Looking Back

 Last Tuesday I decided to take a walk to the park. The air felt as cold as the Arctic. But I kept on walking because going to the park was the goal for the day. It didn’t matter how cold it was.

As I approached the park, I heard the sound of children talking and laughing. Their boisterousness was like a jolt of electricity to my senses. I looked up and before my eyes I saw the tall brick building of the elementary school I used to attend. Floods of memories came rushing to my mind like a train leaving a station.

I began to have visions of my teachers, classmates, my struggles to learn, and of course the bullies. Facing those bullies every day was like being in a lion’s den. I was constantly trying to outrun them. But I was never successful. Their taunts and cruelness were as damaging as poison is to the body.

As I stood in front of that big brick building, I couldn’t help but smile. Although those elementary school years were torturous, I did have good teachers and two close friends. Being bullied in some ways shaped me into the person I am today. It gave me a thick skin because it taught me how to handle difficult situations and not let negative comments affect me. It also taught me to be kind and compassionate towards others.

I stood there for a few more minutes in a trance. Somehow, I was transported back to 1981. To that little girl who was starting kindergarten. A blast of cold air hit my face and I’m back to the present. I smiled once again and continued my walk to the park.

Ana R

Heirloom

 

Join me in a walk into my dining room. It is my favorite room because it is where we share holiday meals with family, friends and relatives. Come with me into the corner of this room to meet the only heirloom in the house. My grandson has already laid claim to that item for his future home in New Paltz..

My mother, Anna, came to America as a poor immigrant from Kiev with some pocket money and a little more than the clothes on her back. Nothing of value belonged to her or the people she left behind. There was nothing to inherit; no heirlooms to pass on.

What Anna had, however, was an eye for good stuff. She could somehow recognize value in items left for the taking in the lobby of her apartment building or out in the street. Someone’s trash, was Anna’s treasure. She knew what to schlep and bring to me. That’s how I got my beautiful, valuable two flow blue antique plates; my antique ladder back chair and my vintage clock radio .I think this last item is valuable because I saw exactly the same one for sale in an upscale Madison Avenue antique store window. Unfortunately, when we were finally able to get back into the city, the store had gone out of business. I am still googling it.

This item is an RCA Victor vintage clock radio from the early 1930’s. Because it stands a bit shorter than 6 feet, it is described as a grandmother clock (not grandfather). The style of the cabinet is Art Deco Skyscraper (a skyscraper building adorns the front. The clock is electric and the radio works on old vintage tubes. Neither is in working order. It sits proudly and comfortably in the corner of our dining room, with an air of great importance.

Looking around my home at my possessions, I think this item may someday be an heirloom for one of my grandchildren (whoever decides to inherit it). The grandchild will be able to point to that clock radio and say, “I inherited that vintage from my Great Grandma Anna. There’s a story behind my heirloom. My Great Grandma would scour the streets and find one person’s trash was her treasure. It journeyed from the street in the Bronx, then to grandma and grandpa’s dining room Kew Gardens Hills to my apartment in Brooklyn, to our house in the country, to my new home in New Paltz. ”Proudly, my grandchild can say, “ That vintage clock radio that stood in the corner of a dining room is my heirloom.”

Ethyl Haber

Costume Dress-Up

 

It is nice to get dressed up in a costume and parade around as something or someone that you are not. I was grabbed from the local market, paid for and tossed unceremoniously into a bag and carried away by my new owner. Upon arrival at my new domicile, I was tipped on my side and a birthday hat, painted black was dropped through a circular oak-tag disc forming the brim and peak of my witch’s hat. Crinkled black Crepe paper was glued under my brim to create my straggly indigo locks. In addition, I had been turned on my side and wedged in place with my long-curved stem facing downward and painted with a grotesque bright green concoction to resemble a face with a proboscis and red nostrils, canary yellow piercing evil eyes with furrowed, threatening eyebrows and glaring yellow teeth, which could have used a trip to the dentist, I might add. It was all so much more exciting than sitting in a field like an orange lump, just like 1000 other orange lumps. A bunch of grimy, grim, gloomy gourds waiting to be severed from Mother Earth’s nurturing care, with their umbilical cords cut, left stranded and alone in a field of similarly affected siblings .Cut from the vine, then sold to some smiling lady in a flowered dress and straw hat , who would proceed to take the victim to her kitchen or more correctly her house of horrors ,and peel off his skin all the while singing a cheerful little ditty to herself, and cut him up into little chunks and boil his flesh alive! Let me ask you if you know why all of these atrocities were committed? Well, it was all for a few insincere compliments on the taste of the lady’s pumpkin pie, from a captive audience of her relations who did not wish to go through the bother of producing this feast for themselves, but instead by buying a store-bought cake and a bottle of cheap wine they avoided this chore while dispensing a few offhand compliments to the founder of the feast! Well, I will take my current set of circumstances over this facade anytime. Thank you very much, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Jim 10/23