others are at home with their cats and their kids; they may dislike African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, whites, and others, and others may reject organized religion. They are made up of everything we are.

But do we really know what they are made of? The NYPD successfully uses CompStat to track crimes and reveal crime patterns. Why not analyze the NYPD’s own crimes and misdemeanors by organizing a computer database to help detect potential future criminals within its own ranks? It’s impossible to predict what patterns, if any, may emerge from the past 10 years, but it is worth a try to protect the public and the NYPD from each other.

A computer database can be programmed to compile connections and patterns by digesting information relating to NYPD offenders including age; gender; years on the force; positions within units and ranks held; origin of birth and current residence; marital status; education; ethnic background; relatives previously or currently incarcerated; past work history; military experience; possible prior gang involvement; relatives connected to gangs or organized crime; the name of the recruiter/friend/family member who connected them to the NYPD; family background; previous warnings on their police record; warning signs witnessed by their supervisors or fellow officers; any red flags from Internal Affairs, local precincts, or other police departments; the name of the psychological evaluator; and details of the crime or misconduct he or she committed.

Psychological exams, held as a barometer of mental fitness for entrance to the Police Department, can only offer, at best, an evaluation of what a person is made up of on one particular day. A psychological exam is often no better than the person handling the evaluation. Exams and psychologists cannot predict how cops will develop as people and as members of the NYPD. How one handles the joys, trials and tribulations of his or her personal life is not taken into account; you would have to be clairvoyant.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly doesn’t get to pick his troops, and if he did, they would be in excellent physical shape and of superior character. To move up in the ranks, a cop only has to be an excellent test taker to pass a civil service exam. These exams do not measure managerial experience, patience, or even common sense under unpredictable working conditions and they don’t measure anxiety or depression, grace under pressure or under fire. One hopes for the best.

Cops are no better than the society that they police. An impulsive encounter, a night out drinking, a mistake of judgment, an error of the heart, rather than of the mind, happens to all of us.

Placing a man or woman in uniform doesn’t remove their humanity or their flaws or their conscience and morality. But they have taken an oath and this should mean something. By examining the men and women who have hidden behind badges and guns over the past decade and found guilty of misconduct and crimes, we may find patterns and connections and possibly eliminate the future criminals.

Or, we may just find human nature.

No One Died in the Press Box

2011-08-09T19:14:00.031-04:00

Once in a while when the subject comes up, I inform the inquisitive that the most formative period in my life so far was my twenties and thirties, when I was raised by itinerant prizefighters, baseball players and the sportswriters who covered them: those who did well and neer-do-wells, trainers of champions and their opponents, and ball players who sometimes made foolish errors on and off the field. Like a sticky-fingered thief, I slipped into rooms of their souls to steal their stories and repurpose them into my own.

Willie Randolph

Ray Arcel

From Willie Randolph of the New York Yankees, I learned about the helplessness of fumbling baseballs, game after game in front of millions, so that a wrongly colored tablecloth at a dinner for thirty seemed so less important. Hank Steinbrenner, younger and slimmer (and so was I) spoke of the expectations of his father and I looked at the expectations of my own. Boxing trainer Ray Arcel and his quiet dignity, humanity and humility taught me that the bum in the ring is still a man with the same dignity, no matter what his price tag. From boxing gym owner Artemio Colon, I learned that one doesn’t have to be a world champion to be a success.

Artemio Colon

I didn’t have a head full of statistics or a box of rubber-banded baseball cards and failed dreams of playing the outfield. My curiosity, plain and simple, was to understand how people lived, won, lost, loved, persevered, who they were and where they were headed.
Film editor and amateur boxing referee Frank Martinez pushed me out of the editing room, shoved a camera in my hand and ordered me to shoot and to write about people. I haven’t stopped.

Sitting in press boxes, kibitzing in dugouts and locker rooms, and attending sporting events alongside renowned sportswriters like Dave Anderson, Vic Ziegel, Barney Nagler, Mike Katz and Jerry Izenberg. I dismissed contemporary novels as too trivial compared to their writings and the writings of A.J. Liebling, Red Smith, Bill Heinz, Budd Schulberg and Paul Gallico, who captured a colorful sports scene when the world was a much smaller place and people spent more time with each other.

At the non-quite yet half-century mark, I find myself bereft of an acknowledgment to the men and women who have helped shape, inspire, propel, encourage and even discourage me, and who are no longer with us. (The living are another story.) But at least half a dozen times a year, someone’s obituary appears and this part of my life reappears once again, only to disappear at the turn of a page or the click of a link on a website.

Leon Spinks

The latest, boxing promoter and entertainment impresario Butch Lewis, died suddenly at the age of 65 a few weeks ago, overshadowed by the death of singer Amy Winehouse. One testament to his generosity noted that he assisted young black men to succeed. He helped me, too, a young white woman reporting on a sport where it was easy to spot the losers, and harder to find a true winner. Butch, sharp enough to spot talent like Denzel Washington when he was an unknown actor, treated me like he had spotted talent, and arranged for interviews and conversations about and with the brothers Michael and Leon Spinks. Their lives had the same beginnings but disparate endings, and the talks that Butch and I had were lavishly seasoned with four-letter words; he spoke with me the same way he spoke with anyone else.

“You’ll clean that up for me?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I replied, “you owe me for this one.”

I cleaned it up, of course, for my book The Prizefighters, and thought of him every time over the years when I passed his office on 57^th Street. I still think of him when I pass by and my hat would be tipped, if I wore one.

Butch’s death, combined with the painful end of an ill-fated relationship, another birthday and the closing of summer, propelled me backwards and sideways to examine the people who influenced, inspired, supported me and gave me a chance.

My education at the hands of the previous two generations has its origins during the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City in 1977, which kept me riveted to the latest news updates by WNBC television’s Tony Guida and the New York Daily News’ Jimmy Breslin. Sitting on our tweed couch in the wilderness of the Long Island suburbs watching the pine trees sway in the breeze and the dandelions bloom and not much else going on, their reporting convinced me that bringing the world and its pathos home to others was just what I wanted to do.

Just after graduating from college with a degree in communications at the age of 19, I was hired as a news assistant at the ABC News Library, then moved to ABC Sports, back to ABC News as part of their documentary unit, and then embarked on a career as a sports journalist. My youth, inexperience and immaturity were confusing even to me. I learned to pick up bits and pieces of life from everyone, discarding some tidbits, absorbing the rest and spinning them around like atoms in a centrifuge until they finally meshed together.

The people I worked alongside of and interviewed influenced me collectively, in so many ways. They encouraged me, some with a few words, others with a kick. A few offered brilliant words of discouragement and this, in my stubbornness, only served to inspire me. They exposed me to ideas and other ways of looking at a subject, an object or just life. I observed how they worked, how they treated people, how they organized their creativity and how much they fought for it. The enthusiasm for their craft, whether they were behind the camera, in front of it, or at the mercy of their typewriters or computers confirmed that I was in the right place.

In his or her own way, through words or a gesture or observation, each encouraged me to find my own voice. Sometimes it wavered but it has never left me. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was headed somewhere.

You see, I was hatched from peoples who believed, as many working and middle-class people did in those days, that a steady income was a guarantee of success. But their hidden undercurrents of imagination as a standup comic in the Catskills, a writer of short stories, and an artist were what I tapped into. A journalist, particularly one covering sports, was certainly a different manifestation of art.

I was the same age as rookies, the latest hayseed or boxing prospect touted as the next champion, but decidedly more street smart. Time evened out the differences. I was young and sometimes lost, but luckily, always found by someone. Most times, I was the only woman and stood apart from the camaraderie of men, on the outskirts and never joining in, except once, at a boxing match in Atlantic City when I rose in frustration to threaten a drunken man who someone told me had mob ties. He was pacing back and forth in front of me and I couldn’t see the ring. A colleague put his hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me down into my seat.

“Don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ll call security.”

Eddie Futch and Michael Spinks

Many of the men would sit at the bar and regale each other with stories or eat dinner together. I remember dining with the boxing trainer Eddie Futch and his fighters more than once: they drank water, ate steak, and went to bed before 10 pm. So did I. Or I stayed in my hotel room and watched television or telephoned my latest boyfriend or friends to complain that the wallpaper didn’t match the bedspread and that I couldn’t wait to be home.

A woman was a novelty and sometimes I was mistaken for a sportswriter’s girlfriend or daughter or the press assistant. Never the round card girl, though. At press conferences, I was one of the fellas, mixed in with a sea of tweed jackets and plaid shirts, a distinctive fashion style I have always avoided. I must confess, though, like The Odd Couples' Oscar Madison, I have dried my hands on kitchen curtains.

Since I did not write for one particular newspaper, I missed out on the nurturing of an editor and newsroom colleagues and adapting to one newspaper style with its tics and temperaments. Instead, I led more of a latchkey type of existence, adapting styles and becoming resourceful in finding and shaping stories for different outlets, by working the beat on the street much like a cop would. I’d pick up news and information and call editors to pitch stories and when one door closed, I rang other doorbells.

Jose Torres

Irving Rudd

Along the way, the men and women I met lived through times we will never see again. They were trailblazers and groundbreakers, some working for newspapers no longer in existence or carving out careers during the early days of television. I owe them my education, from the clever and witty press agent Irving Rudd, a Damon Runyon character who wore a 1955 Dodgers World Series ring and handled publicity for the Dodgers before they left Brooklyn, and then moved over to boxing; New York Post sportswriter Leonard Lewin who sat next to me ringside and who had more years of experience than I was old; the writer Marshall Frady whose crisp, elegant writing I only came to appreciate long after we both worked for the ABC News documentary unit; sports producer Amy Sacks and Eleanor Sanger, the first female network sports producer, whose creativity as producers at ABC Sports were limitless; the quiet, courtly and reflective boxing trainer, Eddie Futch; Daily News sports columnist Vic Ziegel; former prizefighters Danny Kapilow and Tino Raino of Ring 8; the humorous and sly boxing trainer Jimmy O’Pharrow from Starrett City, Brooklyn; Minnesota Twins baseball player Kirby Puckett, whose eyes shone with enthusiasm before he self-destructed; former White House press secretary and ABC News correspondent Pierre Salinger, who left me reeling from his cigar smoke; the uncontainable and seemingly invincible boxing champion and writer Jose Torres; the fiery Jack Newfield; writer Barney Nagler, who first refused me admission to the Boxing Writers Association and then, later, called me fearless; quiet boxing champion Floyd Patterson; cartoonist Bill Gallo, who offered, and gave me, me his unconditional support; Madison Square Garden boxing president John Condon, who gave me the opportunity to photograph at the Garden; writer Bill Heinz, who shared writing tips with me pounded out on an old manual typewriter; sportscaster Don Dunphy; writer Budd Schulberg; the classy Joan O’Sullivan and the feisty New York Times reporter Edith Evans Asbury, both of whom I met at the Newswomen’s Club; Carl Nesfield, managing editor of the black weekly newspaper, Big Red, who knew what it was like to be an outsider; Manuel de Dios Unanue, who offered me my first steady gig when he was the editor-in-chief of El Diario-La Prensa, even though I didn’t speak much Spanish; sportswriter Victor Calderone, who recommended me to Manuel; and Mickey Mantle, who conducted the interview with a drink in his hand and hoped that I would "do good in radio."

Victor Calderon and Rene Cubas

Bobby Murcer

Ira Becker, the owner of Gleason’s Gym on 30^th Street, forced me to pay admission a couple of times before I was accepted; Yankees shortstop and broadcaster Phil Rizzuto was quite a character while outfielder turned sportscaster Bobby Murcer sent me to an art gallery; Dick Sandler, the sports editor of Newsday, gave me a chance to write for his paper while irrepressible Will Lieberson, who gave early roles to Dustin Hoffman and Jane Curtin, directed Broadway and off-Broadway shows and reported for the Armed Forces, regaled me with stories about the theater. From ABC News, the producer Steve Fleischman, who was married to film editor Dede Allen, spoke about the business of television; Emmy award winning producer and director Tom Priestley; Judy Crichton, whose legacy in television can never be matched, introduced me to her husband, novelist Robert Crichton, my first meeting with a real author; film editor Nils Rasmussen, who introduced me to the work of his late wife, Life magazine photographer Lisa Larsen, who photographed fashion, Khrushchev and documented refugees, among other subjects; videotape editor Walter Essenfeld who treated production assistants with the same respect as veteran news correspondents; ABC News correspondent Jules Bergman, who recommended books about science; Kitty Lynch of the ABC News Library, who stretched in the ladies room every day at three p.m. wearing a little black dress and perfectly coiffed hair and reading glasses.

I remember riding to Atlantic City with New York Times sportswriter Phil Berger as he sang Frank Sinatra songs. He died much too soon at 58 and treated me like an old Army buddy. He had a work ethic learned in the Army that I still admire: at the keyboard at nine a.m. sharp with an hour for lunch, and then writing until five p.m. I tried, but there were too many distractions.

Pete Sheehy

Pete Sheehy, the Yankees clubhouse man who dated back to the days of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, would bring me popsicles and stored my camera equipment in his locker, possibly making me the only woman to have a locker (of sorts) with the New York Yankees. He died on my birthday in 1985.

Most of the men I met who treated me like a comrade were old enough to be my father or grandfather. These weren’t relationships of shared intimacies and confidences but more like a young soldier in the trenches. We were too far apart in age and temperament and respect for anything but that.

“Hey, kid,” was a common greeting by p.r. men Irving Rudd and Murray Goodman.

Thankfully, I didn’t pick up the vices of some of the writers or what they might explain as indulgences, which included drinking, chain-smoking, chasing women, and in one case snorting cocaine. Every so often a fist fight or feud, or a skirmish or scuffle would erupt. No one died in the press box. One, Manuel de Dios Unanue, was murdered after exposing Columbian drug traffickers.

The men all had stories, particularly the ones who covered the sixties. I wished I had been old enough to live through it, to witness and write about the turbulent times of Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Muhammad Ali. While theirs are collections of stories and relationships, mine is one of small moments and incidents. I remember a Yankees relief pitcher named Tim Stoddard who commanded the space by his locker; at six feet eight inches tall, there was no quarrel from me. Whenever a herd of sportswriters moved towards him, he would inform them in no uncertain terms where to go. He sat in his locker reading a book on the day I decided to approach him.

Tim Stoddard

“Don’t you know I don’t speak to the press?” he growled without looking up.

“I had heard that,” I replied cheerfully, “but I didn’t think that included me. I’d like to ask you about your mother for a Mother’s Day story.”

Tim put his book down and answered every question, paying an emotional and tearful tribute to his mother who had died the year before.

Another, the volatile George Bell of the Toronto Blue Jays, cursed at reporters and women sportswriters in general. People knew to stay away. Only one person didn’t know any better. When he launched into a tirade in Spanish, I answered back with a curse word in Spanish. He approached me a few minutes later.

“What do you want to talk to me about?” he asked. “Do you know what you said to me in Spanish?”

“I most certainly did,” I replied haughtily. “But I don’t expect to be treated the way you spoke to me. I’ll be in the Dominican Republic on assignment and would like to arrange for an interview.”

He gave me his telephone number and I did interview him and others. When one of my contact lenses ripped leaving me unable to see, he drove me to his eye doctor for a replacement.

My colleagues once reminded each other, the day before a fight, that Roberto Duran would not grant interviews. I pretended I hadn’t heard and with nothing else to do, I tracked Roberto down in his room and knocked on the door. He was playing dominoes with friends.

Roberto Duran

I introduced myself and said that I was there to ask a few questions and to take a few photographs.

“Oh, come on in,” someone said. “He speaks English but he doesn’t feel comfortable with the language.”

“Oh, good,” I said, easing myself into a chair at the table, “because I speak Spanish and I don’t feel comfortable speaking it so we’re even.”

Marvin Kohn

While the men spoke about champions and contenders, Jack Dempsey’s fourth, last and most loyal wife, Deanna, was lending me a sparkly gold sweater for a Boxing Writers dinner. A female publicist wanted to pluck my unruly blond eyebrows and I allowed it (I still feel the pain). Marvin Kohn, who handed the press for the New York State Athletic Commission and was once Dorothy Dandridge’s p.r. guy, telephoned me one day to tell me that he had consulted with Barney Nagler: “We think you should dress better.” They were right. I shopped for better dresses for boxing dinners and squeezed my feet into painful heels. Barney and Marvin were from a different time and place, when men wore suits and hats and women wore gowns to the boxing matches, and when press credentials stated that no women were allowed in the press box.

The best advice I never took from them: “Marry the poor bastard.”

The old adage “If I knew now what I knew then” doesn’t always hold true. You have to go through most experiences first to be able to appreciate them later. Sometimes it’s best not to know, but to look back with relish.

So when the dust settles on another year lived and when I finally hit that half-century mark, I’ll raise a glass with overdue gratitude for everyone getting me through the first fifty years. I shared a birthday, August 13, with Marvin Kohn and for a few years’ running we would share a celebratory lunch at Ellen’s Cafe down near City Hall.

“Another year has passed,” he would remark.

Yes, Marvin, another year.

But this year and long overdue, I’ll look up and tell Irving and Marvin and Barney and Bill and Pete and Amy and Judy, Walter and the rest: “The kid owes you all a thousand thanks.”

