Visual, and Olfactory, Memories of A Summer Night in the Bronx

Me on the first stoop 1596 Townsend Avenue, in an early bad mood! But it WAS summer.



It's been a tad warm in Los Angeles this early Fall. In the 80s today, but as is more rare, fairly humid. When I left the office, in the gloaming, and got in my car, I decided to go up Pico Boulevard to avoid a protest that was over by MacArthur Park. Pico has always reminded me a bit of my Bronx, circa 1960's, well populated, and just a little seedy, but in a way that somehow is nostalgic. I was thinking though that I can always tell a scene in the movie where LA streets stand in for NY streets. It looks mostly the same, but there is just something that usually isn't precise about the buildings, or the sidewalks, or the general feeling.

Tonight, with the humidity and the lingering heat I found myself feeling like I was there, in the Bronx, after a hearty game of "Freeze Tag" that meant lots of jumping and leaping off the stoop that we were now resting on, summing up the summer day. We might be eating a pomegranete--this was before health was the measure of all things and it was just fun to peel and pick at the red seeds until your mouth and fingers were smeary red.

We were still sweaty from the running, and because the sidewalk radiated the day's sun still. The sidewalk gave off a smell that I suppose should have been unpleasant, a combination of heat, dirt, garbage gathering nearby mingled with cat or dog pee, but somehow wasn't. Old folks were taking their evening walks, a neighbor in the first floor window talking to another still on the street, kids making the last throws of their pink spauldings as high as they could as long as he dusk light lasted. A few kids still at a game of "Skully" with wax filled bottle caps on the chalk made street board. A couple of middle aged guys wandering down to Louie's, the laundry man, so they could place an illegal bet in the back. It was just before we'd be going upstairs to watch a favorite TV show on our black and white TVs, maybe the "Mod Squad" or "Honey West" (well, that was probably only me) or something like that. Maybe mom gave us some money to get a couple of hot dogs each with mustard and sauerkraut and a knish down the block to bring back for dinner.

Yeah, that's what came to mind as I went up Pico tonight. And I had to do Google Maps and "walk" the old neighborhood. So much has changed (my old apartment building is no longer there and is a public school), but so much hasn't. You can get really close up with the satellite stuff and I went all the way up Mt. Eden Avenue and to the Grand Concourse tonight,and all the way down to the Jerome El, 175th Street stop, just moments ago. I took a deep breath and marvelled at how much time has passed.

If I ever miss the Bronx, that's the one I miss.

A Djinn's Excellent Adventure!

I am on my way to the "Rock 'n Roll" Ralph's last night. So I take Sunset Boulevard from downtown when this is my grocery site du jour. Around the kind of seedy, but up and coming Elysian Park area, getting towards dusk, I see a black bird, clearly injured, trying to get to the quasi-safety of the sidewalk. I am amazed at his focus about doing that. I also know that given all the cars speeding past him as he hop-jumps as if he can fly, which he can't, he is about to be squished. In the universe of ills, one about to be squished to death starling (I think that's what he was) is not a blip on the cosmos' screen, and my initial thought, as I was going the opposite direction from where the bird was fighting for its life, was to say "Don't be silly, Djinn. How will you get to him even if you turn around and park?" But the image that came to mind of his being alive as I left him with me just going about my life, made me more than guilty. The picture horrified me. Made me feel vile. What's the difference between this bird (if a starling, they are considered pests, and not, by the way, to my animal loving mind)and the many already dead and packed chickens I have consumed with gusto without a moment's concern. This bird is arguably even more inconsequential to a carnivore. But, there WAS something different, even if I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was that in some part I had the power of life and death in that moment, and I was going for the side of life, if fate would intervene, and part the cars that I'd have to get past to get him.

I made a u-turn. I found a quick spot (that itself was a miracle). By the time I was able to do this though, moments this bird did not have, in particular, if it moved from the center of the street, it could have been over. And there were the left turner also. I do not know how they missed him. But there he was. Still.

