Since I was a little kid listening to the radio on the farm back in South Dakota, I was fascinated by two things: the radio itself and New York. Thanks to being drafted into the US Army, I lived in NYC for two years as a soldier at Governors Island, Fort Jay. Yeah, it was a tough job but somebody had to defend New York. :) Ever been to Fort Jay? You can take a free ferry boat ride there at certain times. There you will find, supposedly, the longest military combination barracks and admin building in the world. Ha! Well, it's a very long building however. I was assigned to the medics in this huge stone fortress. It also housed some of the admin for First Army back in those day, since it was First Army Headquarters. The other admin office was in the quadrangle, which was off-limits to only certain people with security IDs, It was surrounded by a moat. But life the island was wonderful, even though we draftees complained about being snatched away from our civilian life. As for me, I was stuck in a dead-end TV engineer job back in South Dakota. So this was welcome relief. My job as a dental tech was 8 to 5 with evenings and weekends off, mostly. Some chose to booze at the basement bar on the island. I chose to "do New York." We could get free or low cost tickets to Broadway shows. One if very much missed seeing was "Subways Are for Sleeping." And herein lies a true story that could is stranger than fiction. For some stupid reason, I declined to see the show, which I have come to dearly love. However the show haunts me to this day. Someone had a paperback of the book from which the show was based. He was ETSing and offered to give it away. No takers, so he proceeded to rip it up. I rescued the book and was hooked on it from then on. It was about a media guy who lost his job and became a homeless person. His experiences are written in this book not so much about him as about the creative survivor lifestyles of the NYC homeless. I kept the book, which was slightly torn from the solder trying to destroy it. Then my draftee days were up and I gave the book away. So back in the 1990s my wife and I were in NY and went to the Strand. Wonder of wonders! There was the paperback a bit more battered and torn in the same place. I bought it and keep it as a treasure. A years or so ago I got on some theater web site and pushed for an off Broadway run of SAFS. Don't know if it was from my continuous urging or not, But there WAS a run of it. I know several homeless people where I live now. That led to a documentary on cable with interviews of street people "signing." That is, they stand with signs asked for money. Yet to do is a homelessness musical, which would be comprised of short skits and songs.

This thread will continue. I have so much more to write about my beloved NYC. Bye for now, Maxy. I shall return! Somebody else's turn now. :) L'chaim!