Hold the Bacon

2011-07-09T21:19:00.010-04:00

An old pal of mine used to be a detective with the New York City Police Department. Leaning back on his heels at the scene of a crime and rocking back and forth in his suspiciously tan trench coat and large silver pinky ring, Ken was a master at detecting clues, from picking up a lone hair affixed to the rim of a bathroom sink, to digging for a bloody knife buried inside a tacky red velvet sofa to poking at a cigarette stub at the bottom of a glass in a cluttered, messy restaurant. He could sniff out a timid burglar squished inside of a cardboard box in a busy post office filled with Christmas packages and hear the tiny squeak of a door closing five blocks away. His aim with his .38 was as impeccable as his sharply pleated black suits and spotless ties. He never fired his gun in his 20 years solving crimes and capers, but if pressed into action, we knew his swagger and bullets would find a target.

But Ken has two handicaps that still amaze me to this day and for which I have never forgiven him. In all the years that I’ve known him, whether traveling in his two-door Jeep on his way to a fishing expedition or an unmarked police car barreling through traffic, Ken has never failed to miss an exit, even when green and white highway signs the size of Madison Square Garden looked him squarely in the eye. But his most egregious sin is that like misplaced radar zeroing in on a toy stuffed bunny rather than the enemy, Ken always misses the lone and woebegone mismatched toupee in a room filled with perfectly coiffed hair.

Whether we entered a restaurant or a reception, the inevitable would happen. Ken, who had a few fringes of hair lying across his pate while I wore mine in long layered fringes like a badly woven shawl, would shake hands with a man wearing a hideous hairpiece that stood out like the Empire State Building in the middle of a cornfield. After the offender had moved on, I elbowed Ken. “Did you see that one!” I would chortle. Ken always looked confused. “No!” he insisted. “You’re kidding me.” He looked around stared intently at the crowd, but he couldn’t tell which man he had just met. I, for one, felt superior. Even without NYPD and FBI training, I am able to spot a perpetrator of bad taste.

My idea of a handsome head of hair is a neat short style paired with the angular features of the man and what’s under it. As I always say, you can snip and cut with the garden shears in an emergency, but you can’t alter idiosyncrasies, insecurities, infirmities and indifference. They can be covered or smothered with hair but not hidden. Men with fake hair cry out “imposter!” to me.

These hairpieces on men have always fascinated me, to the point of a draw dropping, heart stopping grip of wonderment. When designers like Ralph Lauren design a country model bed of hair or when Vera Wang weaves a suave rug, then maybe we’re talking style. Most wigs are so painfully hideous and cry out to the naked eye “Ain’t I a suave and sophisticated gent?” But they look silly and a bit sad, the last reclamation of youth and vitality on a man no longer young and whose vitality has seen better days. An older man somehow thinks that his newfound hair looks better than the thick hair he once had as a teenage flirt. Maybe it’s not the hair that he’s missing but a longing for the sensation of hair flowing between the tentacles of a plastic comb or blowing in the wind. Ken always said that he didn’t miss either sensation and relished the idea of saving almost a thousand dollars a year by not having to subsidize the hair care industry.

So without hair to grasp between bristles of a brush, men resort to the next best thing. They invest in toupees that sit crookedly, some so large that there’s a gap between wearer and wig, others so small and tight they look positively painful, and some resemble tall, wavy cupcake swirls while others look as silky as Barbie doll hair, sitting misshapenly on top of gleaming eyes and a face as wrinkled as tissue paper. Leave yourself alone, I say, and spend the time and money on toupees and fittings and washings on learning Japanese, earning a college degree in economics, or tutoring teenagers in Thurber or Thoreau.

Thoreau would eschew hair for a walk in the woods while Thurber’s henpecked husbands would be told by their wives to let their hair alone. But whether man or woman, your fate is set. Hair will turn gray and then white and thin out or run out as you age, so that you wind up peering at a circular skull at the back of an oblong head, admire flowing ruffles that resemble an Afghan hound, or inquisitively stare at a comb-over with startling wisps of hair swept over to one side. Ken once likened a comb over to strips of bacon lying across a frying pan. Unappetizing, yes, but they cover the appetite for youth. The quest for youth has no boundaries.

For young or old, a blond wig or blond hair on a dark skinned or Asian woman can be construed as glamorous and sexy. That woman didn’t arrive in the delivery room with a speck of that light hair but a blond toupee on a dark skinned man looks positively strange. Ken and I once caught a jazz set in a Harlem nightclub with a couple of old friends. In the dim light and seated knee to knee at a small circular table, we listened to the main attraction, a penetrating saxophonist with blonde hair, heavy lidded eyes and a strut as fierce as a catwalk model. Herbie, I think that’s what his name was, looked to be about 75 and wore a wig resembling a shower cap with blonde curls hot glued on. He adjusted his wig with a snap at its brim between notes. Ken drummed his fingers against the table and was lost in the music. I was lost in Herbie’s hair. So intrigued was I by the movement of his toupee that I neglected to realize that he had stepped down from the small stage to our table. Herbie introduced himself to each one of his admirers. “I really liked your hair,” I gushed, stuttering, “I mean your music.” His eyes glistened as he clasped my hand in between his and mistook my stammer for unbridled interest. “What are you doing after the show?” he inquired bluntly, tossing his golden mane. Not a chance, pal, not a chance. Ken, by the way, hadn’t even noticed the faux hair. “Really?” he asked. Really.

A colleague of Ken’s and mine was once married to a man whose frosty silver locks, complete with sideburns from the early ’70s, looked the same every day for 25 years. We went to dinner with his ex-wife one evening and I popped the question. “I’ve never see him without it,” Tina said without embarrassment. “Even when. . .?,” I raised my eyebrows in astonishment. “Never!” she insisted. They had been married for 10 years and not once did she ever see her husband without his hair. Did he have more than one hairpiece? Was there a standby model? Did he wash and rinse it in the sink? Was the hair real or synthetic? How was it attached to his head? How hot was it during the summer? Where did the water go when it rained? Did it run down his neck? What had happened to his real hair? Didn’t his toupee get hot in the summer? “I don’t have answers to these questions,” Tina said, swatting me away. My lengthy inquiry into the washing, tending and petting of her husband’s hair left me as frustrated as when I first became fixated on his hairpiece. Ken looked at me strangely. “I liked his hair,” he said, patting his own bald pate.

Our friend, Sylvia, who dyed her hair blonde, noted my interest in the subject of hair. She regaled me with the story of a colleague who wore an ill-fitting toupee that broadcast “trying too hard” and she gently and sensitively offered to adjust it for him. “It’s just fine,” he retorted, moving her hand that had so lovingly caressed a flock of brown curls. A year later, he sheepishly announced that a second set of locks had arrived from England. This time, he admitted that he read the instructions included in the box. He had been wearing his hair backwards all along.

Backwards, forwards or sideways, the truth begins at the top. If the hair is fake, then what is honest about the man’s inclinations or intentions? I picture myself at that rousing moment of passionate abandonment, grasping onto his wig and flinging it wildly across the room. We’ll never find out if this could happen because one of my cardinal rules is never date a man wearing a toupee. The peeling away to the soul of romance should not begin with the falsity of appearance.

I’ve had my own love/hate relationship with my hair, as I’m sure most women do. The phrase “bad hair day”, which is so much a part of our lexicon, can be blamed on humidity, bad shampoo, no shampoo, rain, sleet and snow, hats and hormones. Mine only occasionally looks passable. I’ve thrown up my hands and thrown in the towel because it will do exactly as it pleases. As a kid, I remember the shag haircut of the ’70s, very much like Tina’s husband’s silver hairpiece but a bit longer in the back. My long red hair was unceremoniously clipped into a style that was wrong for my face. It was the wrong shape for so many faces but no one paid attention or cared – it was the “in” thing and everyone wore this haircut. But the “in” thing gave me curlicued sideburns and made me feel about as attractive as a hedgehog facing the headlights of a car on the open highway.

My best friend, Linda, once cut my hair and let it be the last time that she approaches me with an open pair of scissors. She had her own hair issues. Trained to be a hair stylist, she started at the bottom in the hair salon business, sweeping floors and clipping the nails of customers. She dropped out of the business after elderly customers kept kicking her under the manicure table when her cuticle scissors drew blood. “Screw this,” she said, throwing down her shears and enrolling in dog grooming school. Her poodle cuts looked positively divine and the customers didn’t talk back.

Sitting around her kitchen table in her apartment in Washington Heights one evening, I noticed my own hair looking a little mangy. “You could use a trim,” she suggested. I confessed that I hadn’t found a good hairdresser and didn’t have the time. “I’ll do it for you,” she said perkily. “Only take a minute.” I warily agreed, figuring at this point in her career that she could discern between a barking head and a talking head. She sat me in her kitchen chair, placed a plastic bib under my chin and sprayed my hair with the mister that she used to water her plants. “Are you sure you know what to do? I only want a trim,” I said nervously. “Oh, c’mon,” she replied. “I do this all day long.”

With no mirror in sight, it was impossible for me to see what my hair looked like. Chunk after chunk of my hair fell to the floor as her two immaculately groomed poodles sniffed at my feet. It was over in a minute. Linda removed the bib with the flourish of a matador just as her husband walked into the dining room. “What happened to you?” he inquired, not unkindly. I shuddered in horror as she held up a mirror. It reflected back a long narrow face with blond caterpillar like eyebrows and hair cropped just below my ears with a little extra at the back. I’d never thought I’d see it again. My shag haircut had returned. Two decades later, I still felt like that hedgehog.

My grandmother admired my new haircut, though. She always had lovely stylish gray hair, never dyed, lacquered or sprayed or too long or too short but just right, and when she was in her nineties and living in a nursing home in Brooklyn, her white hair felt soft and wispy as an infant’s. Back in the ’70s, her hair wasn’t real and part of a trend I still can’t understand. Wiglets and wigs were in style a couple of decades ago, but oddly enough, they were often made of synthetic hair that the wearer added to their own hair, even if they had a full head of hair of the same color and style. When my grandmother died and I cleaned out her apartment in the Bronx, I discovered a square plastic box with a handle that I took to be a vintage purse. It contained a steel gray wig very much like the hair she wore in photographs. She was no longer with us, but her hair was now sitting in my closet. It was creepy. I caressed the wig once to see what it felt like, placed it gently back into its box and threw it back into my closet. Just the other day on the moment the wig was to be photographed, an outstanding discovering was made. As the wig was gingerly plucked from its carrier, a second wig emerged along with two instruction booklets and a hairpin. Well, one mystery was solved. The pixie stretch wig composed of 100% specially processed modacrylic had been sold by Sears and the second one – noted as “Style 570 Color #51 – but with coarser hair was comprised of Dynel. The original tag reads “Dynel: for girls with better things to do” but carries a warning admonishment under the “Do’s and Don’ts”: Don’t stand over stove or near open oven. Okay.

While my grandmother covered her real hair, other women of her age colored theirs, most often a peach color that made me want to pinch off a piece like cotton candy. One of the greatest inventions behind the airplane and the wheel has been hair dye. Why look old when you can look young? No one needs to have gray anymore. My own experimentation has led me to reclaim my red hair but at the expense of it looking like Lucy’s fiery fire engine color with my bathroom resembling a crime scene from splashing of dye from sink to ceiling. I don’t have the time and energy to have my hair touched up every six weeks and so I miss out on the communal spirit of women at the hairdresser. I also save a great deal of money.

It’s expected that women of any age will or should color their hair even when it looks like they did it themselves under duress. Men always have that “did he or didn’t he?” question, particularly when their hair is all of one flat color without any highlights or lowlights or when you clearly know that a 75 year old man, unless he’s hiding a secret, cannot possess a sleek head of black hair. To dye or not to dye? I say, no. Keep it real.

Thankfully, I’ve spotted fewer and fewer hairpieces over the last decade. You used to see them as often as a New York City taxi in Times Square. With the latest additions of hair plugs, acupuncture and hair growth crème and pills, men can reclaim their godly locks. And the natural look is fashionable so a head shaved down to the basics, gleaming in its own confidence, is now in vogue.

So my piece about hair is over. I’m happy to say that Ken has retired from the New York City Police Department so that crime scenes are attended in a timely fashion, I no longer dye my hair and have found a good hairdresser, Tina remarried a man with no hair, Linda confines her talents to pooches, and that toupees, may they rest in peace in landfills, can be flung to the sky in jubilation.

Note: Some names have been changed to protect the hairless. And, a search for toupees from uptown to downtown and throughout midtown netted no men with fake hair. A few were questionable and one got away. But Chad Walters was brave enough to don my grandmother's wigs for a reasonable facsimile.

A Tribute to Bill Gallo

2011-05-13T13:50:00.002-04:00

(Note: due to technical issues with blogspot.com, this item has been reposted)

As a kid, the New York Daily News was always on our kitchen table even when my mother served the same frozen dinner night after night, at a time when people discussed the latest headlines and when subway trains were littered with discarded newspapers. I read the paper back to front; the sports pages were a telescope into our society with the drama of a novel and the plot devices of a film noir picture.

Bill Gallo’s cartoons were clipped and taped to my bedroom wall when I was a teenager. There was Basement Bertha and Yuchi and George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin and Muhammad Ali above my dresser. His cartoons were commentary stripped down to the basics of fine lines and wry and often moving editorializing. These were left behind when I moved out of my parent’s home when I was 19. But I still carry them with me.

A year later when I was 20 and on my own and still unformed and uninformed, curiosity pushed me to the telephone. He answered his own phone. “Mr. Gallo, you don’t know me but I would like to meet you,” the words rushed out. He invited me for a visit in his office at the old News building on 42^nd Street with the world revolving in the lobby. Courtly and with a great head of shiny black hair, he showed me his workspace, the implements of his trade in metal cans, and offered a tour of the newsroom. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of the conversation and wish a photograph had been taken as evidence of our encounter. Bill left me with a sketch on Daily News memo paper of Basement Bertha reaching for a star with the inscription, “Remember, Arlene. . .to reach for the stars!” And that I did.

A few years later, whenever we would meet at a sporting event or Boxing Writers luncheon, Bill wearing one of his trademark bow ties and I wearing some semblance of a matching outfit, I would remind him of our meeting. With a friendly tap on the arm you’d give an old buddy, he always added, “You’re doing great,” and “Wonderful photographs” and “Great story.” Ten of us couldn’t come close to matching the history of his life. But it was his respect, his modesty, his humanity, his fondness for others and his love of people and his work that shone like an incandescent bulb and that makes him absolutely irreplaceable.

So as the plunderer of principles, my indebtedness to Bill Gallo is beyond value, with his having left a little bit to all of us of what it is like to be a person of honor and integrity and generosity of spirit as we contemplate our presence in the world.

The Bronx is Burning

2011-03-01T20:51:00.011-05:00

Another wind of memory carried me to the steps of my aunt’s Bronx tenement building on University Avenue and Kingsbridge Road.

“Those bastards!”

Auntie Esther shouted through the apartment door as I fumbled with her keys in the old lock. She wasn’t really my aunt but my grandmother’s sister so this made her my great-aunt. I squinted both eyes in the dim hall light and felt around for the lock. The sounds of Hawaii 5-0 reruns reverberated into the hallway of her old six story high dirt brown brick building. It was so loud I thought Jack Lord was standing next to me.
Two Puerto Rican teenagers clumped down the hallway stairs in their heavy boots and thumped basketballs against the steps and walls. There were no elevators in her building, just two large stairwells at either side of the building that neighbors had climbed up and down for decades. I winced as bounces echoed off the walls but the boys ignored me in the shadows, another home attendant, they figured, coming to call on the building’s elderly.

I shoved the heavy door open and almost bounced back into the dark and musty hallway from its weight. A heavy police lock held the door, a brass bar stuck a hole drilled into the floor and inserted into an oval brace on the back. After wedging myself through the opening, I held my stomach and my breath and pushed myself in. I yanked my pocketbook in after me with a few sharp tugs. I dusted myself off and slammed the door shut. This painful routine would be played out in reverse when I left.

“Hello, Auntie Esther,” I called out. “Hello. HELLO. AUNTIE ESTHER, I’M HERE!”

She stared intently at the TV screen. She didn’t notice me until I stood in front of the blaring television, waving my arms like a fan at a Giants football game.

“HELLO, AUNTIE ESTHER!”

Auntie Esther sat in a sagging armchair purchased as part of a living room set back in 1959. The two chairs and couch were champagne colored weave protected by thick plastic slipcovers, owned by every member of her generation. I once poked a small plastic hole in the couch plastic—the almost half century old fabric was just like new. The armchair had seen better days; the plastic was gone, the armrests were thin and bony with fabric worn away.

“Those bastards!” she shouted again from the living room.

Once she sat blissfully on her perch like a pear shaped bird covered in polyester, looking at her TV while a three-alarm fire blazed in the apartment next door. Three fire trucks pulled up, dozens of firemen with acres of hoses began dousing the flames. Police cars with their sirens on alerted neighbors. Fireman, cops, and neighbors banged on her front door and rattled her windows. Finally, a fireman broke in the window gate in the bedroom to rescue her.
“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Here—“she reached under her chair cushion to retrieve her purse—“Take these two dollars, mister, and go out the same way. I have no more.”

Thankfully, there was no damage to her apartment, Auntie Esther, or the chair.

When Auntie Esther finished reading her mail, she would stick the letters and bills under the seat cushion, and sit on them, the papers and envelopes sticking out like a large fan. From that chair, she successfully bullied the telephone company into reducing her $22 bill by three dollars, bossed around home attendants who didn’t make her tea hot enough, and examined by visiting nurses who took her blood pressure while she would say, “You know, I’m not so young anymore.”

The nurse would pat Auntie Esther on the arm, “You’re doing fine, Mrs. Nachman”, and she would cheerfully reply, “I had that for lunch yesterday.”

Now she turned to look at me.

“Oh, hello, Arlene,” she said, as if she had just met me on the street, a casual acquaintance rather than her favorite niece. She cleared her throat and coughed twice, as was her habit.