The traffic also miraculously, broke, and I almost had him, but he popped in front of a slowly travelling car, who obviously saw me chasing him. He stopped. I reached out. I grabbed. There was no time for the makeshift towel. And I got him and started to the sidewalk. The bird was surprisingly able to maneuver with his broken wing and escaped my hand to the sidewalk, but since he couldn't fly I was able to get him again. All the while I am reminded that the last time I saved a bird, he died in the hat I placed him in for safekeeping, terrified out of his avian mind.

Another hat. Another bird. I placed him in the hat and covered him with pants I intended to give away. He freaked. I figured I'd be burying him shortly in my back yard.

I thought, maybe he can move now, so I got out and placed him near a tree, where he promptly fell over and shook profusely. Great, the bird is having a seizure. No. So back to the car, but this time, though you are not supposed to touch wild animals too much, for a variety of reasons, I held him in my left hand and drove with my right, and used my left thumb to pet his tiny head. Mostly he calmed down, and then there was the occasional effort to get away, and a pitiful squawking sound that made me feel like the Wicked Witch of the West. Here I am trying to do the right thing and get him to my animal hospital, and I am unintentionally torturing one of God's creatures.

I hoped that though I have only seen dogs and cats at the animal hospital, that the word "animal" would encompass my bird, who, at this point, I had named "Harry". "Harry" was not pleased. But the reception people looked at me and my bird askance and pointed out that their vets had no expertise with birds, and, they can't take in "wild animals". This bird fit fully in my left hand. A little squeeze and it would be no more, "wild" I guess applies, but it was kind of amusing. They were nice, though, and helped me call around. One place said that even if they took it, because it was wild they would have to euthanize it. They sent me to the voice recording of a wildlife center in the Santa Monica Mountains. There were instructions on how to care for the bird overnight. I had already violated several rules, but it is very hard to do some of that whilst running across a trafficked street in the near dark.

They did, however, have a box and a towel into which I could put the bird and provide a bit of quiet and warmth and security. I left a message on the machine of the wildlife center with hope they'd call me and my errand of mercy would not end in a dirge.

I have three cats. The bird looked like he would expire any time, a little like a stuffed bird, with just about as much limpness.

Luckily I have a large walk in closet I use as a library, and he spent the night safely ensconced and so far as I can tell, no cat got a whiff of feathers. I checked on him before I went to bed and he actually was standing, and moving without jerking various parts of his body.

At 9 a.m. I had a call from the Center. They asked me all sorts of questions about the color of the bird, his beak and his feet. I hadn't looked that closely. But it turns out that they want to be sure that the caller is legitimate. So much so that they won't give you their address until they are certain. I said that I hadn't looked in the box, and I was a little afraid to after 8 plus hours. Phone in hand, I went to the closet and carefully opened the box, and saw, nothing. How could the bird escape? then I realized there was a bump in the towel. He had moved under it for extra safety and was looking up at me with his pinprick black eyes.

Off we went, Harry and I, he becoming more agitated as we reached the wooded mountainous area where the center is. They whisk them away, they do, with the proviso that you can't join them in the examination because, again, they want to limit human contact. I don't know. That ship might have sailed with Harry. They let me look through the door and Harry was in the hands of a young vet (this is non-profit and free)and well, good news, I don't know about his future, but I left him alive, just as another family brought in a huge beautiful owl that had been hit by a car. Harry was placed in a new, and special box, second to the more exotic owl. But that was ok, at least, I thought, he has a chance. And I can, and will call, to see if he makes it.

The wildlife center is about to have a new volunteer, if only to learn how to handle this creatures upon which I seem more often than not to come upon in precarious situations.

Djinn and All Creatures Great and Small, mostly small.

First Memories

Leaving, for a moment, the world of controversy, religion and politics and going back to a simpler time. There I am in my playpen, calling out to the world at about age what? 18 months? Younger? Well a lot younger than now, that's for sure.

Whatever was I thinking?

