Tag: NYC
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Bryant Park On A July Afternoon
I remember a time, back in the 1970’s and ’80’s when Bryant Park was a certain kind of place for a certain kind of person. I was not one of those people. There was a public restroom…a small stone building on 42nd Street. If you entered to use the urinal, in the day, in the…
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My Dreams Are Made Of Iron And Steel
I don’t dream the way I did in past years. I miss that because those nighttime adventures were something to behold. The visions of H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker and Steven Spielberg were mere cartoons when compared to the places I would go in the hours beyond midnight…when REM sleep was most active. Very rarely…
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The Preference For Fog On The Downtown Bus
The M1 bus stop where I was standing was on 5th Avenue and 98th Street. It’s across the avenue from Mount Sinai Hospital. It wasn’t raining…it was a downpour. My flimsy $5.99 umbrella protected my head and shoulders but little else. The front half of each shoe was soaked. My outside flap of the shoulder…
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Arriving, Departing or Just Passing Through
I stood hard against the tiled wall and made room for the rush of human traffic trying to pass me. I was thinking about insanity and the blindness of powerful people to hold sacred something that once had beauty and class. Beauty and class are rare commodities these days. I was in the bowels of…
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How Three Moments From An Evening With Bob Dylan And His Band Will Stay With Me
It was December 1, 2014. The mild afternoon had turned into a chilly evening. A light rain was falling on the gritty sidewalks of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The marquee of the Beacon Theater on 75th Street told the story of the next few hours in my life: TONIGHT-AN EVENING WITH BOB DYLAN…
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The Skeleton in the Taxi
The Division Head in the private school where I taught was very adamant. “All this stuff has to go, Pat. Everything you don’t use in a year should be cleaned out.” I looked around the Middle School lab and began to make mental notes of what needed to be tossed. The chemicals, of course, had…
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This Old House
There is so much to be done when your last surviving parent dies. My father passed away nearly ten years to the day and I can remember so much of the aftermath that my brother, wife and I had to deal with. The lawyers, the probate, the will, endless medical records, phone calls, funeral arrangement…
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Dad
On this day, January 24, my father was born. I don’t know the day of the week or the time of day. All I know for sure is that it was 100 years ago. My guess is that it was a home birth. My grandfather, Michael, would likely have been pacing the floor of their…
patrickjegan 