“What did you bring me?” she inquired, not pausing for my answer and staring at me without blinking.

“I don’t think you love my anymore. Why weren’t you here yesterday? They’re trying to rip me off. Those bastards. I didn’t have it easy. Nobody ever comes to visit me. Think you’ll see me before I die?” she added with a nervous laugh.

I groaned. I had only heard this five times a week for the last three years. Moving to turn down the TV, I was intercepted by 50 years and two hearing aids.

Auntie Esther was actually softer than she sounded. She wasn’t skinny and shrill with bony fingers but rather lumpy in a faded housedress. Her gray hair was cut short and felt as soft as old cotton. Her skin was soft, too, and pink without wrinkles, and if she had a makeover and a sharp outfit, at 90, she could pass for 60. In her younger days she was blonde and blue eyed. Her eyes looked the same but without her false teeth, I didn’t recognize her.

“Scared you, didn’t I?,” she always said with a laugh when she took them out at night.

Auntie Esther lived in the same one bedroom apartment for over 25 years, on the first floor, a half block in from Kingsbridge Road on University Avenue and not far from the elevated subway on Jerome Avenue. Her rent was $88. Her one kitchen window, two living room windows, tiny bathroom windows, and one bedroom window all faced the courtyard. Everything was painted chalky white, the same cheap paint landlords all over the city have been using for generations. Her carpet was a faded green tight wool weave, nailed to the floor, and impervious to removing. I don’t think she ever washed it but used a metal carpet sweeper to pick up her crumbs. She didn’t have many.

Auntie Esther left her apartment every day to eat lunch at the nursing home across the street. Sometimes I would find an extra package of graham crackers or a piece of fruit wrapped in a napkin in her refrigerator. She knew the neighborhood had changed from Jewish and Greek to Puerto Rican, Dominican and West African. Elderly Jewish women were scattered throughout the buildings on University Avenue and Kingsbridge Road, always looking out from apartment windows wearing sweaters in August. Some lived alone, others lived with home attendants, and a few never came out anymore. Kids hung around corners and in front of buildings while my aunt sat on a green wooden park bench on a traffic island inhaling bus fumes and watching the traffic go by in the midday sun. She spent her days walking around the neighborhood, past the abandoned armory on Kingsbridge Road, pizza places, bodegas, and hardware stores, looking to save five cents on a loaf of bread, three cents on a package of cream cheese.
The only time she left her neighborhood was to purchase batteries for her hearing aid from a doctor on the Grand Concourse or to meet her younger sister, Mollie, and her cousin, Betty, when they made their annual pilgrimage to see Liberace at Radio City Music Hall. To Aunt Mollie, who lived in a one-bedroom room house in Deep River, Connecticut so small we called it a dollhouse, Liberace was a god. She and her bridge-playing gals looked forward to the trip every year. I think everyone knew he was gay except for them. And it was a good thing because my aunts wouldn’t have approved. By the time he died and his lifestyle exposed, Aunt Mollie had developed Alzheimer’s and couldn’t remember who he was, anyway.

“What are you doing to the television?” Auntie Esther squawked at me. “Now, I can’t hear it. I want to go down and tell those people at the telephone company who are charging so much —those cheaters. How can they do this to an old lady? I don’t know why they do this to me,” Auntie Esther complained, buttoning an old white acrylic sweater with two buttons missing.

After fumbling with the knob on the television, I finally turned it off and sat down on the plastic sofa. My bare arms stuck to the plastic.

She shifted her weight and pulled a white piece of paper from under the seat cushion of her throne.

I unfolded the paper. It was her Con Ed bill.

“What’s the problem?”

She didn’t hear me.

“WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?”

“The telephone company is trying to rip me off, those bastards. I’m an old lady living here. Why is this bill so high?” she complained. “I’m going down there and speak to the lady in charge! This never would have happened to me if I had children!”

I rose wearily from the fusillade.

“How much is the bill supposed to be?” I asked, looking around her card table for the telephone bill. She sat like a bird defending its nest, so there was no way I was going to reach for it under the seat cushion.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Auntie Esther shouted. “Who’s at the door?”

“WHERE’S THE BILL?” I shouted back.

“Why are you yelling?” she replied grumpily, reaching under her left hip for the bill and handing it to me.

The bill was $22.32.

“Uh, Auntie Esther, AUNTIE ESTHER,” I shouted, standing next to her so that she could hear me. “LOOK AT THE BILL! THIS IS CALLED INFLATION! EVERYONE’S TELEPHONE BILL GETS LARGER THE MORE TELEPHONE CALLS YOU MAKE!”
I remembered using the telephone during my visits, including calls to my home to check my answering machine.

“AUNTIE ESTHER, THIS IS NOT A LOT OF MONEY!”

“Sit back down on the couch,” Auntie Esther ordered. “I want to tell you something.”

I looked over at the couch and cringed. The living room windows hadn’t been opened in years and she refused to turn on the air conditioner in the bedroom because it cost too much money. Beads of perspiration formed on my forehead as I looked over at the plastic slipcovers. “You could fry a chicken on this thing,” I mumbled to myself and sat down.

“Dorothy,” she said, “Sonia-Stephanie-Laurie— ”. As a kid, I thought I had many names. Every female relative of mine would trot through everyone else’s name before we addressed the person in front of us. There weren’t that many of us and we don’t look anything like each other.

“—Anna- Ah-lene,” Auntie Esther concluded, without apologies, clearing her throat and coughing twice. “Get me some ginger ale from the kitchen. Use the glass on the sink and not too much. Take some for yourself.”

My legs left the sticky plastic with a squeaking noise and I found a glass in the kitchen. I poured the ginger ale and put the opened can back in the refrigerator next to a sad looking glass bowl crowded with four hard-boiled eggs.

I put two paper towels under the glass and walked back into the living room with a sigh.

“Here you go,” I said, sounding weary than cheerful. I knew it was going to come sooner or later.

Before she took a sip, she counted the paper towels.

“Why are you giving me two?”” she blasted.

“That’s what came off the roll,” I explained, sitting back down, this time on the edge of the couch.

“Why did you give me two?”

“Next time, only give me one. Go take some for yourself.”

I rose from the couch and poured myself a glass of ginger ale from the kitchen, the cool, sweet drink a welcome relief from the temperature inside the apartment.

I excused myself to use the bathroom and to splash cold water on my face.

"Make sure you turn on the bathroom light,” Auntie Esther warned me. I groaned.

“No, I’m going to sit here in the dark,” I muttered to myself.

As I fished around for the end of the roll of toilet paper, I noted that my aunt washed her clothes by hand in an enamel bathtub, the water emerging from a circular hairbrush style faucet suspended from a ceiling pipe. It looked like a set from an early silent movie. The apartment hadn’t been painted in at least fifteen years but since Auntie Esther didn’t wear her eyeglasses, it all looked in mint condition to her.

Opening the bathroom door when I had finished, I found her staring at the door as I made my exit.

“Make sure you turn off the light,” she told me. I groaned and turned off the light.

Auntie Esther looked at me. “You’re getting old,” she sniffed.

“So are you,” I replied.

I looked at my watch.

“Auntie Esther, I just checked in to see how you’re doing. I want to know that you’re all right. But I can’t stay,” I told her.

“WHAT?” she shouted.

“I CAN’T STAY!”

“Why? Do you have a date?” she inquired with a chuckle. “Get one for me.”

“I HAVE TO GO! I have work to do at home. I’ll see you next week,” I said, grabbing my pocketbook and moving the police lock to scramble out.

As soon as I turned the key in the lock of my apartment door, the telephone rang. The answering machine turned on before I could reach the phone.

“Cough, cough. Hello (pause) Arlene. This is her Aunt Esther. Tell her to call me when she gets home. Did you hear me? Okay? Thank you.”
When she died, over 10 years ago, I wished I had saved the tape from the answering machine so I could hear her voice again.

Ode to My Mailman

2011-02-03T11:50:00.028-05:00

My mailman retired today, his last day of work delivering and sorting mail at the Inwood branch of the Post Office in upper Manhattan, a small squat non-descript brown brick building on Vermilyea Avenue with its own bureaucratic idiosyncrasies on the inside.

Pepe endured us all for 32 years, delivering mail into our small mailboxes with alarming regularity. Mail was tucked into our boxes with a little tap. Every envelope, postcard and catalog would be handed to us one by one or placed on top of the radiator in a pile and given out with a flourish while we waited. He wore his black hair in a small ponytail, climbing the steps to the building with his mail cart and the three steps to the mailboxes on the left and right sides of the elevator. He left packages with the super and, when thieves searching for credit cards and checks broke into building mailboxes, he was the one who suggested using a post office box.

He knew all of the old ladies by name, the helpful Mrs. Ullman, Mrs. Bernstein whose apartment I came to occupy after she died, cranky Mrs. Ward and elegant Mrs. Sinsheimer and her twin sister, and as I write this, they all come back to me again. They were old when I moved into the building and we would meet by the mailboxes while they waited for Social Security checks and packages of polyester pants and stockings ordered from catalogs. They are gone now, replaced by direct deposit and neighbors who sing opera or teach, and who receive Netflix and packages from eBay and Etsy.

Pepe brought me bits and pieces of my past, some of which I still have. He delivered letters from my grandmother, Anna David of Webb and Astor Avenues, who sent cards on every holiday, and who mailed news from her latest trip, written in her unmistakable swirly handwriting, with postmarks from Florida, resorts in the Catskills, and her home in the Bronx. I came across a letter of hers just the other day, written on small stationery and asking me, pleading, would I take some time out and visit her?

My father once mailed me a large box, filled with birthday gifts--a hideous brown striped acrylic sweater, a camera bag and a fish pin that he made out of laser paper. I still have the camera bag and the fish pin sent all the way from San Francisco, not long before he died. My great-aunt, Auntie Esther, mailed me her recipe for Greek bagel cookies from her apartment on University Avenue in the Bronx, and her sister, my great-aunt, Mollie, mailed me sweaters she had knitted from patterns and yarn I mailed to her home in Deep River, Connecticut. My grandparents, Sophie and Marty, who lived in Coney Island, sent me a birthday check every year they remembered, no card, just a check. I saved the envelopes to remember them by. Old friends sent me birthday cards and Christmas cards in the days, not that long ago, before cell phones and the Internet. Sometimes they would bend and get stuck in the mailbox.

I was starting make my way as a writer and struggled to make a living or, as my boyfriend, George, says, to make a name for myself, whatever name that would be. When I traveled to interview and photograph prizefighters in different states, or to Africa and the Dominican Republic, to San Francisco to visit my parents, to Amsterdam on vacation, to Ohio to visit friends, I let Pepe know my whereabouts so mail wouldn’t pile up. My life must have seemed quite adventurous.

Working the phones and editors for writing assignments, I sat writing at the long wooden table in my living room, telephone next to me, television turned on, an old Apple computer fired up. Propped up by bottles of Diet Coke and cellophane packages of Devil Dogs, I wrote into the night. The bell would ring from downstairs around noon, and I would leave the computer or telephone behind in anticipation of the day's mail.

“Mailman!”

“On my way!”

Pepe delivered bills and catalogs, letters from my editors and publishers, contracts, checks, credit cards, and letters from editors and perspective employers telling me, thanks but no thanks, W-2 forms, magazine subscriptions, postcards from friends traveling around the world or just saying hello. When the IRS started sending me letters, I didn’t want to open the mailbox. An official looking letter insisted that I owe them $8,000 and penalties would be charged. How could this be? My total income that year couldn’t have been more than $30,000. My accountant found their error and each time they sent a letter, the amount had fallen. After almost nine months of wrangling, it turned out that he was right and the IRS wound up owing me money. Then I looked forward to my mail again.

When Pepe was on vacation, mail would be delivered much later in the day and often, my neighbor’s mail was mixed in with mine and they found mine with theirs. I once praised Pepe by filling out a compliment card at the post office; I think it may have gone all the way to headquarters in Washington. Just a small token of appreciation. Several weeks later, I met him in the lobby of my building; I had forgotten all about the card.

He was beaming.

“Thank you for the compliment,” he said.

I was embarrassed.

“Oh, well, you know. . .thank you,” I sputtered. “Did they give you anything, like a watch or a certificate?”

“Well,” he said, a bit sheepishly, “they gave me a t-shirt."

When I began working a regular schedule at a regular job, or what amounts to regular these days, I spent less and less time at home and more time at the office and on the subway. I’d run into Pepe on Saturdays or on my days off. He began working inside the post office but it wasn’t the same as being out on the street, just as it wasn’t the same for me anymore when I worked outside of my home.

Last week, he pinned a card to the bulletin board of my building announcing his retirement on February third and thanking us. “To all my friends,” the card said. “Just dropping a note to thank you for the wonderful time we spent together one way or another. Thanks for being like family to me, I will never forget you.” Inside was a photograph of Pepe in his pale blue postal uniform, much younger and slimmer, with dark hair and a black mustache.

In my barely legible handwriting, I wrote on one of my note cards printed with my name, address and a scene of buildings. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for all of the years of wonderful service. This is the end of an era. . . .” I paired it with a large bag of chocolates and trekked down 204th Street to the post office this morning. At 8:30 am, Pepe came out of the back room where he had been sorting mail for delivery, for the last time.

“32 years,” he said. “I’ll spend the time with my wife and daughter, take my daughter back to school in Florida and the relatives are waiting for us to come visit them in Puerto Rico.

“It was time,” Pepe said, giving me a hug. “I’ll miss the people here.”

“It won’t be the same. I had to say goodbye and say thank you. I saw the card with your photograph,” I added. “You were younger and thinner then."

So was I.

Warm wishes for a wonderful new year!

2011-01-02T17:53:00.001-05:00

Ringing in the new year from Times Square

Emile Griffith, Boxing Champion

2011-01-01T21:21:00.001-05:00

I remember the former world boxing champion Emile Griffith as a gregarious and gentle man, quick to greet fan, former foe and friend with a handshake and a version of the male hug—a pat on the back—yet shy and guarded about his personal life. He carried the burden of killing a man in the boxing ring, an incident that seems incongruous to a man whose informal bearing and musical lilt from the Virgin Islands didn’t quite transport him to the legends of his tough championship fights.

Sometimes his eyes looked pained, his brow furrowed into lines like snakes as if he were asking, “Why?”

Griffith trained fighters at the old Times Square Gym on 42^nd Street, where the small gym on the second floor smelled of perspiration, desperation and hard work of champions and contenders who were counseled, trained and molded in a grimy ring with loose ropes, worn floorboards, and trainers shouting out commands against the din of fighters hitting the speed bag, managers cutting deals, and a small crowd of onlookers chattering about upcoming fight cards.

Griffith wasn’t very good at recalling names. We encountered each other many times over a 10-year period at the Times Square Gym or at local fights at Madison Square Garden during my years as a writer covering boxing and he would call out a cheerful and welcoming "Hello, young lady!" His life was as a man devoted to his mother who once wore huge creations of hats when she cheered him on during his fights and as a man who enjoyed the company of both men and women was not a subject of conversation by him and by others. He was just Emile and he lived his own life, no discussion, no disclaimers, no revelations.

Ring 8, an association that honors and helps support veteran boxers, held its annual dinner a couple of weeks ago. Emile Griffith sat on the dais, directly in front of my date and me. I hadn’t seen him in 20 years. Now, at the age of 72, they say he suffers from pugilistic dementia but I had hope that I might catch a glimpse of the old Emile. His face was unlined, his sturdy frame smaller. I searched for a signal, a blink, and a glimmer of recognition behind his dark eyes of someone from the old days. He stared back at me, eyes empty, his face blank.

A man seated next to him at the long table filled with boxing champions stood up and cut Griffith's main entrée of steak for him. Griffith poked at small pieces of meat with his fork and moved slowly to his mouth, carefully chewing and then swallowing and staring straight ahead.

Emile Griffith signed his first name to a photograph and stopped. "What about your last name?," I prompted gently. He looked up and then back down at a black and white image of him from years gone by and slowly added his last name in simple script. He put the marker down and pushed the photograph back to me.

His eyes no longer had a painful look, and his brow was smooth.

Three Carnations

2010-12-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

There’s a body buried in the Carver Houses.

The George Washington Carver Houses belong to the New York City Housing Authority, a city agency which houses New Yorkers and their families in sometimes tired and worn down but solid, singular-looking buildings throughout the five boroughs.

Like the pigeons that used to nest in coops on top of apartment buildings, rumors have flown for years that Mount Sinai Hospital has plans to take over the Carver Houses and use the apartments as housing for their medical residents. I heard these rumors 10 years ago; I still hear them today.

But the Carver Houses are still here and so is the body. Three weary pink carnations mark the spot underneath a windowsill, lying on the dirt grounds of a housing project named after a peanut farmer. As with all gifts of flowers, there’s a story behind these, too.

Wrapped in plastic, the corpse lies buried in the soil beneath a thousand heartaches of working people. I passed by the other day, and there were the ghosts of Pepè and Margo, who lived a long time ago in a small apartment on the seventh floor.

Pepè and Margo were two of the original residents of the Carver Houses, trading one island for another when they moved from Puerto Rico to New York City in 1955. They met in an insane asylum where she cared for patients and he worked in the fields. When they arrived here, he worked as a laborer in factories and she worked as an aide in nursing homes.

He was small and thin, she was tall and plump and they were married for more than 50 years. “She used the black magic on me,” he explained. “And it’s still working!” They lived together for 15 years before they married and the only reason they married was to obtain the apartment as a legal couple. She called him viejo or old man and he called her “ma.”

“I feel very happy in this country,” he said. “We’ve been living in this country 40 or so years. But Puerto Rico is beautiful. I miss the wind, the sun. I was born in Puerto Rico and I am going to die here.”

