Millions of people, many beautiful

According to the figures announced by the U.S. Census Bureau last week, there are 308,745,538 people living in the United States. When more details are announced next year, it’s expected that New York City’s population will total almost 8,400,000, a 4-5 percent increase over the 2000 census figure. It may surprise you that New York has almost as many people as the combined populations of the country’s second, third and fourth largest cities: Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.

If beauty can be defined as the unique rendering of color and shape, with motion that is accomplished and effortless, then I’m convinced New York City also has, by far, the highest number of beautiful people in the country, if not the world.

According to a December 14 New York Times article by Sam Roberts, “Since 2000, decades of white flight eased and the proportion of non-Hispanic white New Yorkers increased slightly, to 35.5 percent. So did New York City’s proportion of Hispanic residents, to just over 27 percent. The proportion of blacks declined by a percentage point, to 23.3 percent, and the share of Asian residents rose by almost two percentage points, to nearly 12 percent.”

That’s diversity, by any definition. And, when you walk around New York and see people small and big, young and old, dressed in all kinds of manner, it’s a beautiful sight.

I’ve been fortunate the last two years to work in midtown Manhattan with a great group of people. I’ve also become familiar with some of the wonderful people who work in various local eateries, and gotten to know some of the beautiful faces that cross my path as I walk around Rockefeller Center, including those of Abudacar and Adrian.

On most days, Abudacar can be found on the east side of Fifth Avenue, between 48-49 Street, wearing a sandwich-board advertisement and handing out leaflets for a discount men’s clothier. With a French-African accent, he told me recently that he arrived from Guinea eight years ago and lives in the Bronx. He said has no family in the U.S.

“I have an understanding with my boss about my pay,” he replied when asked if he is paid by the hour or by the volume of leaflets he distributes. “It works for both of us.”

When it’s not too cold, Abudacar looks distinguished in a fedora hat and sports jacket. He looks pleasantly at passersby with eyes that are probably somewhere between 60-70 years old. Occasionally, he chats with people who seem to know him.

On an eastern corner of Sixth Avenue and 48 Street, Adrian can often be seen holding a sign and passing out leaflets advertising a nearby Irish bar. Speaking Spanish to me just before Christmas, he told me he came from Mexico three years ago and lives in upper Manhattan. He, too, said he has no family in the U.S.

Short with a perfect complexion and Indian features, Adrian said he was 26 years old and works a couple of jobs. Asked if he had any special wish for Christmas, he paused, shook his head and shrugged his shoulders slowly, looked up at me and replied with a smile, “no.”

He also said that, although he gets paid by the hour, he was glad to have December 25 off from work. It’s a busy time of the year for him, he explained, and he’ll rest on Christmas Day.

There are many beautiful New Yorkers like Abudacar and Adrian -- probably over eight million of them.

What do some guys talk about while tailgating?

Most men are not very articulate when it comes to sharing details about a spouse’s health issue or expressing their affection for their partner. But, at the Meadowlands parking lot before last Sunday’s New York Jets football game, a friend of mine couldn’t be any clearer about his wife’s breast cancer or his love for her.

He went into detail about how her cancer was discovered and the surgery that followed. He explained the decision to undergo daily radiation therapy and forego chemotherapy. With some pride, he also pointed out the detailed log she kept of her ordeal and how impressed her doctor was for information that enabled them to chart the best course forward. He also described her subsequent feelings of fatigue and discomfort and insecurity.

“She was crying almost every day,” he told me. “There is no history of this in her family. Her doctor explained that it was probably nothing genetic, and it was not likely to have been caused by anything she did. It could’ve been caused by anything. We’ll never know.

“Sometimes she wonders, ‘why me?’” But, why not? It’s not something that happens just to other people. It could happen to anybody.”

He paused, puffed on his cigarette, and reflected on their lives together.

“We’ve been together for 33 years. This week is our 30th anniversary. When she gets really down, and wonders about my feelings, I tell her, ‘you’re the only woman for me until the day I die.’”

Although he is a Jets season ticketholder, this was the only game he planned to attend this year. He wanted to be with his friends and check out the New Meadowlands Stadium, but his mind and heart are with his wife only. By the time I returned home after the game, so were mine.

Bob Dylan, again

Last Sunday night at Monmouth University’s MAC center, I enjoyed seeing Bob Dylan in concert with my wife Noreen, sons Steven and Kevin, and friend Dave. It was the 15th time since 1975 I attended a Dylan concert – each of them in a different venue. If you’ve seen Dylan or any other performer 15 times, I’d like to hear about it, particularly if the shows were spread over many venues across a long period of time.

You never forget your first time, and for me it was on November 24, 1975, at the Hartford Coliseum. I drove three college classmates a few hours in a 1970 Thunderbird with worn tires to see Dylan perform with the Rolling Thunder Revue. My friend Patrice and I co-wrote an article about the evening that was published in the local Bloomfield, NJ weekly newspaper.

