[Sca-cooks] Re: Backyards in NYC

[A F Murphy]

I'm going to take this point by point...

Olden the Odd wrote:

> This concept is so strange to me.  There is _no way_ I can even
> comprehend
> this.  It seems so unnatural..so foreign..like a fiction.  What many
> kinds
> of things have you never seen growing up?

> A bird building a nest,

I didn't say we didn't have trees and birds, of course I saw that! And
there was this bluejay who used to sit on the open window and swear at
the cat...

> a shrew
> rustling in the leaves,

No

> a gecko on a warm rock,

Not a lot of geckos in this climate anyway. But you should see a
squirrel splayed out on the sidewalk, trying to cool off! Why they would
lie on the sidewalk when the grass is right there, I never knew.
Funniest looking things.

> the white tail of the rabbit
> leaping, the raccoon scurrying away from the trash.

No, though there are plenty of raccoons in other neighborhoods, just not
mine.

> You never played in
> piles of raked leaves or played slip and slide in damp grass clippings?

Only if the maintenance men weren't watching, and they were never  fool
enough to leave piles around! After all, they'd raked them, and they
would have to redo it if we messed it up...

> Never fall out of a tree

No. We weren't allowed to climb them. (see above about maintenance
men...) But we could play in the snow when it covered the grass.  And
build forts where it was pushed up at the sidewalk. But snowball fights
had to pause when people went into the building.

> or skipped rocks on the pond?

Sure I have! The lagoon in the Park!

> I just can't fathom
> someone not.  This is something that I will have to reflect on.
> Olden

But, my turn...

You couldn't just get on a bus and take yourself wherever you wanted to
go (that your mom let you, of course) from the time you were about 12?

You never dropped into the Metropolitan Museum after school just because
you liked to look at van Goghs? (My high school was 1/4 mile away.)

Your first music teacher didn't moonlight directing children's voices at
City Opera? (She left us when the Met picked her up full time...)

You never climbed on the rocks in Central Park?

Your mom's idea of a fun family Saturday wasn't walking along the river
to the UN, seeing the exhibits, browsing in the shops, and having an ice
cream soda? Then walking home? (Well, we might take the bus if our feet
hurt...)

You didn't watch on the first of April, at 11:00, for Sam the Good Humor
Man to arrive for the summer? You could set a clock by him... When he
retired, the whole neighborhood gave him a party. Moms who had bought
from him as children were bringing their children...

Your mom couldn't send you to the store to pick up something for dinner?

I don't understand that, either... OK, those are not all typical
experiences, but they were mine.

Anne