Margo wanted to remain in Puerto Rico, feeling locked in the apartment. “I want to go back. I miss everything. I miss the outdoors.”

They spoke for each other. “Here she feels trapped inside,” Pepè said, “You can’t just go out. We go to the yard and look at the flowers. I plant here and the next day it’s dead. You can’t have plants here unless you have a house or you live on the first floor. And outside they are savages. It’s very noisy and they don’t respect.”

The death occurred at a time when the city was overrun with drug dealers sitting on benches, destroying the life and genealogy of the neighborhood. Pepè rode the subway on most days even as an old man, before the subways became more egalitarian. As a young man, he was scrutinized for his color and his pedigree along the subterranean trail beneath the surface and soul of the city.

Pepè was small enough to carry in his wife’s arms but feisty enough to hold his own against the neighborhood toughs. He and Margo lived in an apartment overlooking green wooden benches some cop told me were made in prison. To the left is a noisy playground and straight ahead is Madison Avenue. It isn’t exactly a straight path to Madison and then to Fifth; sometimes there’s a stop at another island called Riker’s.

“We raised our children in this building,” Pepè said. “We worked. We had the control to raise our kids with responsibilities. Why can’t the others do the same thing?”

The view from the windows and from their peephole was better than their old black-and-white television with rabbit-ear antennas. Outside, a young guy came to the aid of a woman being pummeled by a man. He tried to help her, she ran away and he got stabbed. A woman was killed when she went to answer her doorbell. She was shot looking through the door and her daughter was killed in the street. Pepè said the killers were looking for a guy because he sold drugs.

He looked out of the window at a police car pulling up on the sidewalk. “For me, the Police Department, they are wonderful. I never have problems. They try to do their job the best they can. If they tell me to move, I do.”

“There is no better neighborhood than this one,” Pepè declared. “It’s not too great, but I don’t care. It’s home. We have people in this neighborhood who don’t want to live clean. And at night, the teenagers don’t work. During the day, they sleep. Sometimes you have to blame the parents. We need more cops here. This morning, barking, barking and barking. I said enough with the barking dog. There is urine sprayed all over the elevator. Where are you going to stand?,” he asked. “The office takes good care of the building. People here don’t take care of it.”

In the overheated apartment of Pepè and Margo, there were no doors on their closets; contents were hidden by curtains whose bulging contents created large lumps. Their kitchen was small and crowded with the pots and pans of people who ate at home and didn’t bother going to restaurants. “I used to leave the door open when I cleaned the house,” Margo recalled. “No one used to bother us.”

Tiny, their chihuauha, slept in their bed. He was the only companion in the house; Pepè and Margo’s two sons were married with children who had their own children. Pepè carried him everywhere tucked under his arm like a football. Tiny’s legs were spindly and arthritic, his head large and oversized, his eyes too large and brown and partially unseeing, his ears hard of hearing—the four-legged version of Pepè. Once, I took a photograph of these doppelgangers and presented it to Pepè. He carried it everywhere. He trimmed the edges to a small square and that creased black-and-white portrait remained proof that they were a pair.

“Sometimes you don’t remember,” Pepè said of his age, which was 85. “Once I put my shoe in the refrigerator and I put my keys in the freezer.”

Tiny was the first to go, dying in the winter. Pepè slept with the photograph tucked inside of his pajama top. He wrapped Tiny in plastic wrap and gingerly placed him in the freezer for the winter, alongside the forgotten shoe and keys, ice cube trays and chickens. When spring came and the ground thawed, he enlisted his oldest son and the two of them shoveled the earth and buried the dog in the middle of the night under a hazy street lamp below his window. There were no cops around.

Pepè seemed smaller each time I visited him and he knew that old age and time were happening to him. On my last visit to see him, Margo said she had taken him to the hospital three times that month. “I don’t like to leave him,” she said.

Margo died first, suddenly and in her sleep. The apartment was empty except for Pepè and his photograph.

Not long after his wife died, the silence and loneliness became unbearable. Pepè jumped, out of the window, the picture in hand, landing on Tiny’s grave seven floors below.

Pepè didn’t make the news. Maybe he would have by jumping from the George Washington Bridge or the Empire State Building, and his life, well, really his death, might be recalled and archived, even for a few lines. He was carried away in a black plastic body bag. That was his end.

I was the one who left the flowers, a small memorial to a life remembered. And, as I said, gifts of flowers have a story.

Customer Service, Delhi Style

2010-12-29T08:32:00.000-05:00

Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in Manhattan sits squately 160 or so blocks from my apartment, the equivalent of nearly eight miles, a $35 cab ride, a 25 cent telephone call, a four hour stroll, or a $2.00 subway ride. We share the same crowded and complex island. At this personable little shop, a furniture salesman calls me by my first name, thrilled that at least one wanderer has given him commission for the day and simply perhaps, because my credit is good. My careful research has finally netted me a couch, a large red leather one fashioned mostly in Italy to replace one that looks like several cats used it as a scratching post and with a large indentation in the center. I have no cats and I’m not that large.

My new couch landed in my living room, courtesy of two delivery men who attempted to shake me down for extra money. I live six flights up and only a narrow loveseat could make it into the elevator without trepidation. The extortion didn’t make it past a $20 bill in my wallet and I decided to contact Macy’s to complain. I dug up a Customer Service number on my receipt and dialed. I figured I would be reaching someone in the United States, like one of those ubiquitous call centers used by banks, and I might chat with a pleasant man or woman in a city like Boston or Florida or Arizona. Every once in a while I’m connected to an operator in New Jersey, although a Jersey accent might be shocking to the rest of the country. While I waited, a cordless telephone piped in American pop music into my ear as I wandered in circles around my apartment. I listened to four songs, including a glass shattering number by pop siren Mariah Carey.

A male voice interrupted the music and stopped the room from spinning.
“Macy’s. My name is Julius. How may I help you?”

His voice was distinctly Indian, with a carefully enunciated monotone that dragged each vowel out with military precision. In fact, it sounded like he was reading from a chart, with his professor carefully underlining each syllable with a wooden pointer.

“Oh, yeah, hi. I’m calling about my couch, you know, a sofa, and the delivery. I – by the way, where am I calling?”
“Madam, I am located in New Delhi,” Julius answered. “How may I help you?”
“Is there anyone available in the United States?’ I gently queried, wondering what an office building in India looked like thousands of miles away, if he shopped at Macy’s, what wages he earned, and would anyone be able to understand my New York accent, let alone colloquiums like “yeah, so what’s the point?” and other phrases not dissected in their training manuals.

“I mean, Macy’s is not that far from where I live. How do I reach someone at the 34th Street store? And — how did I wind up getting India?”
“Madam,” he repeated, not unkindly. “How may I help you?”
“My sofa was delivered and the drivers tried to shake me down for money,” I clumsily explained.
“Madam, it is not good to shake so much.”
I hung up the phone.

I didn’t have much better luck with AOL when I spoke to Chad, Norman, and Vince in India about how to get rid of my cookies. Cookies are things that store information on my computer, I think, not Nabisco snack items. My dial-up service wasn’t working properly and when I called for assistance, my quest for service began with a circuitous route from New York to New Delhi, then two cities in the Midwest whose names I’ve forgotten, Philippe in Canada, and then Ernie from the Philippines who resolved the problem. I need to clean my cache. Well, it seems like I need a passport, too.

Outsourcing to other countries has its limits. So I wondered what the dialogue would be like between Yankees Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra, who caught Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, and a customer service representative from India when this king of malaprops calls America Online for service on his computer.

Yeah. Hello? Hello? Is this thing working? Is anyone there? Thank you for calling AOL Tech Support. My name is Bob. You can call me by my first name. What is your name, please?
Yogi.
(Pause)
Hello? Is anyone home?
Yogi? Am I really speaking with a yogi?
Yeah. My name is Yogi. Can you help me with my computer? (background whisper: I’m on the telephone with a man who says he’s a yogi. Thank you so much for that information. What is your complete name, sir?
Berra. Yogi Berra.
Mr. Berra Yogi.
No, it’s the opposite way around. It’s Yo-gi Ber-ra.
Okay. Mr. Yogi. I am so excited to speak with a yogi. I will do my best to help you. Where are you calling from Mr. Yogi?
I’m calling you on my phone.
Where is your phone?
In my ear.
Ah. So you are calling from Ireland.
Ireland? Never been there. I’m calling you from New Jersey.
And where is Newj Ersey?
It’s right next to New York. Can you guys fix my computer?
Ah, New York. Perhaps you know my cousin, Dr. Patel?
I don’t know no Dr. Patel.
He drives a cab in New York City. He’s studying to be a medical doctor.
Ain’t that something. But what’s wrong with my computer?
Ah, so you are a Yogi with a computer.
I got a message from my grandson and I can’t turn this thing on.
Mr. Yogi, please tell me the name of your computer.
My computer doesn’t have a name. It’s just a computer.
I see. No name for your computer. Does it have the word Apple on it?
Yeah, I see the word Apple.
Mr. Yogi, press the button next to the Apple.
90% of this is pressing a button. The other 10% is pressing another button.
Mr. Yogi, what happens what you press the button?
The same thing that always happens. The computer turns on. You mean I have to call all the way to China for someone to tell me to turn on my computer?
Mr. Yogi, I am trying to help you. Is your computer on or is it shut down?
It’s ain’t shut down til it’s shut down.
What is your password?
Hey, who are you anyway? I never give out my signals.
Mr. Yogi, maybe you could meditate for a little while before we proceed.
I’m not on medication and what’s it your business, anyway?
Mr. Yogi, please click on the setup icon.
I’m clicking.
Do you see a box that says cache?
What did I do? Win something?
Mr. Yogi, first you must click on the box that says setup. Then another box opens up that says cache – c-a-c-h-e.
Oh, yeah. I see the cache. I’ve observed a lot by watching.
Look for the cookies.
Carmen! Do we have any cookies?
Mr. Yogi, we are not eating any cookies. We are removing them.
Carmen! Throw the cookies out. This way my computer will work.
Sir, these are not cookies to eat.
What is your name again?
My name is Bob. How can I help you with your AOL today?
Uh, Bob. First you tell me to find my cookies. Now you tell me to throw them out. What’s it gonna be?
Mr. Yogi, look at your computer.
I’m lookin’.
Do you see the word cookies?
Oh, yeah. I see the word cookies.
Click on the cookies.
Can I finish my chocolate chip one first?
Mr. Yogi, you may eat the cookie first.
Okay, I’m back.
Click on the cookie.
I can’t.
Mr. Yogi, why cannot you click on the cookie?
I just ate the cookie. I just told you that.
Click on the word cookie on the computer screen, Mr. Yogi.
I’m clicking, I’m clicking, and it clicked.
Mr. Yogi, do you see the box that says clean the cache?
The cache is clean.
Drag the cookies to the cache.
They are in the trash. Now you want me to get them out of the trash?
The computer cache. Do you see a globe?
Where am I gonna find a globe?
Look at the computer for a tiny, little blue globe and click.
Oh, yeah, I see it.
Click on that. And then go to the display tab.
Tab? What’s a tab?
It’s a little box and it says “empty cache now.” Do you see it?
I never saw it coming.
Now press the mouse and click.
Yep, okay. They are in the cache.
Mr. Yogi. Please now click.
I clicked. What’s next?
Mr. Yogi. Now you must restart your computer.
Okay. I’m restarting my computer.
I will wait while you restart your computer, Mr. Yogi from New York.
All right, Mr. Bob. My computer is back on again. It’s like déjà vu.
What is your view?
I’m sitting at my computer.
Is the computer turned on?
If I’m going to figure out how to use this, I’m not sure that we’re as smart as we think we could be.
Let me give you the reference number so you don’t have to explain things again if you have to call us back.

No cows graze in Columbus, but did you see the unicorn?

2010-12-29T06:49:00.000-05:00

I’ve been listening to people complain that Columbus, Ohio is too big.

Others complain about its reputation as a cow town.

I haven’t seen any cows.

But then again, I’m from New York. I’m not sure that I would recognize one.

I haven’t seen anyone wearing overalls Downtown, except me.

But Columbus is beginning to sound like New York City.

Cars head north or south on High Street with every window rolled down for cross-ventilation and the pounding beat of a stereo thundering out into the street. When someone drives by at night, the windows rattle and the walls vibrate.

In New York, these deafening car stereos are considered a mark of success by arrogant teen-agers, most of whom have never heard the smooth sounds of Frank Sinatra and couldn’t care less about James Thurber.

Once newly minted musicmobile, piloted by a young man who wouldn’t have heard three firetrucks wailing behind him, was so loud that I swear I saw the unicorn in the garden move.

Well, it’s not an actual unicorn.

The unicorn is a bronze statue in a lily garden across the street from Thurber House, 77 Jefferson Avenue, that celebrates one of Thurber’s best-known tales, A Unicorn in the Garden.

In the story, a man wakes up his wife to tell her that there’s a unicorn in the garden and it’s eating roses.

“The unicorn is a mythical beast,” she says.

She calls him a “booby” and tells him she will put him in the “booby hatch.” The wife calls the police and a psychiatrist, and when they enter the house, she says, “My husband saw a unicorn this morning.” They cart her off and ask the husband if he has seen a unicorn.

“Of course not,” he says. “The unicorn is a mythical beast.”

The husband lives happily ever after.

Now if this scenario were repeated in New York, it would take on a different twist altogether.

For one thing, most people don’t have gardens, so the closest thing would be a terrace. A Unicorn on the Terrace doesn’t quite have the same ring.

Rose don’t grow on terraces, so the unicorn would be eating a potted plant that couldn’t be identified or a leftover wooden dresser that one was meaning to throw out but couldn’t get out of the apartment.

When the wife calls the husband a booby, he would probably ask her to repeat it into a video camera so that he would have evidence for their divorce proceedings.

Psychiatrists don’t make house calls.

The police, arriving 45 minutes later with their guns drawn, would search the house for unicorn, going through closets and cabinets before filling out a missing-person report.

Animal-rights activists would complain that because the unicorn couldn’t be found, there must be a police cover-up.

There are plenty of boobies in New York.

I’m certain that there are plenty of boobies in Columbus who resemble Thurber’s people.

But they’re spread out, not packed into skyscraper apartment buildings as in New York. Walls are thin there, hallways and entranceways congested, and more people know your business than you think.

And they have no patience.

I’ve crossed streets in Columbus while 25 cars wait to turn. So far, no one has honked the horn, bellowed through the window, cursed at me or given me the finger.

In Manhattan, my foot wouldn’t even be off the curb before one, if not all, of the above had occurred.

People walk in New York City. Not necessarily by choice, but because it’s the only way to navigate through streets and around people.

I stopped at the mall in Columbus (we don’t have malls in New York City) and found at least a half-dozen shoe stores specializing in walking shoes.

But I rarely see anyone walking.

I’m looked at strangely as people toot their horns and ask me if I need a ride. Being sensible, I won’t accept a ride from a stranger.

So the rest of the world drives by with windows rolled up, air conditioning blowing and music going full blast, and I’ve got concrete under my feet.

I like the exercise, and it helps burn off those Buckeye Donuts.

People here aren’t as thin as in New York.

In New York, you pay more to eat less. There are women’s clothing shops that carry only sizes 6, 8, and 10. I figure I’d have to buy two of everything and sew them together.

In Columbus, however, women have hips, and there are plenty of size 12s on the rack.

There’s less makeup, too.

In my neighborhood, a trip to the supermarket to buy dog food necessitates wearing at least mascara, foundation, concealer, eye shadow, blush, and lipstick.

I haven’t seen too much lipstick on line at Kroger.

It really comes down to one thing: New Yorkers think vertically, Ohioans horizontally.

Developers spread out from Columbus, swallowing farms and towns.

In New York, developers gobble up sun and sky.

People think differently when they’re stacked on top of each other.

You can be anonymous in New York, but you really can’t get away from anyone. In Central Park, you can’t really lie under a tree and meditate. You could doze off and find your wallet and shoes missing. Or worse.

Twenty minutes out of Columbus, you can find some woods that a bulldozer hasn’t touched – yet.

Even Downtown, you can get away from civilization, if only for a moment.

I walked through Deaf School Park and looked at the shrubbery. A New Yorker wouldn’t appreciate the topiary garden. I figured that someone must have had a lot of time on his hands.

Next to these elegantly sculpted Parisian women lay a (real) man sleeping on top of a picnic table, his arms folded over his ample middle, a can of beer lying on its side.

That’s a familiar sight at home.

A couple from Columbus described themselves as common folk.

In New York, you describe yourself as type A or type B, give your astrological sign and generally end the conversation with “I have an appointment with my therapist.”

I wouldn’t say that things are slow here in Columbus, but one evening I hit a particularly rough spot. So I spent the night reading the telephone directory.

The Columbus telephone book is a rather unusual one. I’ve never seen so many names that are also nouns and adjectives.

There are Blues, Greens, Blacks, Whites, Browns, Gray, and a Maroon.

I found a Yin and a Yang, a Tootles and a Zook, more than one Rambo, Farmers and Holsteins, a Cowman, Lamb, Hogg, and a Steer.

It’s a book fill of Queens, Princes, Jesters, Bishops, Damsels, a Shah, a Munster, a few Looneys, Cranks and Crooks.

You can search for a Daft, a Bobo that’s Boffo and go out with a Bang.

There are Lemons and Limes, a Missouri and a Nebraska, Kings and Kongs, Friend and Foe, a Hobo with a few Hicks, a Ding and a Dong with a few Frisbys tossed around for Good Luck.

You can Hoot at Fate and Ho and Ha at an Idol.

