It was day nine or ten living on the basement couch. Hours had been spent staring at the wall, the ceiling, the floor. I knew every flaw in everything in the room. I saw the cracks in the ceiling. I saw the holes in the wall. I traced the outline of missing parts of floor tile with my eyes. I didn’t care about any of it at all.
Every six months or so, Paul and I sat down at my computer to pick a new set of music to play in my car. My 2000 Hyundai Accent had a tape player and I purchased an adapter so my CD player could be used. It was easier to burn a CD full of music than a cassette tape. On July 21, 2008, we only owned one car and Paul decided he wanted to pick the music.
Otto Frank, businessman and father of Anne Frank. Amsterdam, 1960. Arnold Newman/Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery.
As our group made their way toward the bookcase, there was quiet chatter. I was among a small group of people visiting the Anne Frank House just before noon.
The sun was shining on us as we climbed the 268 steps toward the Tian Tan (Altar of Heaven) Big Buddha on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Paul and I are among the first tourists to climb the stairs in the irenic quiet of morning.
Animals have an amazing way of making us feel better. My cats have a way of calming me in a way no human can and the animals at our local zoo have a way of doing even more.
“He was a nice man. He didn’t deserve to go that way.” The words had a tinge of sadness attached to them as my mother said them matter-of-factly while we sat waiting for the light to turn green at the intersection of East Main Street and Irwin Avenue.
When the light changed, she gently pushed the gas pedal toward the floor and we continued on our way. It was 1986. Not many people understood HIV/AIDS. There were rumors, confusion, and plenty of hatred. My mother’s words were twinged with a sense of hopelessness. At the time, a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS was a death sentence. This man she knew in high school was already dead. There was nothing she could do.
Almost everything I learned about driving, I learned by observing my grandmother, Lorraine. I typically hold the steering wheel as she did, I swear and curse people as I go about my journey, I love manual cars, and I learned the usefulness of a lead foot. Those skills have all been useful and put into practice while living in western Nebraska.
Mr. Rosen taught 11th grade English, but his class was about so much more than grammar, spelling, and punctuation. We read Alive By Piers Paul Read and learned to look at the world differently rather than being repulsed by people who had to make impossible decisions. He read, then interpreted, Shakespeare – Macbeth to be exact – into his own brand of humorous English. He was a DJ on WPDH during the Christmas holidays. He encouraged us to use our imaginations. Most importantly, he introduced us to Walter Mitty.
Middletown, New York is a city with plenty of parks and designated play areas among the shopping centers, supermarkets, and concrete jungle, but, if you are a kid, there are also plenty of wooded areas to explore and step away from the trappings of city life.
“I gave you a B+ in my class instead of an A because I wanted you to participate more,” my poetry professor said. “You’re really good and have great insights, but you need to talk more.”
It made me angry. I was a junior in college and had heard similar comments from teachers and professors since the first day I stepped into kindergarten. I thought college professors were supposed to be enlightened and understanding of the different ways kids learn. I was wrong.
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