You are currently browsing the stories about the “Woodside” neighborhood.
I am in my apartment in Woodside, Queens, reading C.S. Lewis. It is my first apartment that isn’t school housing, and I feel like a woman born again: reading, writing, thinking, manic with ideas and desires in a space all of my own. Though I am not Catholic- I’m technically Jewish but not in any personal way- I am fervent, [...]
The red felt blanket hung over the kitchen doorway. It looked like Swiss cheese from all the dog bites. Somehow it kept the heat from the stove in the kitchen. I sat on the dirty linoleum floor, looked out of the frosted window and saw that it was dark. As my last eight of spades hit the pile of cards, [...]
I was eleven when I got my first paper route. You had to be thirteen. “If the route manager approves it, I’ll give it to you,” Freddy Bullwinkle said. Kids called him Bullwinkle because he had big ears. A few days later it was mine. The Long Island Star Journal. “Remember, John, the most important part of the job [...]
When I was thirteen years old and in the seventh grade, I loved to go to Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets. I loved baseball and would sneak into the ball park all the time. When the Mets were on road trips, I practically lived there. It was my stadium. I would sit in the broadcast booth with [...]
I ran into Dad’s room after hearing my name called. “Take off your shoes,“ he said. I wondered what the heck was going to happen now. That morning my mom had told me that I would be going to Akron, Ohio with Dad to see the people who caused his nightmares and screaming. His war buddies. They were having a [...]
I came up the stairs from the subway. The cold air on Queens Boulevard blew hard. I turned and looked back down to see where my sisters Sara and Carol were. I was relieved to see them coming up towards me. I’d been lost before and it wasn’t fun. Behind them was my dad. He already had a lit cigarette [...]
