Malena L. was born in Albany, New York, in 1954, then lived in New York City’s Greenwich Village until she was 8, when her family moved to Woodstock, then a fledgling “art” community, and finally to Bethel, NY. I remember my parents mortified me at every possible turn. They were, for lack of a better description, Beatniks, and by the time I was 15 that affectation was well past its sell-by date. I remember watching an Audrey Hepburn movie where a whole bunch of Beatniks did some weird dance...
Rick B. was a sportswriter around the country for many years and now works for IBM. As a point of reference, in the year of the Dent home run, Rick was making about $200 a week for his efforts. For Rick’s sports website and his top 10 sports moments, click here: SPORTSLIFER BLOG It was 1978. The Bucky Dent game, Yankees versus Red Sox. At the time I was a sportswriter with the Fitchburg Sentinel & Leominster Enterprise. Although I wasn’t a beat reporter, I had a pass to...
M. de Voltaire lives in Manhattan again now, after having been exiled to Chicago and New Jersey for activities best not discussed here. Born in 1946, he had the good fortune to come into adulthood just as New York’s food scene exploded as if in a Big Bang. Our family forays into fine dining in the 1950s and 60s were infrequent. If we were in Manhattan for a Broadway show or a basketball game, we hit the tourist traps – Mama Leone’s, Patricia Murphy’s Candlelight Lounge, Stouffer’s Top of...
Winnie F. was born in 1947, grew up in Maryland and at 19, was going to school in New York City when this tale unfolds. She now lives in Monterey, California. The California mystique of the 1960s is difficult to explain today. Suffice it to say, there were about half as many people in the Golden State and the best way to describe California then is as “laid back” and “free.” I think I was born out of time and out of place. I started dreaming about California when...
From Anonymous, New York City Christmas was enormously important in our family when I was growing up in the 1950s. And fraught with all kinds of anxieties, grasping, and conflicts. It was a strange mixture of Italian-American traditions, plus some sort of parody of a Victorian/Dickensian tableau, dosed with a gaudy display of all-American conspicuous consumption. Throw in a huge dollop of antique Roman Catholicism – pre-Vatican II Catholicism – replete with Latin (of which I memorized plenty), hymns from the 16th century, incense and bright red vestments, and...
Born in 1950, Frank C. grew up in the New York Metropolitan area. The World Series is just not the same anymore. I can hear my kids muttering, “there he goes, the old fart going on about ‘back in my day.’ ” But no, I’m talking specifically about The World Series. The difference is that today The Series is primarily played at night. You can conveniently enjoy the games in the comfort of your home or get together with friends at a local sports bar. The games don’t intrude...