Man, Gents, Pop, Daughters, Cousins, Dames, a Bridgegroom and a Groom could be Wedd and then have a Fling with a Heimlich and Gallop with Fickle Fowls.

You can Yo and Yep, Woo a Tweet and a Twitty, and Zapp a Zag.

I didn’t find any Cows in Columbus.

But I found a few Moos.

But let’s not Dilley Dalley.

I think there’s a unicorn on my terrace.

Originally published in The Columbus Dispatch. Arlene Schulman lived in Columbus, Ohio for a summer as journalist-in-residence at the Thurber House.

Arlene's 13 Point Writing Manifesto

2010-12-28T22:08:00.000-05:00

The time to write is NOW.
Write every day.
Only cooking utensils belong in the kitchen drawer - not your writing.
Take a pen and notebook with you or use a PDA to write down your thoughts, ideas or observations. You never know when a creative thought will come to you.
Read. Watch films. Listen to music.
You never know what may inspire you so leave yourself open.
Don't make excuses for not finding the time.
It's okay to make mistakes.
Write about subjects that inspire you.
Banish cynicism and negativity.
Be encouraging to others. You never know when you may need their support.
Use your five senses - and your sixth - to find your voice.
A little humility goes a long way - and so does humor!

Book Excerpt: Cop on the Beat

2010-12-27T20:07:00.000-05:00

Cop on the Beat: Officer Steven Mayfield in New York City

Written and Photographed by Arlene Schulman
Published by Dutton

His shoes are flawlessly shined, his shirt is precisely ironed and neatly tucked in, his shield gleams, and the creases in his dark blue pants stand so razor sharp they look dangerous. His paces from a cautious walk to a brisk run, through sheets of rain, mounds of snow, and the glare of a hot sun. His hat, its brim neatly dusted, usually conceals the top half of his eyes, making him a bit mysterious. His six-foot-three, 235 pound frames imposes but doesn't threaten. At night, he moves quietly among the dark shadows of trees and buildings, stepping out into the soft light of street lamps and disappearing back into the darkness. He moves so stealthily that local residents have dubbed him "the Shadow." But at the moment, something suspicious has caught the eye of New York City police officer Steven Mayfield, and he freezes.

Officer Mayfield is trained to react to emergencies, and now, his first day back at work after two days off, his instincts warn him to take action. He can handle this alone, but he cannot continue his patrol until this mall but offensive situation is quickly dealt with.

Mayfield picks a piece of lint off his dark blue uniform shirt. "Damn!" he groans. "Where did this come from?" He runs his hands over his shirt to be certain that the lint hasn't multiplied, and satisfied that he is spotless again, he continues his walking patrol of his beat.

It's the third hour of his tour, which began at four this Tuesday afternoon. He will finish just after midnight. Officer Mayfield is a beat cop. Though he sometimes patrols in a car with a partner, he usually works alone, walking or cycling the streets of the Upper Manhattan neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Inwood. Mayfield carries a gun, a badge, a police radio, a flashlight, a nightstick, and handcuffs. They represent law and order in their small piece of New York City.

Book Excerpt: RFK: Promise for the Future

2010-12-27T19:27:00.000-05:00

Robert F. Kennedy: Promise for the Future

Written by Arlene Schulman
Published by Facts on File

Kennedy listened to people whose voices were rarely heard - poor blacks and whites, people without jobs, farmers, Indians on reservations suffering from alcoholism, Mexican-American migrant workers, college students protesting against the Vietnam War, Hispanics living in public housing projects, the children of the slums. "Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured," he said, quoting the writer Albert Camus. "But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you believers don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this?"

In a speech in California, he said, "Our brave young men are dying in the swamps of Southeast Asia. Which one of them might have written a poem? Which one of them might have cured cancer? Which one of them might have played in the World Series or given us the gift of laughter from the stage or helped build a bridge or a university? It is our responsibility to let these men live. . .It is indecent if they die because of the empty vanity of our country."

Students chanted, cheered, and stamped their feet. Priests and nuns who wore Kennedy bumper stickers across their cornets turned out and waved to him as he sat on the hood of the car. Hundreds of people walked or ran alongside of his convertible. People waited for hours to catch a glimpse of him or to touch him.

"I found that they wanted not to just to touch a celebrity; they wanted to convey their feelings to him, and he accepted it for that," said his security man, Bill Barry.

Kennedy did not believe in security. "We can't have that kind of country - where the President of the United States is afraid to go among the people. I won't ride around in an armored car," he said. "If anyone wants to kill me, it won't be difficult." He said that there were no guarantees against assassination. "You've just got to give yourself to the people and to trust them, adn from then on. . .either (luck is) with you or it isn't. I am pretty sure there'll be an attempt on my life sooner or later. Not so much for political reasons," he sadded, "Plain nuttiness, that's all."

The poet Robert Lowell recalled that "he felt he was doomed, and you knew that he felt that. . . He knew that , and he had no middle course possible to him."

Book Excerpt: Muhammad Ali: Champion

2010-12-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

Muhammad Ali: Champion

Written by Arlene Schulman
Published by Lerner Publications

They would sit at night, and he would tell her that he was going to be the champion of the world. In their ramshackle house in Louisville, Kentucky, when the sun had set and the lights were out, 12-year-old Cassius Clay told his mother of his dream. He would knock out opponents one by one, raise his hands in victory as the ring announcer introduced him as the new world champion, and become rich and famous.

"One night I heard (heavyweight champion) Rocky Marciano fighting on the radio," he said. "It sounded so big and powerful and exciting."

Cassius Marcellus Clay was born on January 17, 1942 in Louisville. The first of two sons born to Odessa Clay and Cassius Clay Sr., Cassius Jr. demonstrated his fondness for attention even at an early age. Mrs. Clay, exhausted from a difficult delivery, could hear her young son cry and scream and wake up the other babies in the hospital.

"Gee-gee, gee-gee," were Cassius's first words, his mother said. He later claimed he was trying to say "Golden Gloves", the name of a prestigious national boxing tournament that he won twice as a teenager. "When he was a child, he never sat still," his mother recalled. "He walked and talked before his time."

Black Louisville was divided into three sections - East End, the California area, and West End, where the Clays lived. Like most of the families in the neighborhood, they were poor. The family car was always at least 10 years old with worn-out tires. The house always needed painting. The front porch sagged, and during rainy weather, water leaked through the roof and walls. Many of the children's clothes were secondhand. Once in while, the Clays were able to afford a new shirt or a new pair of pants for Cassius and his younger brother, Rudy - but not often.

Book Excerpt: T.J.'s Story

2010-12-27T19:01:00.000-05:00

T.J.'s Story: A Book about a Boy Who is Blind

Text and Photographs by Arlene Schulman
Published by Lerner Publications

My name is T.J. Olsen. You can see me, but I can't see you. That's because I'm blind.

People who are blind can see very little or nothing at all. Some people are born blind. Others lose their sight when they get older because of illnesses such as glaucoma and diabetes. I was born with a disease called retinoblastoma. It's a kind of cancer. It affects babies when they're born.

When I was 11 months old, doctors had to do surgery to get rid of the cancer. They removed my eyes. Instead of real eyes, I have plastic ones. Most people don't know that I'm blind until they see me with my cane. It's white and red and it looks like a walking stick.

Your eyes work like a camera. There is a lens at the front of each eye. The lends focuses on what you're seeing. The colored part of the eye, called the iris, opens and closes to let in the right amount of light. At the back of the eye is the retina. It's like the film in a camera. It records a picture of what you see.

Many people wear eyeglasses because their eyes don't work perfectly. They may not be able to see things far away or close up very well. Normal eyeglasses aren't enough for people who are visually impaired or blind. Their eyesight cannot be corrected with regular eyeglasses.

People who are visually impaired or blind may be able to see some things, like shapes or light and dark objects or very large things. In the United States, moe than a million people are blind.

Book Excerpt: Carmine's Story

2010-12-27T18:51:00.000-05:00

Carmine's Story: A Book about a Boy Living with AIDS

Text and Photographs by Arlene Schulman
Published by Lerner Publications

My name is Carmine. I'm ten years old, and I have AIDS.

My mother had AIDS, too. Her name was Florence. She died when I was a year and three months old. I don't really remember her. But sometimes when the wind blows the front door open, I say that it's my mother.

I don't know who my father is. My mother never told anyone, not even her mother. We think he might have been from Puerto Rico, but we're not sure. Wherever he is, he doesn't know me.

My grandmother, Kay, told me that my mother was her favorite. She was fun and she liked to talk and she could make friends with anybody. Then she met a man - maybe it was my father - who was using drugs. She started to use drugs, too. I don't know why. I wish I could ask her.

My mother used a drug called heroin before I was born. She injected it into her body with needles. She and her boyfriend shared their needles with other people, and one of them must have had AIDS. That's how I think my mother got the disease.

When my mother found out she was going to have a baby, she stopped using drugs right away. She wanted to be a good mom. But it was too late. The AIDS virus had already passed from her to me.

The Solitary Shopper

2010-12-27T17:51:00.000-05:00

I am one of those people to whom many stories are told.

From dusty tales of Mexican laundry folders who drink too much on Saturday nights to one very nervous cop aiming his gun at me as I exited my apartment to dispose of recyclables, to my traveling companions on overstuffed M100 buses, to under appreciated and aggravated secretaries, public school teachers with unruly students, to Wall Street workers coming off an exhilarating trade, the shopping bag of disclosure is open and ready for unpacking.

It happens most often while I shop. From tomatoes to turtlenecks, the hordes corner me like some sort of exalted celebrity when I’m preoccupied with finding the right size, shape or shoe. Dapper shoe salesmen complain about women who spend their weekends being waited on hand and well, feet, and who send these hard working men scurrying to the storeroom; chubby cashiers at Target, Saks and Duane Reade point out their swollen ankles; and the chic who shop at the Gap and Henri Bendel invite me into the operating room as they describe gallbladder and appendix removals. I’ve listened to tales of cheating boyfriends, sloppy husbands and dirty landlords from the minions who purchase and pander at Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s; epics reveal painful shoes, poor diet, bad bosses, and badder day as my bunions and I stand on line to pay in the world’s most remote shop or tugging on a too small skirt in a dressing room separated from the sales floor by a curtain. I keep thinking that if I set up a series of couches near cash registers I can get the chats and complaints over all at once.

Move over, Dr. Phil. I’m hanging out my shingle for retail therapy.

So here I am, the queen of sound bite confessions. The fascination of speaking with me is no more evident than alongside of sales racks from Manhattan to Minneapolis, and in front of cash registers from 7-Eleven to Saks Fifth Avenue. And nowhere is my expertise more in evidence and my patience tested than when I shop at Lord & Taylor, a calmer, more soothing shopping experience without the hordes and gaggles of gigglers, fluorescent lights, and the hamster mazes of aisles of its more flamboyant sister, Macy’s.

The lineage of women among the sales racks can be traced back, I’m convinced, to the early days of hunters and gathers. Women waved goodbye while their mates went after dinner, and this communal commiserating, companionship and co-parenting kept the community alive. And thus began the origins of the group shop. I know there’s a shopping bag from the Ice Age hidden deep in the core of our planet just waiting to be carbon dated.

In the evolution of women, torched bras and nylon stockings have been replaced by Spanx, spandex, and credit cards. Women still gather but they also hunt; two or three women in a department store with big game in sight, from Manolos to sequins to sassy skirts and scarves, descend on department and specialty stores everywhere in the world. This portion of Darwin’s evolutionary theory is still with us. A few women, like myself, mutate from this genetic claim and strike out on our own to go shopping. Others require my validation.

How do I look?
Fabulous!
How does this make me look?
Fabulous!
I’m a size 14 and this dress is a size 6. Do I look good or what?
Fabulous!

My intersection with the shopping sisterhood creates a Venn diagram of dialogue to the point where I’ve considered wearing a wig and glasses and hiring a bodyguard. Let me serve up a taste of my shopping life.

Shopping can be divided into several categories: in the name of bargains, camaraderie, the boredom pack, the curiosity group, “I wonder what size I am now” collection, the triage trio, the demanding duo, or let’s get it over with, I can’t stand the crowds for another minute – and let’s face it, shopping with friends can be a frightening phenomenon. When I shop with friends, I buy clothing I would never, in my wildest dreams, consider bringing home, like the plaid linen dirndl skirt or grape poncho with tassels. A straight line can be drawn from the manufacturer, to the shop, to my wallet and to my closet and then slam dunked into the thrift store donation bin.

So, here I am, the solitary shopper, armed with coupons and credit cards, a bottle of tap water, toothbrush, and toothpaste as I make my descent into Lord & Taylor on a foraging mission to supplement my collection of blue jeans and t-shirts with a few snappy skirts and tops. Doors swing open at ten sharp at the Fifth Avenue flagship store. Like a prizefighter prepared for swift punches, dubious ones, and a knockout blow, I have trained for the markdown, the misplaced belt, the search for the right size, and the dedication to come out a champion with more than a few dollars saved. Down for the count means nothing fits and I’m waved out of the store with no shopping bags. For the record, this has only happened once and only because I sailed through the shoe department to check on winter boots which hadn’t yet arrived.
Three minutes into my adventure, I am spotted, much like Brad or Angelina attempting to blend with the crowd.

It began on the escalator, next to the sign indicating that we have ascended to the third floor.

“Is this the fifth floor?” Two woman with over processed blond hair and Bermuda shorts inquire.

I give this some thought.

“Could be,” an answer designed to throw them off my trail and to discourage any lingering conversation. I rappelled to the fifth floor and spotted a familiar sign, 40% off, which means that swiping the bar code on my coupons would net me an additional 20% off. I’m cookin’.

Racks overflow with marked down Ralph Lauren, Tommy Bahama, Eileen Fisher, Lord & Taylor’s house brand, Kate Hill, Liz Claiborne and the labels of others who cloak and cover our bodies from a size 0 to a size 24 plus, from extra small to three times as large. A number of women like me envision themselves a lot smaller, holding up what should fit and then being disappointed. You can blame it on the manufacturer for poor sizing but a three way mirrors holds no illusions.

My shopping companions poked through the racks and a few poked me with their purses. Now, mind you, the floor was loaded with idle saleswomen. I was hoping to leave via early decision but not today.

“What do you think of this color?,” asked one woman who looks like a model, holding up a yellowish-brown sweater with orange stripes.

“I’ve never seen this shade before,” I admitted.

“How much is this with markdown? Is this too much for me to pay,” a woman carrying a briefcase checks in, holding up a Ralph Lauren skirt with the priced mowed down from $200 to $119.

“I think it’s worth it,” I replied. Well, not really, but a little encouragement can go a long way.

“What do you think my husband would say?” asked another woman, already wielding enough shopping bags to incite a hernia, and armed with a vertical valance attached to a denim skirt.

“I think he’d love it,” I offered with conviction; although I’d never met the man, I was convinced he would be overwhelmed.

“I just had a tummy tuck. Do you think I can fit into this?,” inquired an older woman with a flat stomach but enormous hips, thrusting a pair of hip huggers at me.I had to think about this one.

“Why not give it a try?,” I suggested diplomatically.

“Do you think this sweater will match my skirt that’s hanging in my closet at home?,” demanded one woman with a large perm and even larger purse.

“Absolutely.”

The floor seemed to close in on me.

“Where’s the ladies room?,” demanded a woman in a pink tracksuit (they seem to be everywhere).

“By the elevator but not on the 6th floor,” I answered mechanically, digging into my purse for my water.

“Can you zip me up?,” asks one gray haired woman with her back hanging out of a white blouse.

I put down my water.

“You may want to inhale,” I noted. “And go back into the dressing room.”

After inching my way toward the center aisle, I was almost free.

“I’m going to a wedding. Do you think the bride’s mother will like this? She’s really quite particular,” wonders one woman holding up a black and white dotted dress.

“She’ll love it,” I yelled, waving my water.

“Why are you wearing that?”

Two women stopped me, looking at my denim blouse with disdain. They may have noticed that it’s wrinkled and has white stain from toothpaste but I can’t be certain.

“When a gun is pointed, I’ll put on anything,” I snarled.

I slip into an empty dressing room and lock myself in. I grunt and groan getting in and out of too tight blouse that gets stuck under my armpits and cuts off my circulation. It’s a bit like wrestling with a bear until it finally pops off and I pop out, able to catch my breath again. I look around. There I am, at all angles. My hair appears to be windswept in the airless cubicle and, is my behind really that large? A suspicious mole comes off in my hands; it’s just an M&M from an earlier snack. I tune in to the sisterhood.

These shorts are gorgeous, comes from the room to my right.
Mom, why are you buying that? cries a embarrassed teenage voice that could have been my own from years ago.
Because I want to.
I don’t want to be seen with you wearing that.
Fine. Don’t look then.

There’s a rap on my white shutter-like door. Doorbells and a peephole, anyone?

“Do you think this costs too much?,” inquires an older woman with glasses holding a poodle and a v-neck t-shirt with a $49 price stag.

“Yes,” I said. “ff you have to ask.”

“Does this make me look fat?,” demands a woman who says she’s a nurse. She turns around twice in a pleated skirt that makes it look like there’s air under her skirt. But those are her hips.

“What about my hips?” She smoothed down the pleats but they don’t move.

“What about them?” I raised my eyebrows.

After closing the door and putting on my own clothes, a Ralph Lauren sweater tossed over my head.

The petites are one floor up and I quickly ducked behind three slinky mannequins. A couple of women haven’t discovered me - yet. Both petite, with white hair, overdressed for a day out shopping, and smelling of mothballs, stale perfumes, and general decay, they push their way through jumbled racks of marked down clothing.

