It was the summer of 1980, and everyone I knew had just graduated from college – or was about to. It was a year of transition, and I felt the pull just as strongly as everyone else, even though I’d left school two years previously to live in NYC, where I’d been working and taking art classes. I could have stayed where I was and finished a graphic design or commercial art degree of some kind. But it was time for a change.
My friend Deborah and I had talked for years – since the 8th grade – about moving to California after college and this was a perfect opportunity – she was finishing up at the University of Oregon and would be graduating at the end of the summer. She invited me out to stay with her in Eugene for the last month of the semester and attend her graduation, after which we’d head south to San Francisco, where we had a friend with an apartment. Plans were set in place.
Before I left NY I planned a number of “last hurrah” events with various friends – a meal in a favorite restaurant, a night on the town, etc. I accepted an invitation from my friend Darcy to spend a weekend at her family’s home in Greenwich CT with her boyfriend and one of his buddies, whom I’d met once or twice before. I took the Metro North train from Grand Central on a beautiful Saturday morning in June, ready for a day or two of relaxation by the pool and the usual shenanigans.
Saturday went as planned – a swim, a meal, a few beers. Sunday morning we decided to have a little adventure and drive out to a nearby lake for a picnic. One thing about this lake is that it is positioned on the border between New York and Connecticut, with the state line running through the middle somewhere. The other thing about the lake is that it was on private property and warning signs were clearly posted at the proscribed intervals. Darcy & Co. were aware that we would be trespassing but assured me that it was no big deal; as locals, they hung out there all the time. So off we went.
It was a bit of a drive to get where we were going, and after about a half hour we came to the end of the road; from there we had to leave the car and walk through a woodsy patch to the lakeshore. We carried our picnic, found a comfy spot, and settled in. We ate, and talked, and relaxed, for a good little while, and were on the verge of deciding to get up and go back to the house when our uninvited guest arrived – a member of Greenwich’s Finest, who had seen our car conspicuously parked on the road and came in to investigate.
A brief conversation ensued during which we all produced our ID and so on. Clearly my friends assumed they’d be able to talk our way out of trouble with no complications or consequences. That was not to be. We were instructed to get in our car and drive downtown, escorted by the no-nonsense cop, so we headed for the police station.
My memory of the events that followed is a bit vague, but I do recall waiting for a long time while each of us was interviewed. Then, the unexpected bonus – fingerprinting! That came as a surprise to all of us, but it still didn’t seem to be a very serious situation. None of us even called our parents. We sat through the process calmly, and were finally told we could go, but that there would be a court date “in about a month,” and we all needed to stay in town until then.
Darcy then protested on my behalf – I lived in New York, after all, and there was no way I could stay in Greenwich for a month, I had a job and had to go home. This was reasonable, and I was allowed to leave after providing my address in the city.
None of us bothered to mention that I also had a one-way plane ticket for Oregon, bought and paid for, dated about a week hence.
Back at the house, we laughed about the way the day had turned out, and as I got ready to head back to the city, Darcy told me not to worry – I would send her my new address once I arrived in Oregon, she and the guys would appear in court, they would explain my absence, and all would be well.
As it turned out, the court date was more than a month later. I spent half of June and almost all of July in Eugene, and Deb and I then moved to San Francisco, where we stayed with Deb’s friend Lisa in a one room apartment on Nob Hill. Great little place with a bakery downstairs, a cheese shop across the street, and a cable car stop down the block.
Several weeks later I got a letter from Darcy to let me know what had transpired at our “trial.” It needs to be said that Darcy and the young men were perfect poster children for the “preppy” upper strata of Greenwich society – in fact they were all from very well respected local families. Darcy is a classic girl-next-door type, and the guys were clean cut and well behaved. And I am sure that if I had been there I’d have been able to carry off a similar degree of poise.
They showed up on the appointed day and waited until their case was called. The judge took one look at the three of them – Darcy with her blond hair flowing and wearing a crisp white sun dress – questioned the police officer who'd brought us in, looked at the file, and said in a very disgruntled tone, “Why are you wasting the court’s time with this? Get them out of here.” Upon which the charges were tossed out and “we” were all free to go.
Darcy sent me a note with a copy of the documents necessary to prove that I was no longer a fugitive from justice, should I ever get myself in trouble in the state of Connecticut again, and I think I have the paperwork somewhere, though I suppose that my fingerprints are still on file at the Greenwich PD. And I still fall over laughing when I remember the story.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I have recently joined a book club, which is something I have always wanted to do. I read all the time anyway, and I'm constantly looking for something great to add to my reading list. At our first club meeting back in May we made a list of books that will take us all the way through January or February 2010 at least, and I'm already almost done with the third book on the list, with a nice big stack on my bedside table just waiting for me.