Three years later - three years before we were married - I drove with Noreen to Nassau Coliseum to see Dylan. From good seats on the side of the stage, she was quite taken by how he rocked. She earned a badge of honor 17 years later, though, when she stood on the hard floor of The Electric Factory for hours with me to see Dylan. I’ll never forget when Patti Smith, the opening act, joined Dylan on stage for a song and punctuated the performance with a kiss on his cheek.

I’ll also never forget the concert in Camden’s E-Center on July 28, 2000, the first time my two sons joined my wife and me at a Dylan show. My mind still retains the image of how excited my 9-year-old son Kevin was to see Dylan perform “Like a Rolling Stone.”

Five years later, I stood on a baseball outfield at Yogi Berra Stadium in Montclair, NJ through a couple of opening acts with my oldest son Steven, who just finished his freshman year at college, and Dave and his daughter just to be a few feet from where Dylan stood on the stage.

Following is my full setlist of Dylan concerts:
1975: Hartford Coliseum
1978: Nassau Coliseum
1981: Meadowlands Arena
1986: Madison Square Garden
1989: Waterloo Village
1995: The Electric Factory
1997: Garden State Arts Center
2000: E-Center
2003: Hilton Casino
2004: Tower Theater
2005: Beacon Theater
2005: Yogi Berra Stadium
2006: The Spectrum
2009: Blue Claws Stadium
2010: Monmouth University

You can never be too sure what you’ll see at a Dylan concert even though set lists are promptly posted on bobdylan.com, but fans attending the shows at New York City’s Terminal 5 next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and the Borgata Hotel Casino in Atlantic City next Friday can expect to see the 69-year-old Dylan play guitar and harmonica more than he has in many years. Uncharacteristically, he may stand in the front of the stage holding a microphone and croon through a few songs. The songs from the past 15 years will sound fine, and 1960s classics like “Ballad of a Thin Man” will pack as much punch as ever. Oh, and Bob probably won’t take off his hat during the show, no matter how loud the applause.

She cried, privately in public

Penn Station. Thursday, November 4, 6:30 PM. Starbucks. I sit down, waiting for my latte. The distinct opening notes of Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” play, but they’re immediately pierced by the sound of someone very near by starting to cry. I look up and see a young woman across the table from me, head down, muffin half-eaten, sobbing by her cup of coffee.

I look away, waiting for my coffee to finally be ready. Privately, in a very public place, she continues to cry. Then she seems to stop, momentarily. After getting my latte, I sit back down, and she begins to cry again. She doesn’t seem much older than my own children, and I begin to wonder. Did someone close to her die? Did her boyfriend break up with her? Did she lose her job?

I lean over and ask her, “Are you going to be okay?” She looks up, nods, and says, “I’m fine.” As I get up to leave, she looks at me and smiles faintly. I return the half-smile, and walk out to catch a train to Newark, where I will meet my son and go with him to a soccer game. Presumably, she collected herself shortly afterwards and moved on. Destination unknown, but hopefully a happier place.

Trick or treating in NYC

During the 1960s, in the years before the Greenwich Village parade, Halloween was an evening that in New York was primarily special for the city’s children. I lived in the Amsterdam Houses neighborhood, between West 61-64 Streets and Amsterdam-West End Avenues, for most of that decade and recall what it was like to trick or treat in the “the projects.”

It was easy. It was scary.

It was easy because my building had eight apartments in each of its 14 floors. Since there were six 14-story buildings and many more four-story buildings in the neighborhood, it didn’t take long to fill up a shopping bag with candy. During a typical Halloween, in fact, I had to go back home a few times just to empty my bag and make room for more. Like the neighborhood, our results were pretty diverse. Some neighbors gave us packaged candies, others home-baked goodies. One family invited us to bob our heads in a pail of water for apples. Many weren't home or simply didn't answer the door.

The scary part wasn’t the costumes. Most of us simply wore a silly mask and, if we were fortunate, a matching costume. One classmate, however, claimed his mom made his costume “out of dirt”…whatever that meant. The neighborhood was well lit and few people tried to frighten kids by ambushing them. No, what scared us was the sight of Skeeter, the neighborhood bully. He and his gang of hoods walked around swinging socks filled with white powder. When Skeeter confronted trick or treaters, he usually demanded they hand over their candy. Most kids did, lamented their loss, and then continued on. Later on, we realized this was what retailers called shrinkage.

I wonder what it will be like trick or treating at Amsterdam Houses and other New York City neighborhoods this Halloween. Will Skeeter, assuming he is not in jail or dead, be giving away candy? Will anybody be bobbing for apples? In New York, is it still an evening that is primarily special for the city’s children?

