A Long Ride To Long Beach

I've discovered a way to gauge how fast the summer is going. And it is going isn't it? There are potted flowers hanging round our house and we've observed, in springtime from time to time, that praying mantises (is that the plural of "mantis?") like to make their home in some of our flowerpots. What a wonderful sight. There's something exciting about being able to follow this beautiful and delicate insect from infancy in spring through the long days of the summer and into September and summer's end that brings their demise. As newborns they are so tiny it's a wonder we've ever managed to see them. Their size aside, their coloring blends perfectly with the surrounding flora, making them even more difficult to spot. But once we discovered them we have always thereafter sought them out and have usually been succesful in finding them.

By mid-summer, just about now, they have grown from, perhaps, a half an inch long to a good two or three inches in length and as thick as pencil.  Come September they are even longer and thicker and even more evident, clinging to our screen door or a stucco wall with their amazing barbed legs that allows them climb straight up on any vertical surface. There aren't many of them; one here, one there but we never fail to see them and by now, facinated as we are, we seek them out.

They're given their spiritual appellation because they seem to be praying as they fold their two front legs back to their body. I spotted one last night and he was very probably the little baby I saw back in May. 

And thus, as grows the Mantis, so goes the summer.


This little bugger perched on our rail outside our front door last night.


He (she?) examined me as carefully as I examined him.

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Stacey and I try to hit our gym three times a week -- Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Today being Monday and being a beautiful day, I suggested a bike ride instead. She wasn't thrilled with the idea but I persisted and we set off at about 11 o'clock out along the Belt Parkway bike path.

I wanted to bike to Long Beach in Nassau County where we could have lunch and then head back to Brooklyn. That would be about 40 miles or so. Could we do that?


Our ride began in Sheephead Bay and we passed Saint Mark Roman Catholic church on Ocean Avenue.


The bike path runs along the Belt Parkway and along Jamaica Bay. The bike path was empty. The Belt was jammed with cars and hardly moving.

They've done a very nice job with the bike path. "They," I guess is the city, state or federal governments (or all of them). The shore area out toward Queens is now party of Gateway National Park. The bike path has been redone in recent years: repaved, re-marked and replanted and it's a great ride with beautiful vistas of water and shore.

We took the path only as far as Flatbush Avenue. The path continues east as far as Cross  Bay Boulevard but we headed south at Flatbush and over the Gil Hodges bridge (named for the Brooklyn Dodger hero and Brooklyn resident; he lived on Bedford Avenue) which crosses Jamaica Bay from Brooklyn to Rockaway (which is part of Queens). From there we biked the length of Rockaway through lovely and not-so-lovely neighborhoods. It's a real mix of  beautiful houses and down-and-out slums and long-decrepit bungalows from yesteryear when Rockaway was a beach resort. That was another era before the car took city dwellers to more distant resorts like the Jersey shore and the Hamptons.


Heading south on Flatbush Avenue, the bike path hugs long-abandoned Floyd Bennett field.

We wondered, as we passed Floyd Bennett field why such vast tracts are allowed to decay. Beautiful old buildings are boarded up or falling down. Can't they be used for something useful? Schools, affordable housing, an environmental center?

Over the bridge we went and we stopped at the top to admire the views. You could see the Rockaways and much beyond that, Jersey's Atlantic Highlands. There was Brooklyn spread out before us and across Brooklyn you can see the Verrazano Bridge connecting to Staten Island. And way in the distance, the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Fabulous!


Looking out across Brooklyn. Can you make out the towers of the Verrazano Bridge on the horizon? Click on the picture to see a larger version. 


Me on top of the world on the Gil Hodges Bridge. Brooklyn behind me
and Manhattan on the horizon.


The Gil Hodges Bridge looks like a giant Erector Set.

Rockaway is a place of great contrasts. My dad's brother used to summer there back in the 60's. He and his wife rented an apartment on an ocean block and, even though they lived in Brooklyn and not far from the beach, they would spend their summer in Rockaway. In fact from 1850 to 1950, the Rockaway peninsula, like its Coney Island cousin, offered a respite from the oppressive heat of New York city summers and people flocked to its ocean beaches to swim, walk the boarwalk, summer in its bungalows and enjoy the local restaurants and amusement park. And like Coney Island today, it's a shadow of its former self.

