As we arrive at the BART station on Mission St. in San Francisco, I bid my son goodbye and board the train headed for the airport. Am I scared? Nervous? Unbelievably, I am not! So I went through the security check easily and landed in Atlanta, Georgia to switch planes for New York's La Guardia Airport... Being in ATL is incredible to someone as unused to flying as I have been over the past thirty years because it is huge, and, because I was flying Delta, most of it contains space provided for Delta's hub terminal. We passed, it seemed like, dozens of terminals, most of which were labeled "Delta" before taking off. The flight was uneventful until we got somewhere south of Baltimore where the weather indications were for pouring rain and the pilot announced that we'd be circling...

An hour later, the plane landed (an hour late) so as soon as I disembarked I started running, my eyes coursing the crowds, looking for my cousin, Joanie, in case she had parked the car and come inside to meet me. I ran outside where the rain was coming down in sheets and started to look for her. In a few moments, I recognized a gray Toyota with a female gesticulating wildly and I knew that had to be her!! So, I hopped in and we made it over the Whitestone Bridge and to City Island in the Bronx with trucks almost engulfing us with water... It rained heavily throughout the day, unusual for New York weather in August.

We went out the next day to Joanie's eye doctor in New Rochelle (pardon me if I'm mis-naming the place) and I was not surprised to notice the same logos and advertising for the same stores we have in California: Starbucks, Trader Joe's, Whole Earth Foods, Jennifer Convertibles... Is this what it means to be in the corporate structure?

It was great to meet Paulie, Joanie's husband who finished up a few odd jobs around the house before setting off for Florida at midnight. They've owned two houses for some time now and are trying to sell the one on City Island but are not having much success because the housing market keeps dipping lower. So, it's kind of a crunch for them...

The next day we arose and pulled out some of Grandma Mangrelli's documents -- like her passport -- and talked about how odd it was for our mothers not to have discussed our grandfather with us. We have come to discover that he died of appendicitis poisoning and also spent 10 years in Sing Sing... so, on that note, and because it was particularly sunny and bright out, we went off to look and photograph Parkchester, where I was born at 1950 E. Tremont Ave. in the Bronx... I remember the Metropolitan Oval with it's cherubs spouting water in the fountain and the strange images on the outsides of the buildings: a man with an accordian on one, a dog (which looked like a wolf) on another, a fireman, a nurse, etc.

Later on this week, I ride the subway (completely updated from the one I remember, with no graffiti and fully air-conditioned) to Manhattan to visit the Frick Collection, the MOMA (where Dan Perjouschi's art covers a wall perhaps 50' x 75' and is called "Projects 85" which displays his ideas about Capital-ism and Freedom of Expression) and the Cooper Hewitt Museum, which has a cane with a pullout map of Boston and a plexiglass iron...

Also, I visit the Indian Consulate and secure my Indian Visa, as well as visit Hunter College, where I went to school, and I photograph it for "posterity." Apart from visiting Flushing, where I lived with my family, and noting how the neighborhood has become almost entirely Asian, I am taken by surprise at the palatial size of the houses and yards... We also drive to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, passing by Grandma's house (which had a bakery downstairs which later became a deli) on the way, and I photograph some of the shops, including one which has a man and a woman rolling cigars with a little hand-held press... I also buy a small stash of regina cookies which I crave and cannot find in San Francisco. A few days before I leave, we go to Woodlawn Cemetary, where we find and photographs the Mangrelli gravesite as well as my Aunt Phil's grave...

My explorations of the city are pretty unusual in that I find everything comes back into memory easily and importantly.