So as we enter what I hope will be a peaceful and productive next year, I am trying not to let what is happening paralyze me. I have
such happiness when I remember how it was here, when I was young.
We were living on East 8something Street. There was a little news store a block away, with a gentle old man selling magazines and papers on the other side of a small shelved window. He had an accent and a pipe in his mouth. It felt like Don and I were his only
customers, it was so quiet.
And then he was closing, put out of business by a builder, so he gave us two tickets from his final promo that would get us into a movie we wanted to see. I can't remember what it was, but I remember him, kind as he'd been. Buyers boarded it up, that little not-a-lot-of candy-shop. I went back to see it once and the space had been mounted by an apartment building like an indifferent lover.
How different things were in The Not That Long Ago. At least it seems not that long. But maybe that's because you remember it better when you cherish it more.