“It isn’t beautiful?” cooed the taller of the two, holding up a dirt colored sweater. “It was made just for you.”

After following them for about 20 minutes, I hit the lottery. A black skirt made of silk and wool carried a price tag of $86 down to $49.97. I quickly did the math – 40% off would be close to $25 minus an additional 20% off would be about $20. Or so I thought. The friendly saleswomen looked at me over her glasses and scanned in the tag. The skirt was reduced to $9.56 not counting the 40% off and 20% discount coupon. My grand purchase accumulated to $3.99. The saleswomen said that her son just graduated from college and that someone must have coded the tag improperly in the computer. This never happens to me.

A woman carrying four bags stopped me.

“How do I look in this?,” she demanded

I looked her over and asked her to turn around. And turn around the other way. And the other way. She started to topple, her black and white polka dot dressed swirling in a hypnotic pattern.

“I’ve never seen you look better,” I gushed. “I would buy two.”

Time to move on.

A shopper came my way on the third floor.

“What’s that thing?,” she asked, pointing to the scanner near the sale priced Dana Buchman outfits.

“It checks radioactivity.”

I hustled on another dressing to try on a very expensive skirt by Ellen Tracy. The dressing room was larger than my living room. I tossed my jeans onto the upholstered chair, dropped my handbag on the floor, draped my blouse on the table, and examined my cellulite from all angles.

I bought the skirt with my coupons.

I have yet to wear it.

My day is almost over. The few men I’ve seen shop early and leave furtively even when they are in the men’s department. I decided to check out the handbags. I wasn’t in the world of purses, clutches, and carryalls more than five minutes when three saleswomen asked me if I needed help. I began to get annoyed.

My friend, Ruth, told me that I should go shopping in dark glasses or with an entourage to throw off the scent from the sisterhood. On my next visit, I wore my hair in a ponytail and a t-shirt with hood. It didn’t help.

One woman confronted me.

“How do I find the sizes?,” she asked.

“Look for S-M-L-XL,” I growled. “Those are clues.”

An older woman leaned against the racks. I gently tilted her so that she stood upright with her cane.

I prepared myself for the rest, as they waved clothes at me from one end of the store to the other.

How does this look on me?
This is the most fabulous thing I’ve even seen you in. Run to the register before someone else picks it up.
Does emerald green go with red?
Absolutely! Go stand next to the elves.
Does this make me look young?
By at least 30 years.

Ms. Jones, one of the saleswomen on the 5th floor, spotted me in my disguise. My ruse was up.

“What do you think of this jacket?” I held up a blue Tommy Bahama cotton jacket.

“Fabulous.” she whispered. “You couldn’t have made a better choice.”

Book Excerpt: 23rd Precinct: The Job

2010-12-27T17:38:00.000-05:00

23rd Precinct: The Job

Written and Photographed by Arlene Schulman
Published by Soho Press

"Being a cop is a culture, it's a way of life. You did nothing before. You have no time for a fuckin' schedule. Your life is this job. You become the culture," insists Sergeant Charlie Columbo. "I can walk down the street in any neighborhood and people say 'Here comes a fuckin' pig.' A lot of young kids don't have what it takes to become a cop. I'm a cop. You live it, breathe it, you fuckin' bleed it. Intelligence is a rarity on this job. You need adrenaline and excitement. Once in a blue moon, you'll get it.

"There isn't a guy on this job with fuckin' time who doesn't need a psychiatrist. The Job doesn't want to recognize what happens to us." Sergeant Columbo pauses to light a cigarette. "Most cops are crazy. If you weren't when you come on, you become crazy. The first person through that door is me. No one's getting hurt except me. It's my responsibility. It's a combination of responsibility and worthlessness.

"I'm not going to let someone with three years (on the job) get killed, or someone with four kids. I know that if I go through the door first, that everyone behind me will be okay. On the job I've had a concussion and broke my leg twice. They can't fuckin' kill me. I'll die from smoking."

The 23rd Precinct stationhouse was built on 102nd Street between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue, in Manhattan, in the 1970s as a combination police station and firehouse. No matter how many times the cleaner sweeps, disinfects, and polishes, the place never looks clean. And when a group of junkies is brought in by Narcotics, the air becomes foul with body odor that permeates the first floor and foyer.

"Hey, we got a ripe one in here!" shouts the desk sergeant, who lights a cigar to counter the odor. Although smoking is technically forbidden inside a city building, no one complains, even cops with asthma.

A neatly dressed fiftyish Hispanic man in a gray suit, with too-long cuffs and a matching fedora, is standing at the complaint window, complaining that neighborhood kids stuck their tongues out at him. "Why don't you stick your tongue out at them?," suggests Officer Miranda Mays, raising her eyebrows.

Book Excerpt: The Prizefighters

2010-12-27T17:25:00.000-05:00

The Prizefighters: An Intimate Look at Champions and Contenders

Written and Photographed by Arlene Schulman
Introduction by Budd Schulberg
Published by Lyons & Burford Press

The wolf loses his teeth but not his inclinations.
- Spanish Proverb

329 stitches

11 broken noses

2 broken cheekbones

8 cracked ribs

The stigmata of sixteen years in boxing are retold in the face of Chuck Wepner. From the beginning, he was marked. He fought Sonny Liston - and lost - in Liston's last bout, six months before Liston was mysteriously found dead. That bout gave Wepner 72 stitches, a broken nose, and a broken left cheekbone. "These were the kinds of guys that I was fighting," Wepner said without apology. "Why?" he repeated, his eyes searching around his living room filled with plaques and trophies. "Because I liked it."

They were born to become prizefighters and nothing else.

"I was born to fight," said Roberto Duran. "I don't know what else to do."

The best become legends, others legendary; some remain contenders or dilettantes - just a name under someone else's record. Their styles in the ring are as different as their origins and personalities. To study them is to see portraits of flattened noses and scar tissue, strong necks bearing proud heads, eyes that have seen victory, endured defeat, and, outside the ring, often look gentle, intelligent, whimsical, or tired, eyes, that sparkle with humor or are dull with disappointment. Features change over time. Evander Holyfield's handsome face has flattened itself in some spots and become lumpy in others. "Boxing's a rough sport," Muhammad Ali once said. "After every fight I rush to the mirror to make sure I'm still presentable. A lot of boxers' features change," he added, "when I fight 'em." The best physiques - whether large like Holyfield or small, like Michael Carbajal - look like sculpture, carved muscles in perfect proportion. And there is an aura about a man who knows that he is the best in the world.

A loud and persuasive voice shouts to them to stick their hands into a pair of sweaty gloves, to learn the basic techniques of boxing, to prove their skills against others, to compete, to win, to get out of the neighborhood, to become a champion. Some fight in the streetss, in school, at home, in prison; others hold it inside. Brother may follow brother, like Michael and Leon Spinks; a father may show off rusty skills to his son, like Nick Barbella to Rocky Graziano; and even a mother may instruct her son, like the light heavyweight Egerton Marcus, whose mother learned to box as a teenager in her native Guyana. Sometimes they find their way into the ring by chance.

Matisyahu in Concert at Yeshiva University, Moshav Band Opening Act

2010-12-04T11:56:00.002-05:00

A Few Snaps over the Bridge Williamsburg, Brooklyn

2010-11-29T12:02:00.001-05:00

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

2010-11-28T11:59:00.002-05:00

Films I've Seen 2010

2010-11-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

Name of Film and Director

Open City - Roberto Rossellini
Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer - Alex Gibney
City of Conquest - Anatole Litvak
The Kids are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko
The Expendables - Sylvestor Stallone
Christmas in Connecticut - Peter Godfrey
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - Nick Park and Steve Box
Broken Embraces - Pedro Almodovar
The Box - Richard Kelly
The Quiet Man - John Ford
The Informant - John Ford
A Single Man - Tom Ford
The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer's - Elizabeth Arledge
Alice in Wonderland - Tim Burton
Sideways - Alexander Payne
The Men Who Stare at Goats - Grant Eslov
Up in the Air - Jason Reitman
A Serious Man - Joel and Ethan Coen
Brooklyn's Finest - Antoine Fuqua
The Quiet Man - John Ford
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Michel Gondry
La Notte - Michelangelo Antonioni
The Endurance - George Butler
Robin Hood - Ridley Scott
Nosferatu - FW Murnau
Entre Le Murs - Laurent Cantet
Il Postino - Michael Radford
Closer - Mike Nicholls
Nine - Rob Marshall
Precious - Lee Daniels
The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia - Jennifer Baichwal
The Blind Side - John Lee Hancock
Big Fan - Robert D. Siegel
Station - Sergio Rubini
The Rape of Europa - Richard Berge and Bonnie Cohen
Crazy Heart - Scott Cooper
Up - Pete Docter
The Informant - Steven Soderbergh
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - Phil Lord and Chris Miller
8 1/2 - Federico Fellini
Ciao, Professore - Cecchi Gori
Lonely Man of Faith - Ethan Isenberg
La Dolce Via - Federico Fellini
Carmen Jones - Otto Preminger
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge - Martha Coolidge
The Good Girl - Miguel Arteta
My Life in Ruins - Donald Petrie
Tadpole - Gary Winick
My Voyage to Italy - Martin Scorcese
Amelia - Mira Nair

(updated on an as-seen basis)

Dublin

2010-09-09T15:55:00.007-04:00

Reflection, Georgian House

Detail, Building, Dublin

Reflection, Dublin

Heed the traffic

Dublin Bar

Georgian Doorway

Shamrock Streetlight, Dublin

Dublin Traffic

Wait

Doorway, James Joyce's Ulysses

View from Dublin Writer's Museum: the museum houses letters, books and other memorabilia of Ireland's greatest writers, including George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce in a restored 18th century mansion.

View from top of Guinness Storehouse

Kilmainham Gaol: an inside look at a jail which housed leaders of five rebellions, Kilmainham Gaol opened in 1796 and closed in 1924.

Kilmainham Gaol

Trinity College: founded in 1592, the College is one of Ireland's foremost seats of learning. Writers Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels), Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray), and Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) attended Trinity College.

Trinity College Student

Ha'penny Bridge over Liffey River

National Library

Street Scene

Trip to Ireland Summer 2010

2010-09-09T15:44:00.007-04:00

Cad e mar ata tu? How are you?

Interested in a photograph or two?
You may order notecards of select photos from Ireland, Paris or Niagara Falls by visiting

www.shutterfly.com/pro/002023548643/ArlenesPhotoGallery

Special orders upon request.

Please contact me at arlenetheauthor@aol.com for more information

Our itinerary included:

Trinity College
St. Patrick's Cathedral
Guinness Storehouse
Kilmainham Gaol
National Museum of Ireland
Old Jameson Distillery
Liffey River Cruise
Dublin Writers Museum
Book of Kells
James Joyce Centre
Abbey Theatre production of Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars
Grafton Street
Dublin Literary Pub Crawl
Irish Music Pub Crawl
O'Connell Street Stroll
O'Connell Street Post Office
Georgian House
National Gallery
National Library - William Butler Yeats Exhibit
Hop on/Hop Off City Tour

Belfast

City Hall
Taxi Tour
Coiste Political Tour
Van Morrison Birthplace and Childhood Home
Cyprus Avenue
Opera House
Hop On/Hop Off Bus Tour

Outside of Dublin

Tour of Newgrange
Hill of Tara
Battle of Boyne
Wicklow Mountains
Howth

Trip to Dublin and Beyond

2010-09-09T15:34:00.006-04:00

Man vs. Purple Heather

Glendalough Monastery ruins from the 6th century

St. Kevin's Celtic Cross at Glendalough

Newgrange Megalithic Passage Tomb

Entranceway, Newgrange Megalithic Passage Tomb

Stone, Newgrange

Newgrange Megalithic Passage Tomb

Smaller Tomb, Newgrange

Cows at rest, Glendalough

Coffee Shop Open, Newgrange

Newgrange

Mound of Hostages at the Hill of Tara

Irish Vista

Belfast

2010-09-09T15:16:00.008-04:00

Even a Fonzerelli in Ireland

Belfast's Grand Opera House

Homage to Peace

Belfast Corner

Belfast City Hall, which opened in 1906

Murals of Belfast

2010-09-09T15:15:00.002-04:00

Van Morrison's Belfast

2010-09-09T15:14:00.009-04:00

One of Van Morrison's greatest admirers

Van Morrison's Birthplace

Across the street from Van Morrison's boyhood home

Van Morrison was born on Hyndford Street in Belfast. Cyprus Avenue (in the photo above) is a street not far from Van Morrison's birthplace in Belfast. One of his most popular songs is named after this street, where he would walk and ruminate about his music. Morrison's eclectic musical style often includes soul music, R&B, jazz, Celtic, and a sort of stream of consciousness. Van Morrison's career took off with "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967.

Signs of Dublin, Ireland - August 2010

2010-09-09T15:07:00.004-04:00

Niagara Falls Redux - July 2010

2010-09-09T15:04:00.001-04:00

Tourist wearing official sandals, New York side

The best motel, Canada

Canadian version of ferris wheel

Tourists, New York side of the Falls

Lockport, New York

Niagara Falls vista, Canadian side

Niagara Falls, Canada and New York, July 2010 (with a little of Buffalo)

2010-07-24T22:00:00.004-04:00

Niagara Falls from the New York side

Looking upstream to the Falls

Vince, the viewer


25 cents for the view

Niagara Falls, from our hotel room on the Canadian side

Buffalo wings

Across from the train station, Niagara Falls, Canada


Double Decker Diner, Niagara Falls, Canada

The Misty Dog Grill, Niagara Falls, New York

Crystal Inn, Niagara Falls, Canada

Niagara Falls, Canada

Arlene Schulman, not to be confused with any other Arlene Schulman

2010-07-11T19:30:00.000-04:00

Arlene with her maternal grandmother, Nonie (Anna David of Janina, Greece), of blessed memory

2010-07-11T19:00:00.002-04:00

The Trip to Philadelphia

2010-04-06T12:48:00.007-04:00

The Paris Photos - Series 1

2010-03-12T18:17:00.017-05:00

Reading List 2010

2010-03-08T22:04:00.008-05:00

Latest books read (and all highly recommended)

The World According to Breslin by Jimmy Breslin

Self Portrait: Man Ray

When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison by Greil Marcus

Boulevard of Dreams by Constance Rosenblum

The Green Hills of Earth, The Menace from Earth by Robert A. Heinlein

Neo Conservatism: The Birth of an Idea by Irving Kristol

Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast

Only in New York by Sam Roberts

The Gift by Pete Hamill

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

Piecework by Pete Hamill

(updated on an as-read basis)

Lessons from Bill Heinz

2008-04-26T12:56:00.001-04:00

W.C. Heinz, simply called Bill by friends, family, and colleagues, was perhaps the lesser known of a literary cannon of sports journalists: A. J. Liebling, Red Smith, John Lardner, and Grantland Rice. A craftsman of the written word whose use of detail plucked the reader into the middle of a story whether he was writing about boxing (“The Professional”), football (“Run to Daylight”), the war from the frontlines or a surgeon during the Korean War (he wrote the novel M*A*S*H under the pseudonym Richard Hooker), Heinz brought a descriptive, personal feel to his writing, influencing generations of writers, journalists and novelists, including David Halberstam and Jimmy Breslin. Ernest Hemingway wrote that “The Professional” is the only good novel about a fighter I've ever read”.

Bill Heinz and boxing trainer Ray Arcel remained close friends since Heinz began pounding the keys of his Remington (one loaned to Hemingway), 50 years ago. Arcel, the legendary trainer of more 2,000 fighters and over a dozen world champions, handled so many of Joe Louis’ opponents he given the nickname “The Meat Wagon.” Two years before his death in 1994, Arcel and his wife, Stephanie (Stevie), suggested that I write to their old friend. The advice from a master whose keen eye for detail and reflective modesty holds its own as a standard for writers. Bill Heinz died at the age of 93 on February 27.

July 17, 1992

Dear Arlene Schulman,

Naturally I'm pleased that you find something of substance in the product I have been turning out of this Remington portable since 1932. I don't know what help any advice from me will be, but I'll try by the numbers (which relieves me of the task of building those paragraph bridges which are so important in giving a piece of writing its flow).

1. It has been said that writing is like painting, I guess--can't be taught, but can be learned. Hemingway said he learned by reading the greats he admired and studying what they did to create the emotion, or emotions, that moved him. In other words, the science precedes the art.

In my own growth process I derived much from reading John O'Hara's short stories, for dialogue, and Hemingway for scene setting, the placement of the characters in it and, of course, the dialogue that identified and distinguished them.

2. Writing is show-and-tell, and "show", when possible, is far preferable than "tell". Anything anyone tells is suspect, while if the readers is brought to believe he has seen and heard it himself, he is a believer forever. Too many writers get between the subject and the reader, so whenever possible the writer should get out of the way.

3. Back to role models: A half century ago I used to ski, and found that when I followed the instructor down the slope my form flowed much better than when I was on my own. I think that in trying to find one's own style, one should find in one's reading the style, or styles, with which one feels most comfortable, and then follow that as I followed the ski instructor. Of course, at the beginning, one will be just an imitator until gradually one's own self emerges in one's own style. Critics like to sneer at this, but the French impressionist painters all borrowed from one another and learned from one another in finding their own way.

4. When, at the end of WWII, Milton Gross was given a sports column by The New York Post, he asked Red Smith for advice. Red said: "Be there." Being there means not only being in attendance, but with eyes and ears at the ready. Too many writers don't really look or really listen. Look and listen for the distinguishing ingredient. Many years ago Stevie Arcel, in talking about "The Professional" mentioned (in the opening chapter) the flower pots on the tenement fire escapes, the yellowed leaves of the Easter lillies and the pink foil still around the pots a long time after the shouldn't be there any longer. She said: "That tells the whole story of tenement life." Of course. That's why I put it there. Now, Stevie may be the only reader who caught that, but I caught it and every good writes first for himself or herself.

