No sooner do we lose Tom Wolfe than Philip Roth shuffles off this mortal coil. But I never did read Philip Roth; I was too busy raising my children and reading Barbara Tuchman. You see, I don’t read fiction other than mystery stories, which are my reading-to-fall-asleep by. Even less would I read contemporary fiction, and for me, Roth was contemporary so he’s not in the pantheon.
Our street, 69th Street (aka Bay Ridge Avenue), had trolleys running in both directions. Same goes for Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn. I remember vividly how boys used to delight in placing pennies on the trolley tracks, then they would wait for the coins to be totally flattened. But this was during the depression so they only used pennies. A nickel was a real money!
At my age, one prefers photos taken from a great distance away. Here is a recent photo of me taken by my daughter. She takes after my husband who would pose me against a backdrop such as a vast landscape and tell me that I was needed “just for scale”.
We just saw him on the street in New York a couple of years ago and now learn that the great writer Tom Wolfe has died. It reminds me of this cartoon…
You would not believe the week I just had. It was beyond belief.
But now back to the blog: Below you will see a very old photo of my mother and me taken on the rooftop of our building on 69th Street in Bay Ridge. I won’t reveal my age due to security reasons but this photo was taken in the early 1920s.
If you have moment, I also wanted to tell my mother’s favorite joke. Please click on the audio player below the picture…
oldjewishlady.com 