Restless night...Halloween over

 Around 4:30. Have slept enough---my body wide awake, or at least functioning somewhat normally. Me at the computer. I go to the maps of the Bronx---for some reason my brain (vision) wants to explore Echo Place. Echo Place is a small street that simply appears out of another street, near the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. My uncle Henry and Aunt Celia lived on Echo place---from time to time our family visited then---those were always "nice" visits--there is a park nearby, called Echo Park and I remember playing there with some other neighborhoo't td children, But at that time the area was all white and overwhelmingly Jewish. Now, of course, it is almost completely black and Hispanic, working class. What do I remember most when I see the picture of the street on the map? Safety--a calm neighorhood, totally non violent. Would I go there now? About three weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon, I "wandered" around a few streets about half a mile south of Echo Place. I was the only white person there, and yes, I got some "looks". So I don't think I will visit Echo Place soon---or maybe I will---or should.

Memory--a hunger for "what"? I see my childhood in those streets, the visits to my relatives, many of whom lived in that area. I see my three years at Bronx Science in those streets because so many of the students in the class of 60 lived either on, or in close proximity to the Grand Concourse. But how does one put the two worlds together? An integration that seems impossible. If I returned to Echo PLace now, say on a Saturday afternoon, with everyone out and about, I would still feel as if I did not belong---but I don't. Just as when I walk on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, north, from Eastern Parkway to Fulton Street I understand that twenty or thirty years ago, I would have felt very uncomfortable on those street, now I am "pretty good" with it---no real apprehension.  So where does that leave me? 

Close to 5 A.M. in an hour, I can visit the coffee cart a block and a half away from where I live---make my first contact of the day. Their coffee can at times be "awful" but at $2.00. it offers something reasonable financially for this time. That's all.