My Great Aunt Joyce is 86 years old, which means she was born in 1918. Think
about that for a moment. How many world events has this woman seen in her
lifetime? She met and married a man in the mid-to-late 1930s, at which time
he went to serve our country in World War II. I know that they had at least
one daughter together who suffered from a host of physical and mental
disabilities since birth. Her husband of almost 20 years died approximately
in 1956 or so for reasons unknown to me and she has been a widow for almost
the last 50 years. She confessed to liking another man at one time but he
was already married.
Her modest brick building, fifth-floor apartment on the East Side of
Manhattan has been her home since before Pearl Harbor. Can you imagine this?
Living in the same two bedroom apartment for over 60 years? I can barely
seem to stay in one apartment for three years. She spoke very quietly about
the amount of rent she pays, almost as if the "super" would hear her. The
average rent for a one bedroom apartment in the city right now costs about
$3,000 per month on the low end. Because of her longevity in one place and
of rent controls in place, she only pays one-third of this. Given those
facts alone, living in her apartment is like having a penthouse overlooking
Central Park West, which costs millions. She is a very, very fortunate
woman. What was her rent in 1950? Five bucks?
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This wonderful woman agreed to let me come stay with her when I went to see
Rush's two sold out 30th Anniversary Tour rock concerts at Radio City Music Hall. Had it not
been for her being in the city and welcoming me into her home, I do not know
if I would have been able to attend the two shows or experience the city
like I wanted to. I was so looking forward to spending time with her because
as we have gotten to know each other a little bit by meeting at family
events, I wanted to know more about this woman and her life. Sometimes it is
our elder family members who carry so much wisdom, but yet, especially in
her case, there is hardly anyone around to listen and benefit from hearing
what she has to say, or quite frankly, we as younger people do not inquire
or ask things of our aging relatives that will give us new insights and
knowledge to compare to our own generational experiences.
Where else would I want to spend my time other than in a residence in the
city? I did not want to stay at the New Yorker or the Hilton or the
Marriott. I was going to be on the streets of New York day and night taking
in the sights, sounds, smells and taking photographs and I wanted to live
amongst this too. As a native New Yorker, this was the only option for me. I
didn't want some nice hotel room. I wanted to hear the sounds of the city in
summer time as I turned off the lights and went to bed with the window open.
Taxis honking their horns, the chatter of people on the sidewalks, sirens
blaring down streets and avenues and the wheels of cars hitting manholes and
going clunk-clunk all the time. The truth is that New York is the city that
never sleeps. There is noise of some sort coming from somewhere every moment
of every day.
As we walked down her street for the first time to go to dinner at about 9 p.m. after I took
the A train from Howard Beach to Union Square on Tuesday via JFK, we were stopped
twice by people in the neighborhood who knew my Great Aunt Joyce. And both
of her acquaintances looked at us immediately, Great Aunt Joyce's arm on top of mine, and asked who I was because
"we looked so much alike." This was a chilling reality for me because she is
from my father's side of the family, and my dad and I are literally twins. I
had never thought of this before. After the second woman walked away after
introductions, Great Aunt Joyce whispered in my ear, "She's a lesbian. There
are a lot of those around here. And I don't see anything wrong with that."
I just had to laugh at her for providing that little piece of
information.
We found our way past theaters and across busy streets to a restaurant that
I will have to return to again. It was Chinese food, and a place that Great
Aunt Joyce has frequented for many years. The waitress seated us, greeted my
great aunt and then blurted out, "You guys sure do look like each other, are
you related to each other?" Both Great Aunt Joyce and I smiled at each other
and denied that we looked like each other and began pondering our menu
choices, which to me were brand new and plentiful. We did not know what people were talking about, really.
It was a new situation for both of us. I found it to be a fantastic,
almost exhilarating way to start my great New York Adventure.
With dietary restrictions Great Aunt Joyce had vegetables with oyster sauce.
Since I'm a huge fan of orange chicken, I was bold and chose a honey walnut
chicken which as it turned out to be was the best Chinese dish I think I
have ever had, with caramelized walnuts and batter fried chicken glazed with
the most incredibly sweet honey and lemon sauce I have ever tasted. I had a
side of lo-mein noodles, another one of my favorites. We both commented how
much food it was. But by the time I was finished, there was only a portion
of noodles left to take home in the mandatory little white carriers with the
small metal handles.
I had made it a point to tell Great Aunt Joyce that for 20 years the
cheesecake and canoles in Southern California were the worst things I have
ever tasted in my life, and that I wanted some good old fashioned
pastries from New York. Instead of stopping at her door, we continued down
two blocks to a long-time neighborhood bakery. While walking the extra
distance she gave me a little history lesson about how the mafia had owned
all these buildings back in the day and how there were gambling
establishments and such things being run, and it was not unusual for the
authorities to be on the roof of her building conducting surveillance
operations. But all that is gone now, she said, and the parking garage
across the street from her building was being sold and converted into high
end condominiums. She did not seem too pleased with this image.