Parts of it are quite exclusive: Neponsit and Belle Harbor have very expensive homes and are an enclave apart from the rest of the city. But other neighborhoods are depressed, poor and very run down. For years, the bungalows of its former glory years stood, unused and uninhabited. Finally cleared, vast tracts are now being developed with new homes. Is it coming up again? Will it be gentrified and the poor pushed, once again, to even more remote locations? Time will tell. Underneath the poverty and the decrepitude is an achingly beautiful strip along the Atlantic Ocean with fabulous beaches and surf.


The beach is not heavily used far out along the Rockaways.


A last ditch attempt to save the bungalows of Rockaway's heyday? The sign reads "Beachside Bungalow Preservation Assn."


There used to be acres of streets like this. Now just a couple remain and they are in very poor condition: either abandoned or occupied by very poor people.


At the very end of the Rockaways, a small bridge takes one to the barrier islands and the towns of Atlantic Beach and Long Beach.

Crossing a small channel over the Atlantic Beach Bridge and you find yourself out of the city and into Nassau County. It's like another planet though: clean, manicured and well-taken care of. Pretty houses, neat streets and a beautiful boardwalk in good condition. To me it's a stunning indictment of city government. But even more so of the way our country is run nowadays - a disdain of poor people and the cities. It's the Bush/Republican philosophy of robbing from the poor, giving to the rich and crapping on the rest of us.


Welcome to Long Beach - a world apart from the Rockaways.

Long Beach is very cute - modest, but sweet, houses. Cute shops and restaurants. Very much different than the depressed neighborhoods we just pedaled through in Rockaway. We found a place for lunch. It's quite late already. We've biked 22 miles and it's been two and a half hours since we started. Stacey has a date with her girlfriends and she won't be able to keep it if we bike back. I suggest we try the LIRR. The Long Beach station is only a mile or so away and although we don't have the required bike permit we decide to try it. We'll take it to Atlantic Avenue and from there the subway back home. The conductor asks for the permit and we stall. He doesn't pursue the matter. "Make sure you have it next time," he tells us. We sink back into the plush seats of train as it carries us, tuckered out, back to Brooklyn. Not a bad day for a bike ride to Long Beach.


We had to swtich at Jamaica to get the train to Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue.


The Long Island Railroad took us back home.

Cara's Baby's On Its Way

We drove up to the country Saturday to visit the Weisses. Janie and Mark were holding a baby shower for their daughter Cara. She's due in 3 weeks and looked beautiful and radiant. Lots of old friends were there as well as the two other Weiss girls, Lisa and Andrea. Janie and Mark have been doing a lot of work on their house and it showed.


Beautiful Cara is having a baby!


Andrea and Mark.


Cara opens present and the soon-to-be father, Mike, looks on.
Mark is beaming in the background.


Janie models one of the baby gifts.

A big spread of food was put out and the party played on. After eating, Cara opened her presents. Dani made her a beautiful quilt which we presented to her. After most of the guests left, the oldtimers stayed on and hung out for hours. We finally left around ten o'clock having arrived at one. It was a long day but a lovely one. The only disappointment was the ever-present traffic as we hit the city again.

To see more photos from Cara's Baby Shower, just click here.

Good Bye Old Camper

The moving game continues. Our Cox pop-up camper was towed away to a junk yard today. They also took Michael's rusted out Yamaha motorcycle. The cycle we were glad to see go. We tried for a long time to get Michael to give it up because of the inherent danger, but to no avail. I used to have nightmares about him and his infernal machine. But Michael didn't share our concerns. Finally, when he moved to Nashville, the motorcycle stayed behind and it's been deteriorating ever since. Good bye and good riddance.

The camper, on the other hand, was an old friend. I loved that trailer. It was a pop-up but a unique one at that. Rather than a hard plastic roof seen on most of these foldups, this one had a canvas top that, when unfolded, gave the thing the look of a connestoga wagon. Inside you felt as if you were in a tent not a trailer. So it melded the convenience and luxury of a trailer with the rustic spirit of a tent. Cox, the manufacturer, was the only company designing these campers in that way and they had a bit of cult following. As if finding an old comrade, we always enjoyed spotting another on the road or in a campground.

Many wonderful years camping were enjoyed in that camper. We bought it after a horrible camping trip when Michael was but three months old! We started out in a Buick station wagon, loaded to the gills, with us, Michael, his carriage, a folding playpen, a tent, camping supplies and two dogs. Our destination? Colorado. Michael was colicky and cried and fussed a lot. it started to rain a bit. Then a bit more. Then a lot more. Um, it was not a great way to go camping: rainy weather, two dogs, a crying baby a mud-soaked tent, wet clothes. We loved camping (I still do; I think that, sadly, Stacey has "outgrown" it) and didn't want to give it up. A camper seemed the right solution and it was.


