Staying humble and counting my blessings
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by Kathy Fisher (klfisher@webtv.net), Unknown News
June 18, 2007
Sometimes I find myself screaming. I hate where we are. There are too many
cars and people and not enough space!
But then Leon reminds me about the time he had to go get a copy of his
birth certificate for that new driver's license last month. (I don't drive;
I ride a bicycle).
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Anyway, he told me he had to drive
through and past where he used to work
on Kennedy Blvd in North Bergen and West New York, NJ, where we grew up
and lived when we were first married.
All Leon could say was that his mouth just hung open as he took in the
scenery or what quickly became the lack of scenery.
He said he just
didn't believe his eyes and he couldn't wait to get the hell out of
there. It was overwhelming, and he was aghast at what he
saw. You wanna see a festering cesspool of shit? Travel through our old
stomping grounds.
Oh yeah, they built a few skyscrapers on the Palisades and in Hoboken,
where the salt of the earth used to work on the Shipyards. They made sure
they made it attractive and lavish so the rich could have there view of
the New York skyline and easy access to New York City, which is only15 minutes
away.
But all this appearance of wealth encompasses a pit of dying neighborhoods,
to hide all the tired old worn out structures that used to
be home for Leon and I, 30 odd years ago.
I guess it's OK if your driver picks you up outside of your glass tower
and whisks you away to your Park Ave office in Manhattan, or you go down
the elevator and step out the door onto a bus no more than seven feet
away from your doorstep that takes you right to your job on Wall Street.
I suppose with blinders on, you wouldn't notice the gross hell you really
are a part of.
Not so when you have to go out and really walk around the town, when you
actually live there, and shop for your dinner and drive for twenty minutes
or longer to find a spot for your car six blocks away from your roach-infested overpriced humble abode, in the inner town full of fire escapes
that become the rapists and the robbers' nighttime stairway to heaven.
My old town is still full of two story apartments over bodegas and delis and
hundreds of five and six story run down walk ups, and section eight housing
built in the late '50s, 14 story behemoths that were going to save
the poverty problem. Yeah, right, gotcha, try another one!
And just a mere
five blocks away from these obstructions of darkness are a few dots here
and there of buildings that were converted into lofts -- you know, those
artsy yuppie havens with a gazillion locks on the doors and private
elevators they can escape from the madness they like to call
gentrification. Continue the tour and you'll see a delicious looking row
of three story town houses tucked in just around corner from an ugly
row of housing units that need a good renovation.
It's a ridiculous mish-mush. You will find yourself asking if not
shouting, What architects planned this nightmare and what were they
thinking?
It's not a city. It's not the suburbs. It's everything you ever hated and
worse, a tangled twisted mess. It's not even an interesting
community. It's not a neighborhood any more. has become
Collective Chaos.
One only has to take a journey into the past and see when they used
to be when they were trying to get their shit together and get the hell
out, to appreciate that the place I live in now is merely bad. Of course, every
time I start to get overly particular about where I live now, and I find
myself in one of my moods, and I wish for GREENER pastures, I reconsider and
think about when Leon told me the old town got worse. That was hard to
believe, because just before we moved away we said to ourselves this
place can't get any worse then this!
I guess the whole experience gives new meaning to the old saying, 'You
can't go home again'.
In my case I don't want to go home again!
I have two 25 year old maple trees, that I planted from seedlings that
were growing in the crevice between the sidewalks downtown. I know that
sounds like nothing to most people, but it means a lot to me. I have a
porch and a small amount of green to go out on and sit and ponder and think. In a few minutes I can be at a food store or I can walk to
a local Dunkin' Donuts, or go for a drive ten miles away to the beach or a
canal. Hey, it's not much to many who brag and have more, but I keep
thinking about my very humble beginnings, and that keeps me from getting
spoiled and greedy.
Those who want more -- let them strive for it, that doesn't
bother me one bit. They want to live on their own little compound, more
power to them! In the long run, one way or another we are all going to
inherit the earth.
I just count my blessings. We got out of the over-crowded city alive!
People who live near me don't know how good they have it. They have their days too,
where they want to pack it all in and go live in Pennsylvania or upstate New York. Then
they have a reality check, come back to earth, and realize they have to
make the best with the forever changing, forever growing suburban
neighborhood.
Just like the city I left all those years ago, this
place will be hard to recognize in another 30 years.
In fact you can bet your bottom dollar all these sparkling hills and
plains 100 miles north, south, east and west of us, they too are going to
wind up being over crowded and overpriced VERY soon.
An after thought ...
I was thinking, If I was a person living in the occupied Middle East
right now, and someone offered me a chance to get out and live in an apartment
in the worst section in the Bronx, I'd take it in a heartbeat. Next to
where I was, I would probably think it was Heaven.
© by the author.
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