Along with my love of books and reading, I have a fascination with bookstores. It's almost a fatal attraction. I can spend hours in a book shop just looking and never buying a thing. Barnes & Noble could easily become a second home, even without the café. When I lived in New York, which is to say most of my life before 1988 when I moved to Florida, I could (and often did) spend an entire day just going from one bookstore to the next, with no thought of food, water, or any job I might be expected to show up at.
I would always start my bookstore pilgrimage at the old Rizzoli store on Fifth Avenue. Rizzoli's was like a cathedral – huge windows overlooking the Avenue, beautiful wood shelving, deep carpeting, and gorgeous books everywhere. The main floor contained the "art" books, those oversize volumes containing hundreds of glossy photographs and minimal text. Reproductions of Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural drawings, Impressionist paintings, antique maps, anything that could be represented visually in the pages of a book, were arrayed like pastries in a French bakery. But as enticing as these books were, I hardly ever made an actual purchase at Rizzoli's. Like French pastry, these books were a little too rich for daily consumption. And so my biggest thrill at Christmas was seeing that large package under the tree wrapped in the distinctive Rizzoli gift paper – thanks to my dad's traditional last-minute Christmas Eve shopping panic, he never had time to visit more than a few stores, and since I was the reader in the family I usually got lucky.
At the opposite end of the bookstore spectrum, and the opposite end of town, was (and is) the Strand, on lower Broadway. This is where used books are put out to pasture, and where they are transformed through some mysterious alchemical process into treasures worthy of the Alhambra, or a dragon's lair. Even the bins of used paperbacks on the sidewalk outside the store windows have an aura (made up mostly of dust and mold, I am sure). For someone who was taught from an early age to respect and revere the written word and the volumes that contain those words (I still can't bring myself to underline or highlight in a hardcover), the Strand was overwhelming. One has the impression that they must have at least one copy of every book ever printed, somewhere in the stacks. Of course trying to find any particular volume in that overwhelming (and, I admit it, somewhat claustrophobic) setting can be a challenge. But – if you want it, they've got it. And they'll find it for you, you don't have to get dusty.
And there was a little bookstore around the corner from my San Francisco apartment, back in the '80s. It was called Green Apple Books. This shop dealt in used (previously read?) paperback fiction, and had an active book-exchange program, so that you could buy a stack of novels, read them all, and then turn them in for another stack a week later. It was a tiny shop but crammed full, and I spent hours poking around and finding all kinds of stuff.
Of course there have been other bookshops in my life, including such famous ones as City Lights, in San Francisco, and the Little Shop Around the Corner in that movie, you know the one. But Rizzoli's, the Strand and the Green Apple are the ones that shaped my bookstore aesthetic.
Time marches on. Rizzoli's hasn't changed much, though they have moved around the corner to 57th Street just off Fifth. You can visit their Web site to get a taste of the Rizzoli experience. The Strand is still down there on Broadway, still stacked to the ceiling with "18 miles of books," used and new. They have a Web site, too (check it out, there are a few surprises lurking on their About Strand page). And the Green Apple? Yes, it's still there, and apparently it's famous too, so if anyone is out in San Francisco, please go by and take a look, it's on Clement Street, just off a different Fifth Avenue, across from the Toy Boat ice cream shop. But that's another story.
Along with my love of books and reading, I have a fascination with bookstores. It's almost a fatal attraction. I can spend hours in a book shop just looking and never buying a thing. Barnes & Noble could easily become a second home, even without the café. When I lived in New York, which is to say most of my life before 1988 when I moved to Florida, I could (and often did) spend an entire day just going from one bookstore to the next, with no thought of food, water, or any job I might be expected to show up at.
I would always start my bookstore pilgrimage at the old Rizzoli store on Fifth Avenue. Rizzoli's was like a cathedral – huge windows overlooking the Avenue, beautiful wood shelving, deep carpeting, and gorgeous books everywhere. The main floor contained the "art" books, those oversize volumes containing hundreds of glossy photographs and minimal text. Reproductions of Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural drawings, Impressionist paintings, antique maps, anything that could be represented visually in the pages of a book, were arrayed like pastries in a French bakery. But as enticing as these books were, I hardly ever made an actual purchase at Rizzoli's. Like French pastry, these books were a little too rich for daily consumption. And so my biggest thrill at Christmas was seeing that large package under the tree wrapped in the distinctive Rizzoli gift paper – thanks to my dad's traditional last-minute Christmas Eve shopping panic, he never had time to visit more than a few stores, and since I was the reader in the family I usually got lucky.
