Bronx | Mostly Bright Ideas

Browsing All posts tagged under »Bronx«

A Well-Grounded Childhood

February 7, 2014

As kids growing up in the North Bronx, we spent our summers mostly roaming the streets and alleyways, picking through the rubble of empty lots and analyzing anything that seemed out of the ordinary. One of my friends found a five-dollar bill once, which in those days was a small fortune, enough to buy a […]

Ghosts of Christmas Past

December 23, 2011

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One Christmas Eve in the early 1960s, my mother told me to go to bed, because Santa Claus wouldn’t come to homes where the children were still awake. This made sense to me. What made no sense, although I didn’t give it any thought at the time, was that the Christmas tree was set up […]

Role Models (Part 2)

March 20, 2011

I used to tie a bath towel around my neck and pretend to be Superman. I would climb onto the kitchen table and jump, then run around on the floor with outstretched arms, flying off to save the world. We didn’t have a movie camera, so I’m left with only dim memories of how ridiculous […]

Whining about Grapes

May 18, 2010

The Greeks introduced grapes to Sicily around 600 BC. That’s a lot of time to figure out how to do something, and ever since, Sicilians have been pretty successful at cultivating and processing those grapes for various uses. All four of my grandparents were from Sicily and my mother was born there, so it was […]