Mike, enjoying the beauty of a Vermont lake. Camping, 1988.

This cute little pop-up had a stove, two comfortable double beds (and a third if you needed it), an icebox, a sink, curtains. It was cozy and comfy, even in the rain. We took it everywhere! Vermont, Maine, the Adirondacks, Cape Cod, the Laurentians in Canada, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, up to Camp Kinderland during picture-taking time and many other places of natural beauty. It was always a good, steady companion.


Stacey exiting the Cox camper that gave us so many years of pleasure.

So I'm very sad to see it go ... another end of a part of my life. When we opened it up to prepare it for towing we were shocked at what five years of non-use had wrought. It had been sitting in our driveway, ignored and abandoned. Exposure to the elements had turned the plastic tarp that covered and protected it into a sieve. Nature did its damage and took its toll. Inside, the beautiful canvas top had mildewed. If you so much as touched it, it shredded into shards like a piece of old newsprint. The plywood insert was more moldy powder than a wood sheet. And there was filthy black water in the containers that held our supplies and in the sink. Depressing.


Can't imagine life without those camping trips with the kids.
Memories that ought to last forever.


Mike and our camper. Camping in Vermont, 1988

In the back of my mind I'm determined to be camping again and soon. Maybe not with the elegant and "luxurious" camper that I loved so much but, perhaps, in a tent at the side of a lake and under the stars. My parents imbued a love of nature and travel that will not depart with the junking of this old trailer.


On a dreary day, Stacey bids farewell to our old friend.

River2River - the place to be.

Has anybody out there been attending the freebies offered by River To River Festival 2004? This is a really great way to spend a NYC summer evening in a magnificent setting. I mentioned in a previous BLOG that I attended the Amie Mann concert in Rockefeller Park. Well, two nights ago, my friend Stu and I went to the World Financial Center (the concert is on the Plaza, behind the center, at the Yacht Basin) to see two women performers: Luciana Souza and Lila Downs. The former is from Brazil and she was good: a blend of jazz, classical chanteuse and pop composer.

Stu, crosswording, as we waited for the concert to begin. 


Luciana Souza performs under the glass and steel skyscrapers of the World Financial Center. 


A beautiful place to listen to music on a hot summer night -- cooled by the breezes of the Hudson. 


Lila Downs 

The hit of the night for me was Lila Downs a Mexican American singer. It's hard to describe how impressive she is. First -- as a fabulous singer with a vocal range that runs from deep, sultry and throaty to what seems to the highest notes a human voice can possibly produce. Secondly, as an amazing stage performer - she danced and jumped around the stage with so much energy you would think she would be breathless, but no - on and on she went, at times carrying a big drum that she would beat out the music to -- other times rapping the drum sticks together in the air above her head. She was, in a word, electric. And she electrified the audience who seemed not to be able to get enough of her. That's how I felt -- I wanted her to go on and on. Her band was wonderful as well and included harp, bass, guitars, drums and fiddle.


Lila - unbridled talent and energy. She mesmerized me. 



A great singer. An enchanting entertainer. 

Her music brings the traditional music of Mexico and blends it with jazz, gospel and hip-hop to produce a melange unlike anything I've seen or heard. I loved it. if you can get her new album, One Blood - Una Sangre, do it. You've undoubtedly heard the song La Cucaracha a million times or more. But you've never heard it the way Lila Downs sings it. I was floored.

The Financial Center and, indeed, the whole of Battery Park City with its promenade and gardens sitting astride the Hudson is the place to be on hot, summer nights such as these. What a delight. The view out over the river or upwards to the glass skyscrapers over head is very dramatic.

Afterwards, Stu and I ate at Lily's, a Chinese restaurant in the area.

This is Bob's Weekend, Part III

Bob and Elizabeth before the wedding. 

The wedding was a wonderful affair. The rain, prophecized by the media as nothing short of diluvian,  did not materialize. And though it was overcast, the ceremony proceeded outside in a lovely meadow a small distance from the Conservatory. The Ketubah was signed inside while guests gathered in the meadow.  A violinist played while the wedding party marched in. The rabbi, Susan Plotnick, married them and they both laughed and cried througout. It was funny and touching at the same time. 

The Ketubah was signed inside while guests gathered in a beautiful field outside.

Josh and Abe escort their dad down the aisle. 