5. The space problem: I know what you're going through, and I don't know any answer except to write as tight and right as you can. Even now, when every couple of years or so and I do a peace for "The Times" sports section, they'll call and say: "We've got to take out six lines." My reaction, although I can't say it, is: "Take it out of the white space around the goddam drawing." So, you see?

6. Grammatical note: The proper verb form is to "try to" and not "try and". Anyone who ever tried and put it in the past tense got a sentence like this. Don't feel badly. Some of the highest priced heads talking heads on TV make the same error. Somewhere here I've got three or four single-spaced typed pages of grammatical errors made on the networks by their reporters, anchor people and commentators. When I was doing an occasional piece for "TV Guide" I sent them the casualty lists and asked for suggestions as to how it might be made into a piece. They said their readers wouldn't care. The point was that they didn't care.

7. Sometimes the dice come 7 and here I am. In closing, I can only say that whatever I have to say is in my work, an dif you can find "Once They Heard the Cheers" you'll find a lot of "how-to" there. To you and your work I send my

very best wishes,

Bill Heinz

Six Word Novels in the Tradition of Ernest Hemingway

2008-03-20T17:40:00.007-04:00

Odyseuss. Homecoming. 20 years. Bit Late.

“Don’t touch that apple,” Adam warned.

In-laws. Crass. Complaining. Arctic melting. Send!

Take this job and. . .quarter, anyone?

Medication does strange things to people.

The bell tolls? I don’t hear. . .

Sunrise. Chicken lays an egg. Breakfast.

Hark? Who goes there? Not I.

Doorbell rings. No answer. Publisher’s Clearinghouse.

Odysseus. Vietnam Vet. Not home yet.

Homer. Odysseus. Seus. Yertle. Help Wanted.

Homage to Phyllis Whitney

2008-02-11T18:24:00.003-05:00

At Bellport High School out on Long Island, my brother graduated as his class valedictorian, my sister somewhere at the top of her class. And then there was me. I held the solid middle ground of my graduating class.

But I was the only one who met Phyllis Whitney, an author whose books I'd read since the second grade. Her grandkids attended high school, one a year ahead of me, the other a year behind. Phyllis Whitney spoke at one of our library classes at Bellport High when I was a junior. I remember her warmth and the sparkle in her eyes when she spoke about writing.

She sponsored a writing contest and I, bored out of my mind from mindless high school chatter, decided to enter. Phyllis Whitney started the story and we were asked to complete it. I'll have to dig it out of my archives and include it at a later point. I still have the issue of the publication that the story appeared in.

I remember doodling in my notebook and daydreaming in Social Studies class until I heard my name on the loudspeaker. I wasn't sure why my name was mentioned until a classmate advised me. That was the first and only time my name was projected around the school. I had won the contest, an award and reward for high school years that passed without distinction.

Many years later, I found out from a group of children's book writers that Phyllis Whitney was living in Virginia. I would come across the contest publication from time to time when I was cleaning and thanks were long overdue. I wrote to thank her for this hefty start to my writing career. And Phyllis Whitney replied with a note when she was just 100 years old.

"What a lovely letter! You bring back years that passed so long ago. I'm happy to know that I inspired you to become a writer.

I will send a copy of your letter to Sara Courant who sponsored those affairs. I know she will be pleased.

Today, I no longer write fiction, but I have been working on my autobiography.

All best,

Phyllis A. Whitney"

Phyllis Whitney passed away on February 8, 2008 at the age of 104.

Retail Therapy

2008-02-11T18:21:00.001-05:00

Reading in New York City - Sunday, April 22nd

2007-04-07T14:35:00.001-04:00

Arlene Schulman

Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue on Manhattan's Lower East Side
(close to The Tenement Museum, the famous Katz's deli and Chinatown)
Broome at the corner of Allen Street

Time: 1 pm to 3 pm

Admission is free.

Arlene will be reading from a selection of her works along with writer Eleni Gage (North of Ithaka) and poet Nikos Alexiou, reading from his latest work, The Garden of Lost Vespers.

Refreshments will be served.
For more information, please call KKJ at 212-431-1619

Kehila Kedosha Janina is the only remaining Greek (Romaniote) synagogue in the Western Hemisphere.

Log onto wwww.kkjsm.org for more information.

Hope to see you there!

Update to Someone You Didn't Know

2006-07-21T08:27:00.001-04:00

Diane Newton's life was tragically cut short when a 19-year-old joyrider crashed into her parked car in Harlem on July 3, 2005. I worked with Diane, a public school teacher, for a short time when I taught writing as part of an arts program in New York City. Her classes were magical and inspiring. I will never forget her care and concern for her students and for her patience. My story, Someone You Didn't Know, tells of my teaching experiences and focuses on Diane's class.

Her killer was sentenced to three years in prison. Diane Newton's life was worth much more than that.

So Long to Betty Friedan

2006-02-12T16:34:00.001-05:00

A life well lived; an extraordinary woman who changed the way women view themselves and how the world should perceive us.

A Million Little Pieces - and a Few Lies

2006-01-29T18:46:00.001-05:00

Writing a memoir means recreating past events and taking down the truth as we see it. And the way we see it or recall it is open to the varities of one's personality, persuasion, prediliction for remembering details, age, and circumstances. My brother and I remember the same events differently. The basic event is the same but our recollection and interpretation of the facts as we perceive it are different. It's not that we've created our own fantasy but we sifted through live's events and tragedies through different lenses. But the basic events are the same.

James Frey took events from his own life and embellished them to the point where they became lies. His books are technically fictionalized memoir which gives them the label of fiction. Should some memoirs now receive a label called "faux fiction" or "half-truth fiction"? How do we know what actually happened? But when facts - not thoughts or feelings - are tampered with the credibility of every non-fiction writer suffers.

So Long to Barrymore's

2006-01-29T18:36:00.001-05:00

Barrymore's closed its doors this past evening, one more remembrance of what Times Square used to be. A handwritten sign taped to the door - "Kitchen closed" - and the people quietly sitting at the bar or at tables having a drink or two marked its last day. You could sit and have a drink at the bar or order a burger or salad in its cavern like space. Ted and Steve, two waiters, would pull up a chair and chat. At the next table might be a stagehand or two, or even Chita Rivera, George Hearn, Karen Ziemba or other Broadway regulars relaxing and unwinding. It was unpretentious, if you had an attitude it was best to leave it at home, and you could strike up a conversation with the people at the table next to you.

In its place, we've heard, is a hotel. The regulars will find another place to go and tourists will pay top price to say they've stayed in New York. And we'll walk past 45th Street and see the ghost of Barrymore's, just like walking down 42nd Street and you can hear the ghosts of the Times Square Gym.

Theatre Buzz

2005-11-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

The Lost Boy

Written by Ronald Gabriel Paolillo
Directed by Kimberly Vaughn

November 11 - 20th, 2005 Queens Theatre in the Park

**** Four Stars

For tickets and show times: www.queenstheatre.org

While John Travolta moved from Welcome Back, Kotter to can’t-buy-a- tuna-sandwich-in-Hollywood back to A-list status, his co-star, Ron Paolillo has eradicated all memories of his trademark grating Horshack laugh in smaller roles as an actor, director and writer in small New York and out of state theatres. He’s directed The Lion in Winter, The Taming of the Shrew, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and other credits. He’s appeared in The Tempest, Richard III, and Adolf Eichmann.

Paolillo’s latest project is the meticulously researched and written, The Lost Boy, about the life of author James M. Barrie. While Wicked may be the backstory to the land of Oz, The Lost Boy could be considered the backstory to Barrie’s classic, Peter Pan, minus music. It traces the origins of Peter Pan back to the death of Barrie’s older brother and his anguish and torment about his failure to save him. Barrie was six years old; his older brother was thirteen. His mother never recovered from the loss of her favorite, most treasured son and she insults and degrades Barrie in frustration all his life.

Both mother and son live with the ghost of the dead Barrie. Roberta Maxwell plays Barrie’s mother as the perfection of icy resentment, of a mother who cannot even bear to look at her surviving son. Ms. Maxwell, a veteran stage and film actress, delivers a brittle Scottish accent and a performance of calculated fury with a shading of sadness that makes her role both unlikeable and sympathetic.

Bruce Connelly’s James Barrie is insulted and humilated by his mother and he brings just the right note of grieving son and brother to the stage. His imagination creates Captain Hook, played with enthusiastic glee by Joseph Lee Gramm as Peter Pan, and Wendy and their visit to Neverland appears on the stage behind Barrie.

The actors speak in hard-to-learn Scottish brogues and make them appear simple. Eva Kaminsky plays Maureen O’Rourke, who Barrie tells his tales too and falls in love with. She doubles as Wendy, speaking with a Scottish accent, then a British accent as Wendy and then back again.

Paollilo brings Barrie’s story full circle with the presentation of Peter Pan to a theatre crowd that includes Barrie’s mother and her acceptance, if temporary, of her surviving son. This three-act play, a rarity in the theatre, is a fine piece of writing and the performances by Maxwell, Connelly, Gramm, and Kaminsky are top notch.

#####

Bingo, A Winning New Musical

Book by Michael Heitzman and Ilene Reid
Music and Lyrics by Michael Heitzman, Ilene Reid and David Holcenberg
Directed by Thomas Caruso

St. Luke's Church, West 46th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues
For tickets and show times: www.telecharge.com

***** - Five Stars - Loved it!

Off-Broadway and off-off Broadway productions used to conjure up the image of an old musty theatre with folding chairs that you had wipe off before sitting, a bathroom shared with the performance, and a surly box office attendent who would point with his chin where the door was.

Not any more.

St. Luke’s has been transformed into a bingo hall for Bingo: A Winning New Musical. Theater favorite Liz McCartney (Taboo, Thoroughly Modern Millie) plays Vern, one of a quartet of bingo playing gals who will let nothing stop their bingo game. The writing is tight, the cast is brilliant, and the songs fresh and original, from Girls Night Out to Gentleman Caller to Anyone Can Play Bingo. Beth Malone’s Alison delivers a homage to Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in a show-stopping number that could have been pulled and performed from a Broadway show. The audience participates in a couple of bingo games as the stage is creatively and wittily designed as a bingo hall.

As an added note, the Box office and staffing of this theatre is warm and friendly. You even get a slice of cake on the way out.

#####

The Great American Trailer Park Musical

Music and Lyrics by David Nehls
Book by Betsy Kelso
Directed by Betsy Kelso

Dodgers Stages, 50th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues
For tickets and show times: www.telecharge.com

***** - Five Stars - Loved it!

A great segue from Bingo is the Great American Trailer Park Musical, another terrific production from Dodgers Stages (Altar Boyz).

Linda Hart is one of a trio of women who narrate the story about the lives of several people living in a trailer park in Florida. Shuler Hensley is first rate as the cheating husband of an agoraphobic wife while Orfeh brings down the house with her belting voice as the stripper he's carrying on with. The plot has a variety of unpredictable twists and turns and we won't give them away.

You can't do no wrong with a musical with songs titles like This Side of the Tracks, Road Kill, Great American TV Show and the crowd favorite, Storms A-Brewin where the cast performs in bad hair and seventies clothings with a disco beat.

Favorites from This Writer's Bookshelf

2005-11-06T14:22:00.000-05:00

How The Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis

Southerners by Marshall Frady

Winners and Losers by Gloria Emerson

everything by James Thurber

Faces in the Crowd by Gary Giddins

Sir Vidia’s Shadow; The Happy Hills of Oceania; The Dark Star Safari; Sunrise with Seamonsters by Paul Theroux

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (fiction)

And Other Stories by John O’Hara (fiction)

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford

The Jump Book by Philippe Halsman (photographs)

Veeck - as in Wreck by Bill Veeck

Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg

My Two Wars; Living Poor; The Farm on the River of Emeralds; and The Saddest Pleasure by Mortiz Thomsen

A Puerto Rican in New York by Jesus Colon

Farewell to Sport; Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris (and New York - both fiction) by Paul Gallico

The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch

The Gay Talese Reader by Gay Talese

The Fireside Book of Boxing and The Professional by Bill Heinz

The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter

The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer (fiction)

Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell

everything by Pearl S. Buck (fiction)

The Red Smith Reader

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The Harder They Fall by Budd Schulberg (fiction)

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (fiction)

Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas

Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly by Margaret Bourke-White

More than Meets the Eye by Carl Mydans

Mary Ellen Mark 25 Years (photography)

Calder’s Universe

Low Life by Luc Sante

The Power Broker by Robert Caro

New York Noir (photographs)

On Photography by Susan Sontag

Ansel Adams - Classic Images (photographs)

My American Century by Studs Turkel

Someone You Didn't Know

2005-10-30T14:03:00.001-05:00

This school where I once taught writing is located in the South Bronx, surrounded by a police station, a Salvation Army, McDonald’s and White Castle, a methadone clinic, a Spanish restaurant, and a combination sporting goods-gun store. So. You could gobble down a couple of Egg McMuffins before swallowing your dose of methadone, slap a few bucks on the counter for a raincoat previously worn by a well-meaning Park Avenue matron, grab a few cuchifritos for lunch, purchase a football and a rifle, throw off a few shots into the air, and obtain a free trip around the corner courtesy of the New York City Police Department before the last bell rings signalling the end of another school day.

For me to get to this utopia, I traveled down to the George Washington Bridge via the A train and climbed the sticky stairs out to the bus stop across the street and walked under a cloud of exhaust from the endless cars, buses, trucks, and mini-vans that cross the bridge each day. The BX36 would swing around the corner in a sort of bloated pirouette and stop on its toes. I was the first or maybe the second person to board the bus on that run. By the time we reached the third stop just a few blocks away, it was filled with girls in Catholic school uniforms, adults crossing from Manhattan into the Bronx for their mundane jobs, and public school students chewing chips and donuts for breakfast who pushed and shoved each other and left their trash on the floor. I had to wrestle my way off the bus by pushing past them like I was spit out of the crowd and onto the sidewalk. I couldn’t tell if I was terrified at where I was or relieved at where I’d been.

I landed on that sidewalk to teach fourth graders or, as the arts program that hired me advertised, “to inspire to reach greater challenges”. The idea was to wheedle writing out of kids in one of the lowest performing schools in the city. You partnered with the classroom teacher who assisted or tried to assist by reinforcing your lessons, passing out papers, and working alongside the students with you. Many times they wound up breaking up fights, asking kids to be quiet, sit down, don’t touch, don’t hit, don’t spit, don’t push your desk out the door, yes, you may go to the bathroom, no, you may not, pay attention, yes, you have to do this, no, you can’t call your friend on the phone, put your nail polish away, I’m calling your mother, do not write on the desk, put away the scissors, take the Walkman out of your ears, if that isn’t yours you have no business touching it, what’s your problem?, if your mother doesn’t care, then I will find someone who does, same to you and let’s move on.

The office that hired me was run by two wealthy women whose husbands were attorneys and even after 20 years, they still led business meetings in the living room of one woman’s apartment. Although they had a maid, the kitchen area was littered with breakfast crumbs and a incontinent dog wearing a diaper stuck his nose into meetings by knocking over piles of paper. The two women were attached to their desktop phones, always distracted and offering advice on dealing with people in a kind, abstract manner. “Just tell the teacher they have to work with you” and “THIS always works.” Of course, that rarely happened.

These women never dealt with the stress of disorganized schools on a daily basis, with teachers who gave up or gave in to their distracted pupils, fourth graders who cursed at you and teachers who sat at their desk eating yogurt while you tried to mold their young people. They had no control over who sat in their class and many times the mixture was combustible, improbable and impossible. The goal I learned was to get the project over with within the allotted five or eight week time period, even though you might only meet a few times because the teacher called in sick or forgot that you were to arrive and scheduled some other activity. There was always testing or a class trip which the teacher wasn’t aware of or didn’t bother to tell you. I never dumbed down my expectations but realized that not everyone was capable of meeting them. There were smart kids and great teachers and it was only by great good luck that they met. You could blame it on a system that puts students with probation officers or on serious medication for mental illness in the same classroom with intelligent, impressionable children I had to pluck out of the crowd. And there were the parents who purchased French manicures, pedicures, hair weaves, cell phones and SUVs but not pens and pencils for their kids.

After passing the lineup of parents and kids holding soda bottles and chips for breakfast, I signed in for the day and found myself assigned to working with four teachers. The first was a tiny teacher with a voice twice as grating as Rosie Perez’s. Born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, she married a Jewish man and adopted the Joan Rivers-like intonations of a middle-aged Jewish mother-in-law where nobody has eaten enough or calls her enough. Every one of her students must have his or her desk precisely arranged. It was almost as if she had drawn an invisible placement where a notebook should go - center of the desk - pencils on the right, water bottles on the left. “Mar-vin,” she would complain. “Hon-ey. Marv-in? Remember? I told you? Your notebook should be open and in the cent-ah.” I winced and so did the students.

Another teacher sat, almost invisible, in the back of her classroom with crumpled up looseleaf papers, graffitied-over textbooks, and the stubs of pencils and lunch bags strewn all over the floor. I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. So I took a broom and started cleaning. A large mound of garbage rose in the middle of the classroom and four kids pitched in, thrilled that someone else acknowledged these distractions. I don’t think the teacher noticed the clean room. She was too busy playing with a student’s Game Boy and happy not to be interrupted. This same classroom held a girl who stabbed the class gerbil to death with a pencil. The kids stayed away from her. So did I.

