So a funny thing happened to me while I was walking around the Queens Botanical Garden yesterday. I stepped on something (not sure what) that caused my shoe to split in half. Fortunately it was not a sharp object, or it would certainly have cut my foot. I think it was a wood chip. A large wood chip, but just a blunt chunk of wood that was not especially hard or sharp. The shoe split right across the arch, but stayed together well enough that I could keep walking on it.
Momentarily I tried to imagine what I would do if circumstances were more severe. Call 911, tell them I’m in the Bee Garden at the Queens Botanical Garden. (I went to the Bee Garden thinking it would be funny if that was actually a Beer Garden where only beers with bee honey are served. Hah! Hah! I’m here all week. Or maybe beers without the letter R.)
Another interesting revelation arrived yesterday. When I was a kid in Tampa I would listen to Atlanta Braves baseball games on the radio. There waas no major league baseball anywhere in Florida at the time, so Atlanta was the closest team. It seemed exotic to me to hear these games on a regular basis. Atlanta seemed far, far off. It was the place where my uncle and cousins lived, but they were foggy characters in my high school mind.
What’s interersting about this is that John Sterling, who does the Yankees radio broadcasts now, was the announcer covering those Atlanta Braves games buring the 1980s. I never knew that until this week. And I do remember that voice — especially the pompous way he said “Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium” — but I no longer remember his home run call. I would think I’d remember it now if it was the same home run call he does for Yankees games.
Anyway, that was an interesting (to me) connection between past and presents.
I am sitting at Euro Delights on Broadway. All the windows are open but I am away from the sidewalk and the stink of truck and bus exhaust that characterizes outdoor, sidewalk café dining.