The beautiful flower girl, Sydney (Elizabeth's niece). 


Here comes the bride! 

The ceremony under the Chuppah. 

One of the great things about this wedding is that I got to see people who we hadn't seen for many years. I already mentioned Ricky Eisenberg at the bachelor party on Friday night. But now he came with his wife, Sara and his sister, Nora. There were our old friends, Laura and Mike Zagarell. Tony Knopp came with his wife, Helene Quinn and their kids, William and Tallulah.
 
Bob and Mike Zagarell. 


Helen Quinn and daughter, Tallulah. 

Stacey, with Mike and Laura Zagarell. 


William Knopp with his father, Tony and sister, Tallulah. 

Besides the great food (the most amazing shrimp which people descended upon each time they appeared on a tray carried by a waiter) and drink. Besides the warmth and spirit of the day. Besides the great music with a band whose violinist was said to be one of the founding members of the Klezmatics. Besides the fun of seeing old friends. Besides the beauty of the place, two things stand out in my memory. One was a beautiful rendition by Ricky and Nora of an old Yiddish ballad. It was done very simply - Ricky on his guitar and the two voices in a beautiful harmony.
 


Ricky and Nora singing an old Yiddish melody. Beautiful. 

Hannah, Elizabeth's niece. Entranced by the music (or bored)? 

The other outstanding moment of the day was the traditional Hora - the Israeli folk dance that's always performed by the guests. Most of the time, people are out of touch with their traditions and it's danced by rote without much enthusiasm or skill. Not so at Bob's wedding. The band was right on and the dancing was contagious and enthusiastic. You had to be there to appreciate it but maybe some of these photos can impart a feeling of how wondeful it was.

Bob swings his new bride in a Hora. 

Whirling dervishes? No just guests having fun with great music and dance. 

Elizabeth and her mom. 

Did we have fun? 

The band played. People danced their tooshes off! 

Joyful, dizzy dancing. 

To see all of the wedding photos, direct your browser to my photo site on Shutterfly (where you can purchase pictures as well. Just click here.

This is Bob's Weekend, Part II

The weekend's over -- my Blog title should now read "This is Elizabeth and Bob's weekend."
 
Despite the gloomy weather, the heavens were smiling at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden today. A fabulous place to hold a wedding, the Garden is resplendent with flowers and exotic greenery. A mama duck was sheltering tiny ducklings in the pond when we arrived at 10:30. The Conservatory, where weddings are performed, is all glass with white metal. It rises dramatically above the garden. It's a spectactular location to take the vows.

But before the description of the wedding (I'll save that for Part III), I first have to tell you about last night, Saturday. Stacey and I have been working on editing photos...hours and hours of editing. I, the Camp Kinderland photos, which have to be ready for next weekend: Visiting Day! There's a lot of work to be done: photos printed for the books that the parents will peruse to place their orders. And more photos mounted on 30x40 inch boards to display larger prints of each bunk and group. Stacey, on the other hand, is editing her photos from her trip to Palestine; she took some 700 photos - very exciting but, again, lots of work reviewing, enhancing and deciding which to upload so they can be shared online.

Well, about five o'clock we both decided we had enough of staring into the monitors (it gets pretty tedious after a while). We had theater tickets for a nine o'clock show of Cookin' which features a dozen or so Koren cooks vigorously chopping food. Yep, the play's the thing, someone once wrote.
 
The plan? We would have a drink, then dinner near the theater which was in the Village. We parked the car on Sixth Avenue and wandered down Prince Street to the Cub Room for some very expensive drinks (Soho is lovely but oh-so-pretentious, not to mention, overpriced).  Now, where to eat? We had a coupon for Provence, a French restaurant on MacDougal Street. But how could we eat there when Bob's restaurant was just a few doors up the block? Loyalty won out and we strolled up to his place. Would it be crowded? We hoped, yes. Sure enough, it was! Crowded with a private party. It seems we stumbled on Bob and Elizabeth's wedding party for out-of-towners.  For a while we were kidded about crashing the party, looking for handouts. Elizabeth and Bob insisted that we join the party and we did.
 
P.S. We missed the show. But we did have a good time and got to meet the folks from out of town. 


Josh and his cousin Jessica, from California. 


Elizabeth's nieces: Hannah and Sydney - they won my heart! 


Jessica and Bob. 


The "out of towners" at the Gulf Coast Cafe.

If you want to see all the "out of town" party pictures at Gulf Coast Cafe just click here.