The Chinese food was fantastic but the bakery was pure gastronomic heaven.
We took a number and it was hard for me to choose which canole I wanted to
have and settled on a straight plain one. Great Aunt Joyce purchased a
medium sized plain cheesecake. During our wait a few NYPD officers came in
on break, joining young people from nearby NYU (New York University), older
people and a great general mix of people whom I did not know but deep down
inside had missed just seeing in such an establishment. Not having been in
the city like this for so long made the entire evening's experiences so
familiar but so far removed. It was like a trip back in time.
Back in her apartment I finally had my canole. Great Aunt Joyce enjoyed
watching me enjoy it - that is - for about 30 seconds because that's about
how long it lasted. She offered the cheesecake but I had to turn it down. I
was too full from dinner. "I'll have it for breakfast," I said, and she just
laughed and didn't take me seriously. I had cheesecake for breakfast every
single day I was there. She had to go back out and get a second
cheesecake two days into my four day stay.
Breakfast was really the only time we had to get to know each other. For
after breakfast I would pack my backpack and head out the door, not to
return until 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. in the morning, out for 15 hours a day
sightseeing, taking in two Rush shows and a New York Yankees baseball game
up on the Bronx. But our time spent together in the morning was invaluable
and precious to me. She liked to talk politics a lot, and I'd have to say
that Great Aunt Joyce's favorite topic was President George Bush. "I hate
that Bush," she would say, time and time again, morning after morning,
pouring over her copy of the Daily News. "If I don't get this paper by 7
a.m. each morning, someone always steals it," she told me. "Everyone in the
building gets the Times except me. So you know they see this one and they
want to steal it. I just can't read the Times and the Post is just terrible."
Then there was the battle of the light night TV hosts. I've been a David
Letterman fan since day one and his show helps me feel connected to New York
all the way from San Diego. However, Great Aunt Joyce likes Jay Leno. "I
like watching Leno," she said.
"How could you like watching Leno?" I replied. "You mean you don't watch
Letterman here in the city?"
"I don't think he's very funny and I don't like him at all," Great Aunt
Joyce said. "Leno is much better."
"You mean I come out here from the West Coast and I have to watch Leno?" I
said, genuinely surprised. "That's sacrilege. You can't make me watch that
guy. I have to watch Letterman if I'm in the city. I hate Los Angeles and I
don't think Leno is very funny at all."
For a woman who has lived by herself for 60 years, she was accommodating on
the issue. She changed the channel to Letterman. I explained that Paul (the
keyboardist and band leader for the Letterman show) was Canadian, and the
band I was in the city to see was Canadian too. She wasn't impressed. I
commented that she had a nice television set and that I had almost the same
exact Panasonic 27 inch model back in San Diego.
"I got that TV when I got back from Vegas," Great Aunt Joyce said. "I went
for the first time this year with two women who go all the time. I had a
little money left over after I got back. Those two women, they always win
when they go to Vegas but they never let you know how. They never show you.
They hide it. But I did okay. I made enough to pay for the trip and then get
this nice TV," she said, with a winning smile.
Before I said goodnight for our first evening together, after Letterman was
over, I couldn't think how much of a winner I was being able to stay with
Great Aunt Joyce in New York City.
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On Saturday after our little breakfast talk and my last piece of New York
cheesecake as my main course, it was hard to find the words to say thank
you and goodbye.
"I love you very much, Great Aunt Joyce," I said to her, standing in her
building hallway with my duffel bag and backpack. I wish I could stay a little longer."
"I don't think I'd like that," Great Aunt Joyce said. For a moment, I was a little perplexed.
"I've been living alone for so long I'm used to it," she said with a smile. "Even when I was
married, I didn't want to have a man around all the time."
With a nice smile and a "goodbye" again, I turned and went into the elevator
that took me five stories to the street for the last time and at that moment
I think I understood exactly how she felt.
Just as I was leaving, she was kind and handed me a $20 bill that I tried to refuse. But she would
have none of it so I just took it. I was going to walk to Union Square and take the subway that
I had used to JFK for my 12 p.m. flight, but stood on the cross streets and pondered things for a moment.
The only thing I HADN'T ridden in the city was a taxi. I did a plane, the subway and a city bus.
And it was about 8:30 a.m. on a quiet Saturday
on the street. I crossed over to the southbound side of the street - that headed to the airport -
and put my arm out to hail a cab. I had one in 30 seconds.
Since it was so hot outside the entire time I was in the city
and I did nothing but sweat and I had two bags, I treated myself to a nice ride to JFK at a negotiated
price of a flat $45 because I wanted to use that $20 bill in the city. There was no trafic to speak of,
and I enjoyed being above ground and looking around and behind me as the city scape disappeared,
not knowing when I would be back to the place where my family and I started our lives generations
ago.