It was June 1^st
I remember it very well. The truck had just left and I finished moving the rest of my belongings into a small two-bedroom apartment in the upstairs of a private home. The rooms were somewhat small and the kitchen was even smaller. The white walls were freshly painted and the house smelled from wet paint.
Man, that place was empty….
The wood floors were clean and the bright sunlight pushed Continue reading →

My Old Man used to tell me, “If you sleep with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas.” Then he would talk about my friends and say, “Get ready to start scratching kid, because those friends of yours have a lot of fleas.”
The Old Man would tell me, “Show me who your friends are and I will show you who you are.”
When he thought I was slovenly dressed, or my room was too messy, The Old Man would say, “Show me the environment you keep yourself in and I will show you how you feel about yourself.”

He would say, “It’s easier to be brought down than it is to bring someone else up….so always be aware of your company.”

And The Old Man hated quitters because, “Quitting is contagious.”
He hated liars too because, “There’s nothing worse than a liar.”

“If a man doesn’t have his word, then he doesn’t have anything in my book.”

I used to work as an operating engineer in a commercial office building near Park Avenue and 34th street. There were two different machine room floors. One, which was designated for the heating and cooling for the lower half of the building, was on the 12th floor. The other, designated for the upper half, was at the top of the building on the 42nd floor.
Neither room was properly maintained. The lighting was Continue reading →

Here it comes….
We are days away from the unofficial beginning of summertime.
Bodies will soon flood the beaches and the days will become longer as nights grow hot and shorter.

I am thinking of a time I had. It was the first time I broke through Jones Inlet and headed out to sea on my own vessel. The boat was 31 feet in length with a beam more than 11 foot wide. Beneath two separate hatches, diesel engines, each with 240 horses behind them, hummed in the deep sound of a slow-moving rumble. Continue reading →

I was raised in a modest house. My Father worked from sunup to sundown; my mother cared for the home and along with my older brother, we lived on a main street that ran north and south through our small suburban town.
Five houses north of Front Street, our two-story home rested across from the Continue reading →

More than one year has passed and it seems the government in my fish tank is about to change again. The smaller fish that hid and swam in the yellow and white stoned bottom have outgrown the threats of bigger, more aggressive fish in the different levels of their 46 gallon world.
One fish, however, did not grow as well as the other classmates in his school …..I can relate to that.

This tank of mine is kept in a Continue reading →

After the summer closed in 1991, my brother turned the page into the next chapter of his life. I was 19 years-old, and at that age, I faced a new chapter of my own.
Having lost the love of her life and the only reason to stay in the place where I grew, my mother sold our family home and moved down to the state of Florida. She had enough and needed to move away from the memories of her longtime husband. And like it is said as a glass is filled before overflowing; my mother said, “When,” and followed the plan she and The Old Man were supposed to retire with.
Only now, she was alone and unsure of her unwritten future.

Similar to my mother, I was Continue reading →

So reluctantly, I find myself moving towards technology…….

After a long day of running from 45^th Street to Downtown Brooklyn, waiting in lines at an almost Department of Motor Vehicles like place in the New York City Fire Department Headquarters, and after trying to explain my situation to an impatient women behind a section of bulletproof glass to square away the necessary permits I need to make a living, I walked through the storefront doors of my cellular provider on 34^th street.
I was immediately greeted by a tall, slim, and much young than myself, sales associate. His brown-skinned face was mostly clear of any acne; his collared buttoned down shirt was buttoned up to the top of his neck, and his sweater vest wore neatly over his shirt.
He smiled his white smile and greeted me with his best, “May I help you, sir,” approach.
I hate these places. I hate feeling stupid while talking to these know-it-all kids with their new technology and their wristwatch cellphones. I hate the touchscreen generation, but nevertheless, the times have changed so I reluctantly decided to change with them. Continue reading →

One of the more interesting parts of my story is that I returned to the neighborhood I grew up in. And while much of the place has changed, most of the important landmarks have remained as they were.
The East Meadow water tower still pokes into the underbelly of the sky and so do the glass buildings and the hospital on Hempstead turnpike.
The schools look as they did when I was young, at least the outside does, and the bowling alley is still there. Prospect Pool remains unchanged, but the Meadow Dairy across the street has seen its share of different owners.
As far as I am concerned, it is fair to say that my life has moved in a complete circle.

Upon the early years of my return, I thought it would be interesting to Continue reading →

I like to stand on the shoreline and cast my worries
into the sea of anonymous waves.
I feel as if the oncoming tides and the outgoing current
are the perfect gesture,
as if there is no better place to wash away my sins.

I come to this place to breathe; I come here to feel the breath of God
and in a sense, I come here to bleed my thoughts,
and feel the wind upon my face.
I come here to get away from my yesterdays
and to ask for a better tomorrow.
In fact, I come here to dream.

I consider this place to be my sanctuary….

I see the ocean as a source of energy:
It constantly moves, and swells.
Sometimes it moves too fast, and other times,
the ocean can be beautifully still.

We once talked about needing a place to escape. 
You have your place
….and I have mine

I have places like this:
I have a spot where I stand on the roof of Manhattan
I have a place beside Jones Inlet to watch the boats move in and out
I have keyboard to type my thoughts on
a machine to print them …..and I have you

I don’t think I need much else.

Do you?

I am writing this specifically to you…..

During the last angry lecture from The Old Man, he told me, “Sometimes I think it would be easier if you just committed suicide. It sure as hell would be easier than watching you kill yourself like this.”
According to The Old Man’s account, I dragged my feet when I walked. I barely opened my mouth when I spoke, and as I spoke, my words dragged slowly as if my brain were permanently relaxed from my drug use.

“I swear it would be easier if you killed yourself. At least this way your mother and I could hurt and then we could heal….but watching you do this to yourself is worse than watching you die.”

I was no longer their innocent little boy. My skin color was Continue reading →