Memories or a Childhood

The school stood there. It had not been touched; except for the letter “C” in school, it was missing. The Isidor and Ira Strauss School was now Public S hool 198. The playground and schoolyard changed to reflect the neo-wealth of the neighborhood. Where it was once plain and drab it now was quite elegant.

The sandbox my uncle loved so much was gone. He once said the best legs in the neighborhood visited that sand box. I loved it too, but my reason was purely platonic.

No more flying through the air, off the swings to grab the twenty-five foot chain link fence, they downsized and moved the swings. The monkey bars were now a reflection of upper middle class paranoia, rubber padding everywhere. Hit your head on a bar and bounce off like a rubber ball.

Childhood outside our apartment was great. All I needed was a ten-cent pink rubber ball and I could find a game of punch ball, off the stoop, or stick ball. Sometimes life was grand and I was right in the middle of it.

Only two things remained the same in the neighborhood, the library and the school itself. The buildings I once lived in and swept, for my father, were replaced by a thirty story high-rise. The grocery store where we bought fifteen cents worth of cheese or salami was gone. The coffee shop where I lifted my first pack of baseball cards was replaced by a pharmacy. No more junkies and drunks, and that was nice to see.

Familiar sounds came from the schoolyard where I once pulled Maria’s hair. And I don’t doubt some other boy and girl are running around pulling one another’s hair in that very same schoolyard. Too bad, it didn’t last forever.

I never knew Maria’s last name. I didn’t know where she lived. I don’t remember ever kissing her or doing anything else with her but I still feel the knot on my head from a tug she once gave me. As I looked over the neighborhood and in particular the schoolyard I reminisced and felt that sense of loss one gets when a loved one has died.

Like everything else about the big apple, they are slowly erasing my past but as I descend, I know they cannot take away my memories.

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