I got to visit with the beloved Rav Roov but talking with him is difficut as his wife and kids get in the way. My nephew Jacob is going to Yeshiva High School and he had to go through some interviews. Uness the kid is an idiot much of the interview depends on how well one learns the Talmud. I was never into the talmud or religion and asked to return to public school. Unless one is going to Yeshiva University or a family business the skils one needs are found in the world out there.
Ocean Parkway is a busy Brooklyn Street with more cars then the state of VT. Unike the Jews of VT or Montreal the locals are stand offish. The Jews of VT are so rare that even a very orthodox person will take time to acknowedge a drifter like myself.
Here the very religious have their world and I have mine we pass but do not interact
even in the same space.
The enegy amd vibrance of a Brooklyn street is a sight to behold. Vermont is a wonderful place but it is not home. I was born in Brooklyn in a hospital that is now abandoned. My accent blends right in as do my mannerisms and accent.
There is ethgnic food everywhere and even Kosher ethnic food. I can't find a Knish in VT but suddenly they are at an arms length. An elevated subway train rides away in the distance. A relic of the past as an Italian kid who seems lifted from Sha Na Na is worshiping his car. His suffering girlfriend is chewing gum and has gravity defying hair and makeup that is probably removed with a blow torch.
Suddenly I can not sit in the resturant. I yearn to take my place in the Brooklyn landscape. The speed and the pace are a marvel to behold. I meet a Guyana man and talk in Guyana patois seamlessly much to the amazement and laughter of the person I am talking with. The vocabuary and sound are correct but it is still a Brooklyn delivery.
I have a scrawl in my cube and there is an element of truth. Poulation of VT 632,000
and population of Brookyn 2,400,000. Brookynites pay far more in taxes and get back far less in return than Vermont. Al the immigrants are here why do we do our work in Vermont where the locals may never meet a Guyanese or a Dominican. The answer is political patronage and it how Washinton is misruled. Dairy farmers in VT have one Senator and a bumbling incoherent socialist who is often mistaken for a homeless man.
NY State is represented by one pro and an interloper who has abused our state for her Pesidential ambitions. The truth is a quaified female Representative was poised to run, Nita Lowey. Charles Rangel imposed Shrillary Clintoon on the NY dumbocrats.
Shumer is one of us despite his liberalism and media hog personality. He knows how much a subway ride costs. He has almost certainy eaten at Nathans and rode the Cyclone. He has walked the streets of Chinatown and does not need an Army of handlers.
Brooklyn is a state of mind.
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7 comments:
Beak:
A wonderful post. It shows the personal side of your city not the tourist clap trap. It is to bad that most people do not know the city in which they live as you do.
By the way you will be hearing from a cadre of Texas Lawyers for trying to steal our motto.
Texas, a state of mind.
:P
Anyway enjoy your stay at home and keep telling more.
Beak,
You are a New Yorker to the core.
I'm uncomfortable in big cities. I guess it all comes down to how we grow up.
I'd like to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
I can't abide a city but for so long. Then I need the peace and quiet, I'm losing it here, beachside, so G*D is having mercy and moving me to where I can hear him again! I require quiet, it used to be I could hear the ocean and breeze at my house, now the breeze is blocked and the rumble of traffic and loud, callous neighbors overrides the ocean's voice!
The soughing of wind through pines is soothing, and the smell of green refreshes. Keep the city Beaker, I shall take the countryside!
tmw
Have a great Holliday, Beak. Oh, yes, I had a college roomate who came from Ocean Parkway ... not to be confused with Ocean Ave. Is Ocean Parkway as grand as I remember it 30 years ago?
My father grew up in Brooklyn (Kings county) where he met my mother who grew up in Queens.
your words nearly make one place themselves there - a state of mind - yes! great depictions, beak.
i grew up in san diego, but have never had the desire to return to the city.
but then again, i would probably enjoy rav roov's wife and children's company - i'm always amazed that differences, more than commonalities, can bring people together.
Even Brooklyn isn't what it used to be. Change is what NY is all about, but when eras come and go I get very nostalgic for the NY of the 60s and 70s.
Wish I could have been here in the 40s and 50s too!
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