Reminds me of the question often asked of me, and by me, "What's your first memory?" I read somewhere that what we think are our memories are not always so. I think it was in connection with a dire subject, repressed memories of traumatic events. The jury remains out on whether what seems to have been repressed really was created by the power of suggestion, or leading questions, as the case may be.

But in the circumstance of what might be fond or interesting memory of old, of a time before we could talk, or walk, or pick up a spoon, it is rather lovely to think about.

You think of yours. I'll tell you a couple of mine. In the picture there, in the corner, there is this large stuffed poodle. Her name was "Fifi". We lived in a five floor multi-part brick walk up on Townsend Avenue, as I think I have said before, just about three or four blocks north? (my directions always were lousy) of the Jerome Avenue El, 175th Street stop, and about four or five blocks south of the Grand Concourse. I can't place things exactly, but there was a park nearby, closer probably to Mt. Eden Hospital, where I made my first appearance, with trees, and swings and flag-ish stone, and most importantly metal swings that held you safely in when you were too young to hold yourself in place. But I am getting ahead of the earliest memory. I wasn't going about in swings quite about this time when I was hanging onto the edge of the playpen holding myself up. Anyway, 1596 Townsend, brass mailboxes, brass railing downstairs and wood as you went up, black and white tile floors. Ours was a one bedroom apartment, $50.00 a month. I don't know where that playpen was, I am guessing the living room. The crib, though, that was by one of two windows in the bedroom, which until I was old enough to have a bed, I shared with my parents. The cat my mother had long before I came along, already about 9 or 10 years old guarded me, wherever I was and spent time in playpen and crib, hissing at anyone other than my mother or father who might come near me. My Irish grandmother, opined in brogue accented English that the cat surely would smother me. All of this I was told later. This part I don't remember.

But I seem to remember that, like most near toddlers, ready to explore the world, I did climb out of the crib early one morning. I seem to remember my triumph at conquering what seemed a great height. I think I could walk, but I did not. I went out on hands and knees into the living room and saw, the large yellow eyed cat, one in a series of not friendly creatures only my mother could really tame, was on the chair that she decimated with her claws. She watched me approach, paws folded under her ample chest, still as stone. I seem to remember, "that's close enough". The visual ends.

In the next visual, I am about two or three. I have a bed now, in the same corner space in front of one of the two windows in the bedroom, which by the way, is painted a dark brown, with beige heavy drapes surrounding the walls and covering the only closet and a series of home made shelves that are used as closet space. On the side by the door that goes to the hall leading to the living room there are library shelves, full of books. The bed is some kind of custom made, I can't say whether my father put it together or they bought it somewhere. It is about twin size. It is more a big piece of wood, stained brown, with fifty-ish lava lamp shaped legs, tipped with some kind of brass-ish covering. The mattress is really covered foam rubber. It is comfortable enough, but it is not like any bed I had ever seen or ever had later in life. I am guessing my mother designed it, and my father brought it into being. It is very feng shui to the eye, this at a time, when nobody ever heard of feng shui.

Fifi has survived to whatever age I am. While I am on the bed, she is propped on the window sill. I may be having a conversation with her. I was an only child. I amused myself readily, and easily with my stuffed friends, Mrs. Chang, a stuffed angora cat, being the earliest along with Fifi. I think my father was in the room with me, and perhaps my mother. Their bed was still there, I think. A real bed. Not long after they would trade a real bed for a Castro Convertible in the living room to give me privacy.

I may have made a point with Fifi and as I touched her, she went out the fourth window to the back of the building. The alley of our building faced another, very much a "Rear Window" sort of view. When you called out the window, there was an actual echo because of the building across, and not that far across. Wow, as I write, the memories flood. I want to digress, but not this entry. I think when a stuffed loved one goes out a window, reality is not quite distinct from fantasy, and I was horrified that my white fluff paymate had fallen to the concrete below. This may have been the first time that my father was rescuer. He sped downstairs to get my toy and friend. I don't know, it being what, like 1955 ish that anyone would have stolen it, but Fifi would be dirty, though not bruised, and maybe someone would see her and think her abandoned. I heard his voice from all the floors down, assuring me that Fifi was safe, and retrieved. So much I must be imprinting on a flash of remembrance. How much true? One thing is certain. In that moment, my life was happy and safe.

