Update 6-26-12

Hi,

    The thing about grandchildren is they're mainly terrific, but they tend to change other people's plans.  In Florida, one of my friends couldn't go snorkeling with us because she suddenly had to babysit for her granddaughter.  In New York, of the maybe ten people who'd planned to go out for dinner, half had to back out because of their grandchildren.  That left Robin Feit Baker, Dennis Shapiro, Paul DeMartino, and me eating in a very nice Italian restaurant called the Blue Moon in Rockville Centre.
    First, let me say something about downtown Rockville Centre:  it's a lot more interesting than what's left of downtown Valley Stream.  Rockville Centre has at least two long blocks where almost every store is a different kind of restaurant.  In contrast, when I walked the length of downtown Valley Stream looking for a comfortable place to take my mom, I found a handful of bars, several low-end restaurants, two good spots to buy ice cream, and a couple of places to take out pizza.
    The Blue Moon, besides having memorable food, has been around for a while.  Its walls are decorated by murals where the people are almost life-sized and the subjects come from photos taken in the restaurant in the 1930s and 40s.  Judging from the murals, the restaurant may have been narrower then, occupying only one of its two present stores, but I'll bet the food was as good.
    While we were eating, I noticed that Robin always seems to look the same.  That is, she appears to be somewhere under thirty-five and smiles in the same delighted way she did in our yearbook.  Dennis, Paul, and I look well older than Robin, and we all look better fed than in our high school photos.  Paul and I seemed to be especially serious in those, but I think Dennis, at least, was grinning.  Still, he looks so hungry in his head shot that I wonder if he'd only been eating our delicious school lunches.
    The four of us talked about the usual things.  We've been catching up this way about once a year since 2002.  Dennis has now retired and is trying to figure out how best to spend his new free time.  Paul, like me, is half-retired, but he and his wife travel far more and far more widely than I do.  Robin seems as busy as always and was happy I'd remembered a promise I'd made to her last year.
    Last summer, the small New York gathering was at Robin's house, and for the first time I saw her son's vinyl collection.  It seemed focused on sixties music, and I mentioned that I had a half-dozen almost new Phil Ochs albums he might like.  The records were almost new because I used to tape my albums when I bought them, and when the tapes wore out, I recorded the music again.  Robin and I had to explain who Phil Ochs was, but once her son understood, he was interested.  Fortunately, my memory worked well enough a year later for me to remember to bring the albums to dinner.
    In addition to that dinner, I managed to see Ken and Laura Waxman Ulric for breakfast and Linda Cohen Greenseid and her husband Michael while I was on an errand for my mom.  Coincidentally, Ken and Michael are cousins.  I also saw Arlene Lynn Ainbinder, who lives not far from my mom, and was able to talk with Jay Berliner for about a half-hour one night on the phone.  Jay also travels a lot, worldwide, and often for business.  But I didn't get into New York City to try to have lunch with Alan Finder.  I didn't get to see Barbara Peres Napolitano or Linda Tobin Kettering though I passed by Linda's house more than a few times.  And I didn't get to call Booker Gibson to see if he and his wife Frances had time for me to stop in for a quick visit.
    I did stop at South briefly though Liz King Giordano had already told me she probably wouldn't be there.  I could have dropped in the previous Friday, but that was the last day of school, and I was sure it would be chaos.  The school looks pretty good, about the same as it has the last few times I've been there, and maintenance crews were already beginning to repair the year's wear.
    I'd started to walk to South though not by way of the still partially dismantled bridge, but I got caught in one of several thunderstorms that occurred during my stay in Valley Stream.  I got soaked through in less than a minute, and standing under a sheltering tree didn't seem wise.  We don't have that kind of violent lightning, thunder, and rain in Los Angeles, so it's always fun for me to see.  Though I did wonder how my mother would manage if she lost her electricity.  Fortunately, I didn't have to experience that till almost a week later, in Washington.
    Still, when it was drier, I walked a bit around the old neighborhood.  I seem to remember that it used to take me ten minutes to get to South on a clear day, and if the bridge were still intact, I bet that would still be true.  It did take me seven minutes to walk from my mom's house to the former site of Molly and Leo's, passing Nancy Garfield's old house at the three-minute mark.  And it took me just under fifteen minutes to reach the back entrance to Green Acres / Mill Brook.  That feels right because it's just about a mile from my mom's house, and that's how fast I walk.  Putting all that together, it would probably take me fifteen minutes to walk to South by way of Mill Road, so the loss of the bridge still doesn't seem huge.  Of course, very few students seem to walk to South anyway.
    One last note:  I had several occasions to be at Hoeffner's Gulf station at the rear entrance to Green Acres / Mill Brook, and it has a series of old farm photos mounted on the office wall.  When I asked where the family farm was, I was told, "Right here."  Actually, there were two farms:  the first extended from the present gas station to about the creek.  "That was my father's," Tony Hoeffner told me.  The second went from the creek to about where Temple Hillel is on Rosedale Road.  "That was my granddad's."  In some way, it's good to know that after over two hundred years in this country, the Hoeffner family is still working part of its land.


Rich