Other kids shoved desks at each other. And seated quietly on the left side of the room were four students who soaked up everything I had to offer - the poetry of Carl Sandburg, the humor of James Thurber, the photographs of William Wegman and the poetry of Langston Hughes. Overlooked by the system, they were neat, quiet, well-spoken, excellent writers - what were they doing here? I asked one small boy with curly hair and expressive eyes and lowered my voice.

“How DO you put up with this every day?,” I whispered.

“Well,” he said, “I have no choice.”

I moved to the front of the class and clapped my hands.

“Okay, everyone! We’re ready to go!”

Somehow I overlooked a chunky kid standing to my left holding on to the broom. He threw it like a javelin and missed his target. It hit me on the forearm and I was black and blue for about a week.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, “I meant to hit that kid over there.”

I reported it to the principal who sat expressionless in front of me. I wondered how parents felt when they met her. She would be retiring in a few months and stayed as far away from complaints and controversy as she could. So she sat immobile in her office, hearing nothing or just nodding to everything and departed at the end of the school year. But I don’t know how she couldn’t hear the howling coming from the third floor, like a horror movie with vampires or demons in the attic.

“That’s nothing, “ said one teacher, not breaking stride. “Those are all the kids who haven’t taken their medication today.”

Oh.

Another teacher - the sister of the Rosie Perez sound alike - proudly controlled her class, she said, with an iron ruler and only she and she only could control them. Running a classroom without teaching your students how to behave with other adults seems rather narcissistic, arrogant and irresponsible. I saw this firsthand when she called in sick one day. The substitute struggled to control the class. I made my move and announced our writing project. The kids ignored us.

“We don’t have to do that.”

They turned their backs, laughed and moved together in clusters to talk. The substitute yelled to get their attention. So did I. I waved my arms like I was at a football game. A few listened to our useless exertions. One girl did pay attention to us.

“Fuck you!”, she called out.

Another one girl imitated our hopeless voices and yelled at us to leave. I reported it the next day to the teacher who was reunited with her darling angels.

“That’s because I wasn’t there,” the teacher said proudly.

I didn’t know who to feel more sorry for. She pointed out a particulary troublesome student.

“This kid has problems,” she said, standing next to a short, wiry boy who stood about four feet tall but with the posturing of a basketball player.

I passed him in the hallway in between classes and called out a friendly hello as I did to every student I struggled to recognize. The next thing I knew he ran to report to his teacher that I had cursed at him. The principal wearily called me into her office.

“We’ve already had the parents in and he lied to them,” she said, looking at a spot on the wall above me. “He has a history of punching several kids and then lied and said he didn’t do it. Don’t worry about it.”

But I did. I wondered what it was like to be a kid bullied by this troublemaker and now I was one of them. It was fourth grade all over again. My last class of the day was with a teacher named named Diane Newton. This being the Bronx it was pronounced “New-in”. She knew the quirks and strengths of her students and didn’t insult, yell or talk about them while they were sitting in front of them as some other teachers did. She knew which kid was having a bad day and who needed to be separated from another. She was also a mother raising a son.

The floors were swept clean, her desk and closets organized, no one chewed gum or threw anything at me. There weren’t any papers on the floor and there were no howling kids. That was a good sign. Five years later, I can see and feel that classroom. The coat closets were on the left and the square desks were arranged in small groupings of six or eight. Her regulation wooden teacher’s desk was in the front of the room.

I remember the tall and neatly dressed Carl whose voice was changing so he sounded like a honking vintage Volkswagon. Another student, a girl, looked like she was in high school. She had to weigh a solid 200 pounds and at five feet seven was four inches taller than I am. She sat at her desk with her eyes closed, weary from a long day at the job. The girls in this class were larger and more developed than the boys who - with the exception of Carl - looked like they could be in the second grade. One girl kept calling out my name so eager for attention that Ms. Newton would remind her: “Ms. Schulman has to work with others in the room. Let’s give everyone a chance.” Another young man sat at his desk, folded his arms, and announced that he wasn’t “doing this crap.” Ms. Newton advised me to move on.

Ms. Newton never called in sick on the days I was scheduled as I pushed open the classroom door, perspiring, my damp hair scratching my back, drinking from a large bottle of water, and lugging what amounted to a suitcase full of books and papers. She looked me in the eye when I spoke and listened to my idea about having her students write autobiographies.

“That’s a great idea,” she said. “We can use the assignments for their writing folders. And since some are being interviewed for charter schools, this would really be a big help.”

The writing was upbeat and I remember helping them format and focus paragraphs about dreams of becoming veterinarians and shortstops, secretaries and politicians. Carl wrote about being either a politician or a preacher. I can’t remember which one. Ms. Newton helped me pass out papers and worked on their writing on days when I wasn’t there. There was one computer for thirty students and no one knew how to type. A student typing one paragraph with one finger could take over an hour. So we worked out a system: once a student finished writing, they would sit at the computer, type it out, and I would format and correct the typing errors. Ms. Newton even found the time to type up some of these herself.

Once we assigned the writing, she and I split up and worked one by one around the room. I tried pushing the heavyset girl but she was immovable. She did open her eyes a couple of times and rolled them; just a reaction was progress. Ms. Newton told me to move on. I pushed the boy who sat and sulked.

He was smaller than the rest and shrunk into his seat.

“Oh, c’mon,” I said, “This is easy. I know you have something to say. Let’s get going. You can do it.”

That little push was all he needed. Somehow, he and I made some headway. I don’t know what broke the ice but he turned into one of my best students.

“Can I help you pass out the papers?” “Could you all pay attention so we can begin?” he would call out, stamping his feet.

I wished I had made copies of their papers but I didn’t. His writing improved and he sat and watched my pencil circle verbs used incorrectly and words with creative misspellings. He would be the first one finished and he walked around the room to see how his colleagues were shaping up.

But he had an obstacle that blindsided him, Ms. Newton, and me. I spotted him sitting silently and sullenly in the back of another classroom, his legs stretched out and his head leaning on his hand. He barely looked at me, sitting slumped in his seat. He paid no attention to his teacher. I waved and mouthed hello. He looked away. When I arrived in class, his seat was empty. Ms. Newton took me aside.

“What happened?” I asked. “Something must be wrong.”

She explained that she was under investigation. The girl who craved attention reported that she had sex in the classroom coat closet with this boy while Ms. Newton was teaching the class. I must have made a face at the improbability of it. This was the fourth grade so the girl was ten or eleven. She seemed older, not sophisticated, but more physically developed than the boys. But I couldn’t figure out the logistics. The kid seemed, well, like a kid, not aggressive or even aware that they were girls. How could he possibly reach her body parts or know how they worked, let alone have sex standing up in a dark, narrow coat closet full of hooks with a girl a good foot and a half taller? But the police and the Board of Education had to investigate. He was pulled out of the classroom, his accuser remained to face Ms. Newton every day.

“What? Are you kidding me?” I asked.

Ms. Newton put her hand on my arm.

“Let’s look at the facts,” I said. “First of all, this kid doesn’t even notice the girls yet. He wouldn’t even know what to do. You have to have a certain amount of sophistication to have sex standing up in that coat closet with the hooks sticking out. How could this happen with everyone in the room?”

I walked around in circles.

Ms. Newton was calmer than I was even though she said that she was being investigated. She felt the girl, who had other documented problems, was making this up and possibly covering up a relationship with an older uncle. In the meantime, the girl was allowed to remain in the classroom and the young man removed.

“I’ll get through this,” Ms. Newton said, “because we know it didn’t happen. And it couldn’t happen. But these kids have problems”, she said sadly. “She’s created a situation for the rest of his life. This will scar him. She doesn’t care. I wish I could do something for him but my hands are tied.”

This was the last day of class and I never would find out what happened to the two. I said goodbye to the class and Ms. Newton and received a round of applause from the class, including one standing ovation from Carl. I exchanged telephone numbers with Ms. Newton, promising to keep in touch. We never did. I don’t know why.

A couple of years later, I said goodbye to teaching. When I left, I wondered the fates of her students and the ones who soaked up Thurber and Sandburg. I wonder if kids are still howling from the third floor. I wondered if Ms. Newton was still teaching the fourth grade in the South Bronx in the same school surrounded by a police station, a Salvation Army, McDonald’s and White Castle, a methadone clinic, a Spanish restaurant, and a combination sporting goods-gun store.

I hadn’t thought about them for a good while until I opened the newspaper just after July 4th. The headlines read “Crash kills teacher. Parked, hit by joyriding teens.” I would usually skim a story like this but since I worked with quite a few teachers in the city, it caught my attention.A public school teacher sat in her car in Harlem waiting for her fiance, a city sanitation worker she was set to marry in September. They had just spoken on her cellphone and they were meeting so they could travel home together. A teenager ended all that at 2:45 in the morning. He took his stepfather’s SUV, picked up a couple of friends and sped up Seventh Avenue. Hitting a speed of 9o miles per hour, he lost control of the vehicle and hit three cars. One was occupied by the teacher. The impact of the crash broken seven of her ribs including one that pierced her heart. She died several hours after the crash, killed by a kid who was the same age as her son. Once, he could have been one of her students. I looked again at the black and white photograph of a smiling, attractive black woman facing the camera with her arm around the fiancee she would never marry. It looked familiar.

I looked again.

It was Diane Newton.

Someone you didn’t know.

The Dinner Party

2005-10-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

Arlene Schulman

The first time I attended a dinner party comprised of mostly writers took place about ten years ago. I showed up at the door waiting to be seated at a Dorothy Parker-type round table surrounded by witticisms and criticisms tossed about by literati glitterati drinking an endless supply of ruthless martinis and smoking cigarettes. The table turned out to be a long rectangle, a round of drinks might have helped, no one smoked, and the conversation didn’t exactly glitter from people who had published. The talk ranged from an alarmingly slow progression of yes-and-no answers to the sounds of forks clanging against plates like churchbells ringing across a desolate countryside. This other species didn’t speak to each other and didn’t even look at me so I knew it couldn’t be my complete lack of credentials or my overwhelming naivete. I wondered if this would be my last foray to a literary soiree.

“Have you been to Mexico?”, I asked the writer sitting next to me.

Okay, I had to start somewhere.

“No.”

He stared at his plate and listened to the clanging of the forks. That was our conversation. But I’m a New Yorker. I don’t give up easily. I butted into the chatter three writers over.

“Did you read the article in the New York Times today about birds regenerating their brains? Now they won’t have any problems!,” the woman cackled with hysterical enthusiasm.

The rest of the table held up their forks and wrinkled their foreheads in concentration as if they were studying The Periodic Table of Elements. The laugh erupted out of me like a car backfiring in the middle of a silent night.

“Problems? Problems?! What kind of problems? Like paying a mortgage or finding a job?,” I managed to force out.

A good laugh, I mean a really good laugh, forces my eyes to water and my body to shake - I could be holding onto the third rail. The poet sitting across from me managed to suppress his laughter into one small polite burble. I used the linen napkin to wipe my eyes and I clenched the table to catch my breath. The clanging of the forks took on a much faster tempo and was now accompanied by the sound of water poured into tall glasses. I clasped the napkin to my chest and got myself under control. I clanged my fork against my plate as I wrestled what may have been eggplant but I think was something else. In between tackles, I surveyed the writer sitting across from me: his brown hair that was obviously dyed jet black and he wore an affected rumpledness that one obtains after sitting for hours in Starbucks finishing that long awaited novel.

“So,” he asked gingerly. “Who’s your favorite writer?”

The forks stopped for a minute. Picture the silence before a winner is announced at the Academy Awards.

“James Thurber, of course!,” I exclaimed, hoping this would propel me into some sort of literary acceptance and intelligensia.

“Oh,” he replied, making a face like a bad odor had wafted across the table. “I read him in high school. He’s not contemporary anymore.”

“So what?”

Clang, clang went the forks. Yeah. So what? James Thurber ranks right there at the top as one of America’s greatest humorists. His work influenced generations of writers from Kurt Vonnegut to Joseph Heller, Garrison Keillor to David Sedaris. Thurber’s characters are eccentrics placed in real but exaggerated sets of circumstances and they’re tormented by each other in a gentle, humorous, ironic manner. His writing and sketches appeared in the New Yorker magazine beginning in 1927. Thurber wrote over 35 books, won a Tony Award for his play, The Thurber Carnival, and his short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, was adapted into a movie starring Danny Kaye in 1947. His books include Is Sex Necessary?, My World and Welcome to It, and The Thurber Album. Stories with titles like The Night the Bed Fell, More Alarms at Night, and The Dog that Bit People have entertained generations of readers. My favorite Thurber book is The Thurber Carnival which compiles his stories and cartoons from several books. I purchased a used copy a long time ago and it’s a small hardcover with its original dust jacket, compact enough to fit into my handbag or coat pocket. I’ve read it many times. In most of his stories, the wife is generally irritated by the husband she dominates but loves nonetheless. Thurber’s men are generally benign, like Mr. Martin in The Catbird Seat. Mr. Martin is an office worker, reliable, respected, and quiet who doesn’t even smoke or raise his voice. He drinks milk. A new co-worker is introduced and Mr. Martin dislikes her immediately. Mrs. Ulgine Barrows - with “her quacking voice and braying laugh” - terrorizes him for two years by shouting silly questions at him.

“Are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch? Are you tearing up the pea patch? Are you hollering down the drain barrel? Are you scraping around the bottom of the pickle barrel? Are you sitting in the catbird seat?” “Boo!,” she would shout at him.

Mr. Martin plotted to rub her out. He followed her home one day and rang her doorbell. He sat down on her couch and hoped to find a weapon. He asked for a drink and started smoking her cigarettes. He insulted his boss and declared that he was coked to the gills. He left her apartment and arrived quietly and meekly at his desk the next day. Mrs. Barrows rolled in, yelling and complaining to his boss that Mr. Martin drank, smoked cigarettes, used drugs and showed up at her apartment. Mr. Martin, of course, denied all this and his boss knew it was completely out of character. Mrs. Barrows was hurriedly carted out and Mr. Martin returned to the peace and quiet of his office. In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Walter Mitty is henpecked by his wife and he relieves himself of his misery by daydreaming. He’s inserted himself into a variety of scenarios, from flying a plane, to a life saving doctor, a crack shot with a gun interviewed on the witness stand, and facing the firing squad.

“I was thinking,” said Walter Mitty says to his wife. “Did it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?” She looked at him. “I’m going to take your temperature when you get home,” she said.

In The Curb in the Sky, a woman finishes sentences for people. Poor Charlie thought he could change her and married her, against everyone’s warning.

“Once or twice, when I called on them or they called on me, Dorothy would let Charlie get almost to the climax of some interesting account or happening and then, like a tackler from behind, throw him just as he was about to cross the goal-line.”

Charlie knew this was a losing battle so he began telling stories about dreams he had, knowing that Dorothy could not know the ending. “They became the only life that he had that was his own.” Then he began to tell the same story over and over again. Dorothy never tired of correcting the ending. He ended up in a asylum where he told and retold the same story and Dorothy still corrected him. “He always gets his story wrong,” Dorothy said.

Thurber’s cartoons in simple strokes featured the war between the sexes. My favorite shows a man and woman in bed with the woman turning to the man and saying, “All right, have it your way - you heard a seal bark”. A seal is hanging not too discretely over the headboard. In another, a woman sits in a chair while her husband looks at a scrapbook with their son. He points out a photo, “And this is Tom Weatherby, an old beau of your mother’s. He never got to first base.”

I’ve read most of Thurber’s books. And through his sardonic eye, I’ve learned to look at people and circumstances with a rather ironic viewpoint which others might overlook or dismiss. Just the other day, a friend told me about her good friend who hired a cleaning lady. Somehow the cleaning lady wound up running all sorts of errands and accompanying her everywhere.

“I only want to be a cleaning lady,” she pleaded.

On her last trip out, she assisted her employer on her thrice weekly visit to her psychiatrist. It was the cleaning lady who wound up on the couch. Some people might think of this as weird. I see stories in life’s absurdities.

I think back to that dinner party. After dessert was served and the clanging of spoons began with after-dinner coffee, I waited for my moment.

“Did anyone hear a seal bark?”

Helpful Links

2005-10-30T13:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.washington-heights.us/ - Washington Heights Online: This is a wonderful website that offers a calendar of neighborhood events, history of the neighborhood, and links to other sites.

http://www.ringgarden.org/ - The Ring Garden is always looking for volunteers! It’s a terrific space at the base of Seaman, Dyckman and Riverside Drive.

www.dyckmanfarmhouse.org - The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum was constructed in 1784. It’s the only remaining farmhouse in Manhattan. Currently closed for restoration, the Museum will re-open in Spring 2005. It’s located on Broadway at the corner of 204th Street. - see also info@dyckmanfarmhouse.org

Michelle Tourigny runs an Inwood/Washington Heights event blog. Check out http://turnertourigny.tripod.com/whie/

http://www.knoxmartin.com/ - Well-know abstract painter Knox Martin is a long-time resident of Washington Heights.

http://www.mikefitelson.com/ - Check out black and white photography by the editor of the Manhattan Times.

http://www.notesupnorth.net/ - This website that promotes songwriters and musicians in northern Manhattan!

http://www.fullrangerecordings.com/ - Northern Manhattan’s first recording studio to offer recording services, seminars, and networking opportunities in support of vocalists/singers, musicians, spoken word artists and writers in the Heights/Inwood area of Manhattan. 212.568.7506

http://www.practicalnature.com/ - While hiking through our acres of parkland, don’t forget to apply insect repellent! Guys, check out the natural bug spray that doesn’t smell too girlie! And great hand cream, too!