Yippee!!!!!

As I write, I actually am at work, well, about to leave work. I checked my home e-mail and saw that AOL journals had made some deal with Blogger.com, where I had resurrected, as it were, a blog, calling it as above Djinn from the Bronx Two, and that I could move the old one to blogger.com, with merely a couple of clicks. Well, it had never occurred to me everything would work out so easily and I could just have waited before starting a "two" and just gone on as if nothing had changed, except location.

Well, here's how I see it. It is a bit of a page turner, so why not go with the flow. I will leave The Djinn from the Bronx "ending" where it did with AOL, though it has migrated with me, successfully. I will continue with Djinn from the Bronx Two. What's the difference. Just a "the".
The first one, still there for reading, reflecting more than a year's worth of entries, is http://TheDjinnfromtheBronx.blogspot.com/ The new one is: http://DjinnfromtheBronx.blogspot.com/

The same, but different. The same Djinn. Confused? Me Too. But delighted a year's worth of writing has survived intact!

Le Djinn Arrive!

Can't say if the French is accurate. Djinns can be female or male, and I am female, but somehow a "La" in front of "Djinn" doesn't quite work. So for purposes of this introduction to my existence some 50 plus (I shall not give the exact date), I title it comme ca.

I was not born in a log cabin. It wasn't that long ago. But I was born in a now defunct maternity hospital, Mt. Eden, just off the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, let's see, I always say 9, but it was just shy of 8 years of my parents' marriage.

If one can become a citizen of a country by virtue of the timing of one's conception, then, I am Canadian, specifically, a Montreal Canadian.

Alors, a digression: My father had some army reserve thing to be accomplished north of the NY border. My mother, in what must have been a rare moment of spontaneity, agreed to go with him. And they were joined by her sister, Terry, and brother-in-law, Frank. They drove, likely in my uncle's convertible Buick.

There may have been some sight seeing, but mostly, it was nightclubbing, places like "Ruby Foo's". I believe I have inherited a swizzle stick from one such evening.

There are pictures, slides, actually, memorializing the good time had by all, my aunt, my uncle, my mother, elegantly dressed in black, her favorite color. Each time they were shown, I was reminded of my beginning, that very weekend.

Naturally, there was the question. "Why did it take nearly 8 years for me to 'come along'?" I asked my father this well into adulthood, with the follow up, "Was I wanted?". My father was a master at the ambiguous response. "You were not 'not wanted' in that sense." What? This double negative explanation was all I got, besides the intimation, more than intimation, that during the weekend in Canada, my mother experienced another rarity in her way of being. She was relaxed. Ok, 'nuff said. Well, truthfully, that's all I know, whether it is enough or not.

My mother, I am told, did not show. What that meant, practically, is that I had too little room in the womb and came out with a slightly twisted leg syndrome, easily corrected by special "shoe brace" type things worn for a few months.

My father told me that when he saw me, he thought I was pretty bad looking, a mass of black hair (all babies have black hair) and yes, I looked like the old man that they say babies tend to upon their arrival in the world. You can judge for yourself. That's me, above.

Home I came after my mother spent the then requisite week in the hospital (oh, the good old days when you could stay in the hospital after major things like child birth), to 1596 Townsend Avenue, the Bronx, New York 10452, CY9-7549. I would spend the next 16 years of my life in the little one bedroom apartment that resembled, more than anything else, a nightclub, with its browns, and ambers, and mirrors and bookcases.

And, it would turn out, that my father was more equipped as a mother, than was my mother. It was he, having read the au currant books on child rearing, like Dr. Spock, responding to my cries. My mother, damaged in some way that we'd never understand, had difficulty in the nurturing role. What she did do, from the moment I came into the world, was to instill in me that I could be whatever I wanted. No one had done that for her.

I Am Born

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously."

