Browsing google maps at 3:30 A.M. Somehow arrived at Astor Avenue in the Bronx, near the apartment house where my first best friend Ricky lived. We were buddies in the first and second grade, and both baseball freaks--it was Ricky and his family who took me to my first professional baseball game in mid June, 1950. Must have been the end of first grade. Yankee Stadium, I remember that they were playing the Browns, a terrible team at that time, but that a rally in the ninth inning brought the game to the Browns. It was not till a year later that i really began to follow baseball play to play. One memory from later in the relationship, maybe fourth grade: sleeping over in his house, and playing a baseball "game" against each other. Making up lineups and the whole thing. Then Ricky's family moved to one of the suburbs north of the Bronx. Was it New Rochelle---possibly. Many families from the Pelham Parkway neighborhood of my youth by the middle fifties had enough money to buy a house in the suburbs. Then our relationship ended.
I wonder where he is now--somehow I feel he grew up to be a very harsh, aggressive person. Maybe because once in first grade, he was captain of a punchball team, and after I was picked, "chucked" me. That is, for some reason through me off. "Chucked!" for some reason that word has stayed with me---that time in first grade may have been the only time i ever heard it. I remember being stunned---here was my best friend, for some reason eliminating me. It is the only time during the few years that I knew him that I remember him being nasty with me---yet somehow that moment---in the school yard of PS 96, the Bronx, has stayed with me.
An odd day---after the very productive Wednesday--three students, all of whom I made good contact with---lots of energy and challenges---and a dirty apartment cleaned to perfection by the woman who cleans for me, I spent this last day by myself. My one student moved his appointment over a day, so I was free. I was determined to see a movie called Emergency---having its last day at the Angelica--and, after some arguments with myself, took the trip. First time since the pandemic in that movie theater---it was actually the last place I saw a movie, right before everything shut down. At 2, the place seemed like a ghost town, just a few people in its large lobby---something surreal and sad about the whole place. But what was stranger---I was the only person in auditorium 6, watching the 2:20 showing---the only person! A very strange and alienating feeling. What was I really doing there, I asked myself. The movie was both comic and serious--a very strong look at race relationships---I won't say more, and I suppose I am glad I took the trip. It's important that I don't tie myself to the upper west side. When it was over, I climbed the sixteen steps to the lobby since the escalator going up was broken, and did not feel tired. Walked west to the Film Forum and picked up a schedule of the Montgomery Clift retrospective, and returned home. Slept for much of the evening---that is why I am up now.
Lots to do today, and for the weekend---will report soon.
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