The Writer's Life 10/19 - Bath Avenue Then & Now

Memories are bittersweet, running the gamut of emotions. For the most part, I'm not one who believes the past was better than the present. This morning while working on the novel I will self publish in January, I came upon a passage about a regular past occurrence, a fond memory followed by a sad one. The time is 1980. The four people involved, three adults and a child, have just gotten off the Cyclone, the famous Coney Island rollercoaster:

  "Do they still have the fireworks Monday nights," said John.
  "I don't think so," said his wife. "We'd hear them."
  "Remember that? I wish ya coulda seen it, Joey. People'd be standin' at the corner on Grandma's block, eatin' spumoni an' Italian ices, lookin' over the roof of the bus terminal. There was a candy store there then. Ya could see people up an' down Bath Avenue under the streetlights. The fireworks were far away, but ya could see 'im 'cause there were no apartment buildings in the way back then. An' the noise!"
  "Was it your mother who was afraid of it, Vin?" said Patty.
  "My mother and sister. It reminded them of the war, the bombing of Messina. God, it's great remembering this stuff."
  For the first time in his life he realized the terror his mother and sister must have suffered. He'd always reacted to the story as if it were no big deal. How easy he'd had it growing up compared to so many. How dare he ever feel sorry for himself.

Here's a pic of the corner mentioned, where Bay 37th St meets Bath Av.. The houses were not built until sometime in the '60's It was a vacant lot back in the day:

The NBA has taken a step in the right direction, offering 18-year-olds, who are ineligible for its draft, $125,000 to play in its developmental league. This should eliminate the campus presence of a lot of kids who have no business in college.

My thanks to the young woman who bought thrillers by Tom Clancy and Barbara Michaels, and to the other who purchased a sci-fi novel; and to Janet, who selected Hoyle's Rules of Games and Escaping the Holocaust by Julian Padowicz, issued by Scholastic books. Although she is of Polish descent, she did not know that the Nazis overran Poland in 1939, the official start of WWII. In this case, the fault of her lack of knowledge cannot be attributed to the educational system, as she was a dropout. She's 25 but looks 40. She once told me she was bullied in high school. I wonder what percentage of high school grads knows that simple historical fact.

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