Nope. The quote isn't about me. It's the famous beginning of "David Copperfield", but a combination of a conversation with my friend Len of http://Lenspeaks.blogspot.com/ and mulling over these literary lines this morning while I stretched out of sleep led me to an idea for this reconstituted version of my blog.

The conversation was on Friday night. Len and I saw an awful movie with Ricky Gervais that even Greg Kinnear's charm couldn't save. Over my guacamole and chips with a Margarita chaser and his potstickers at a Grove cafe, he looked at some photos from our just post college days gone by and some of my way before college life. I must have made my millionth mention of the regret I sometimes feel about not having anyone to leave photos, and other personal memorabilia to, when (I almost said if, silly me!) I shuffle off this mortal coil, kick the bucket, buy the farm, all the Monty Python euphemisms galore.

This always brings out the "There she goes again" look from my otherwise fairly tolerant friends. I try to convince them of my sensibleness when I regale them with my now 15 year ago visit to the Exploratorium in San Franciso that featured an exhibit on all things related to memory, including personal histories which are a microcosm of a society's history. I loved that show. It included information and experiments on how we learn, about Alzheimer's. It had artifacts from the lives of ordinary people, people just like me. And these people long dead were fascinating. It is just a variation of what made walking through Pompeii so exciting for me--touching not only the past, but bringing the people of the past into the present, where they are in a way alive again. Alive in the red paintings on crumbling walls. Alive in the container spaces where ancient food was placed and given to passersby. Alive in the mosaic mat that says "Cave Canem" ("Beware of Dog").

But the truth is, let's face it, as much as I believe in eternal life in the "Hope I make it to Heaven" variety, I am narcissistic enough to want to carry on in minds and hearts beyond just the few people who thought I was okay enough to hang out with from time to time. I want this, my earthbound immortality, and heaven too! There, it's out there. The truth. And I also want it for the people who have meant something to me. Some of the "stuff" I have, it's from and about other people. An invitation to a Halloween party at "Black Rock" in the Bronx. A series of letters or cards from Ralph, Len, Noreen, Andrew, John, Dennis, Glenn, Connie, Ginny, staying connected to the first of us who travelled out West to seek her fortune. (Two others have joined me in the lap of weather's luxury here in Southern California since those days). Wedding invitations galore. Love letters from my father to my mother in 1956 from his three month exile in Camp Gordon, Georgia as a reservist.

I want what has had meaning to me, and to others, to last beyond our limited score of years. I can enjoy it now, but I want to, I need to, preserve it, so that it can be bequeathed to? A generation? Posterity? I don't really know. I like the idea that nothing and no one is really ever gone. Maybe that's part of it.

Whatever it is, my new plan, in the ever changing spectrum of plans I have, is to write about things from "I am born" and day to day to here and whatever is the fullness of my years, whatever God has in store for me. `

Tales of Djinn from the Bronx. That's it! That's the ticket!

Welcome to the Djinn's Blogging Round Table!

AOL Journals is about to shut down. Thus I find myself migrating. As someone who is ashamedly techo challenged, I am having a hard enough time trying to paste a counter into this web page and the one dedicated to my father, Legacy of a Courtly Curmudgeon, let alone trying to cause the old journal to migrate with me here. Apparently, it can be done manually (not likely, since I would have to be the first cause) or I can wait for them to do it. I will wait.

Meanwhile. . .I have been enjoying the blogging process and cannot conceive of abandoning it. I hope to become more conversant with things like linking (thanks to my friend Len Speaks) to favorite sites, and adding other gadgets to make the experience engaging for me and a good sharing with my social circle. I hope to tell more people about the blog, and encourage them to comment. Done right, blogging is the modern version of the 18th Century Salon, where folks can offer thoughts and ideas, or a cyberspace Algonquin Round Table (with or without the dry martini to complement the dry bon mots) in New York, where latter day Dorothy Parkers and Robert Benchleys can twitter about this and that in the public forum. That's my vision anyway. A magical place to comment, quip and laugh?