At the opposite end of the bookstore spectrum, and the opposite end of town, was (and is) the Strand, on lower Broadway. This is where used books are put out to pasture, and where they are transformed through some mysterious alchemical process into treasures worthy of the Alhambra, or a dragon's lair. Even the bins of used paperbacks on the sidewalk outside the store windows have an aura (made up mostly of dust and mold, I am sure). For someone who was taught from an early age to respect and revere the written word and the volumes that contain those words (I still can't bring myself to underline or highlight in a hardcover), the Strand was overwhelming. One has the impression that they must have at least one copy of every book ever printed, somewhere in the stacks. Of course trying to find any particular volume in that overwhelming (and, I admit it, somewhat claustrophobic) setting can be a challenge. But – if you want it, they've got it. And they'll find it for you, you don't have to get dusty.
And there was a little bookstore around the corner from my San Francisco apartment, back in the '80s. It was called Green Apple Books. This shop dealt in used (previously read?) paperback fiction, and had an active book-exchange program, so that you could buy a stack of novels, read them all, and then turn them in for another stack a week later. It was a tiny shop but crammed full, and I spent hours poking around and finding all kinds of stuff.
Of course there have been other bookshops in my life, including such famous ones as City Lights, in San Francisco, and the Little Shop Around the Corner in that movie, you know the one. But Rizzoli's, the Strand and the Green Apple are the ones that shaped my bookstore aesthetic.
Time marches on. Rizzoli's hasn't changed much, though they have moved around the corner to 57th Street just off Fifth. You can visit their Web site to get a taste of the Rizzoli experience. The Strand is still down there on Broadway, still stacked to the ceiling with "18 miles of books," used and new. They have a Web site, too (check it out, there are a few surprises lurking on their About Strand page). And the Green Apple? Yes, it's still there, and apparently it's famous too, so if anyone is out in San Francisco, please go by and take a look, it's on Clement Street, just off a different Fifth Avenue, across from the Toy Boat ice cream shop. But that's another story.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
maybe next year
I called my friend Carol this weekend, to wish her a happy birthday. Her birthday was Friday but I waited til the next day, because I know what kind of work schedule she keeps, and I was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to chat til late Saturday afternoon.
When I called, she was sitting in her apartment in NY with a friend, watching a Queen Latifah movie and drinking wine. We talked about this and that, and then I asked her whether she'd done anything to celebrate.
"No, but Mark -- " (her brother) " -- got us tickets to the theater for tomorrow."
Wow - what a great birthday present - tickets to a Broadway show! Nice brother! "What are you going to see?" I asked, enviously. I was thinking she'd mention one of a dozen or so great shows that are out now. So what did she say?
"We're going to see Waiting for Godot."
Okay, I just had to laugh. I know, it's a great play, a classic, but birthdays are supposed to be fun. What about Wicked, or South Pacific, or even Mary Poppins or The Lion King - anything! Waiting for Godot? What kind of birthday treat is that? Is he trying to improve her mind, or some such?
The woman is 51 years old, for crying out loud, she works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and she is not by any means a frivolous person - I think her mind is as good as it's going to get. She's probably even read Waiting for Godot!
Fortunately, Carol is a good friend and not overly sensitive. She laughed, too.
When I called, she was sitting in her apartment in NY with a friend, watching a Queen Latifah movie and drinking wine. We talked about this and that, and then I asked her whether she'd done anything to celebrate.
"No, but Mark -- " (her brother) " -- got us tickets to the theater for tomorrow."
Wow - what a great birthday present - tickets to a Broadway show! Nice brother! "What are you going to see?" I asked, enviously. I was thinking she'd mention one of a dozen or so great shows that are out now. So what did she say?
"We're going to see Waiting for Godot."
Okay, I just had to laugh. I know, it's a great play, a classic, but birthdays are supposed to be fun. What about Wicked, or South Pacific, or even Mary Poppins or The Lion King - anything! Waiting for Godot? What kind of birthday treat is that? Is he trying to improve her mind, or some such?
The woman is 51 years old, for crying out loud, she works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and she is not by any means a frivolous person - I think her mind is as good as it's going to get. She's probably even read Waiting for Godot!
Fortunately, Carol is a good friend and not overly sensitive. She laughed, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)