25 years with a Fiero

When I rolled a 1985 Pontiac Fiero into the driveway shortly after purchasing it in late September 1985, a teenage neighbor excitedly said, “Wow! A sports car!”

Well, not quite. The Fiero was sporty-looking, but ours came with a four-cylinder engine that turned out a modest 98 horsepower. These were more readily available, fuel-efficient and affordable than the better performing six-cylinder Fieros, so when GM offered low-interest financing to clear showrooms for new 1986 models, my wife and I made our move on a hard-to-find black five-speed manual transmission Fiero. We always liked the Fiero’s distinct looks and were attracted to their plastic bodies, which didn’t dent and wouldn’t rust.

I told Craig, the Queen City Pontiac salesman, I didn’t want the dealer advertisement on the car. “Ah, and some people say I drink too much,” he told me when I picked up the car, and discreetly pulled off the sticker before I drove home, smiling as Stevie Wonder’s “Part-time Lover” played on the radio.

I was back several times during the next few years, sometimes for one minor problem or another or an oil change and tire rotation, and a couple of times for recalls. Mike, the raspy voiced service manager who smoked too much, got to know me by first name, which probably wasn’t a good thing. Nick, our local Bloomfield mechanic, also got to know me on a first-name basis after replacing the clutch -- shortly after the warranty ran out, of course.

My wife learned to drive a manual transmission on the Fiero, which proved a nerve-wracking (and linkage-pin breaking) experience for her. It was normally, however, the car I commuted to work with on the Garden State Parkway. My most memorable experience was driving five hours on Route 22 during a fierce January 1987 snowstorm. The mid-engine Fiero did just fine while other cars whined and struggled, and I knew we would be together a long time.

I occasionally would put a car seat in the Fiero and run errands with my young son, sometimes taking him to his pre-kindergarten class in it. To prevent dirt on the bottom of his shoes from scuffing the Fiero’s passenger seat, I would place a small towel under his car seat. Twenty years later, I still have that towel in the Fiero, under the passenger seat. I can’t imagine, though, a parent of any 3- or 4-year old letting their child ride in a Fiero today.

Shortly after our second son was born, our family acquired its first minivan, and the Fiero became the third set of wheels in our fleet. That meant my wife and I drove it only once or twice a week, when we felt like it. On other days, it napped in the garage, while our newer, more practical cars jealously hung out in the driveway, getting wet in the rain or baked by the sun. Today, our other cars and some other drivers have come to respect the Fiero, which I roll out to the bus station or gym about once a week. I have the oil changed every year in a Monroe service garage by Chris, who never looks forward to it for some reason.

My two sons still haven’t driven the Fiero that’s older than them, even though they’ve mastered the manual transmission of a 2006 Scion tC that dad encourages them to drive occasionally. They seem afraid of the Fiero, perhaps fearing they will break it. “It’s going to be yours one day before too long if you want it,” I tell them. “You might as well start driving it.”

“Long may you run., long may you run.
Although these changes have come…”

(above photo) New Fiero with under-30 Charley in autumn 1985

Vacationing where you work

The forecast at the Jersey shore for Wednesday was fair, probably too windy and overcast to enjoy the beach. My wife suggested we leave our Long Branch NJ vacation spot for the day, go to New York City and catch a Broadway show. It sounded like a great idea, but who wants to spend a day off where they commute to work? I did -- and we had a great time!

We saw a matinee performance of West Side Story at the Palace Theatre. I’m familiar with the 1961 Oscar winning movie, and the dancing and music of the Broadway revival was a treat. It was also nice to hear the couple seated next to us say how much they were enjoying their first visit to the city and how helpful everyone was to them.

Before the show, I took my wife to a favorite lunch spot, Margon on 46th between 6-7th Ave. It was like having a homemade Cuban meal in a small but bustling lunchroom. We enjoyed the meal and even learned about other good eating spots from a man and woman on lunch break who shared our table.

After the show, we sat out the rush hour, literally, with a beer at a sidewalk table a few blocks from the Port Authority bus terminal. We enjoyed seeing the sea of commuters walk by, and I told my wife I was looking for Charley to walk by any moment.

We rode the subway to 23rd and walked a few blocks to the High Line, the former elevated freight train tracks now an unusual city park, where some women illustrated the same cityscape that a few men photographed.

A few blocks later we were at Hudson River Park, a growing stretch where joggers and bicyclists outnumbered pedestrians, and took in a sunset over the New Jersey horizon that reminded me of a famous 1976 magazine cover from The New Yorker.

We wandered into the West Village and stopped for coffee and snacks near Sheridan Square, continuing to observe the interesting array of buildings and people. Finally, we rode the subway uptown to Penn Station and caught a train back to Long Branch.

Who says you can’t play where you work? I will probably look back at Wednesday in New York as one of my favorite vacation days of the year!