A blog about anything and everything New York, past and present: books and book fairs, voodoo, scams, junk mail. Madonna, Gay Lib, Wall Street, the West Village (where I live), dirty words, dying, fashion, finance, P.T. Barnum and the Donald, the Mystic Rose, upstate vs. downstate, stuffed cheetahs, and much more.
The book trailer for Forbidden Brownstones is finished. There are two versions, each lasting only thirty seconds. I will give everyone a link to the trailer very soon. It's short, but it's an experience. I've never done this before.
Forbidden Brownstones is the fifth title in my #Metropolis series of historical novels set in nineteenth-century New York.
Cities have many ways of dying. If circumstances change -- a mine gives out, a railroad goes another way, etc. -- people leave and the town just fades away. Such was the fate of the ghost towns of our old Wild West. Such too was the fate of the great Mayan sites of Central America: for some unknown reason, people abandoned them and went elsewhere.
Death by fire is less of a mystery. Chicago in 1871 was consumed by a fire that sent the inhabitants fleeing into Lake Michigan, where they watched this wooden boom town of the vast Midwest go up in flames and smoke. I grew up in Evanston, the first suburb to the north, and when we drove into the city my parents never failed to point out, as we passed them, two stone structures on North Michigan Avenue that survived the fire: the Old Water Tower and the Pumping Station, though the latter's interior had been gutted.
San Francisco too was destroyed by fire, following the great earthquake of 1906, which ruptured the water mains and left the city defenseless as fire broke out and slowly began consuming the city. I lived there for a short time on Nob Hill, and most of the structures in my neighborhood, often with charming bay windows, dated from 1906-1908, when the city began rebuilding.
New York has had many fires, but none ever destroyed the whole city. The great fire of 1835 ravaged much of the financial district, and the fire of 1845 destroyed much of the same area, but it didn't spread beyond. Today, in spite of congestion, the danger of fire is greatly reduced, because of building codes and the ability of firemen to get to a blaze in a matter of minutes. I know, having experienced two fires in my building, both caused by human error, that were quickly contained.
And death by water? Manhattan's West Village, where I live, is vulnerable. During a hurricane a few years ago, the water in the Hudson River rose up and in a twenty-foot-high wave flooded Bethune Street for a whole block before subsiding. That unprecedented event flooded the basement of Westbeth, the huge artists' residence, leaving the residents without power. My building, several blocks from the river, was not affected, but we lost power for four days, because the generators in a basement elsewhere had been flooded. So New York is vulnerable, but Manhattan does not face the full brunt of hurricanes; that privilege is reserved for the New Jersey shore and Long Island.
In Chicago it's another story. I relate to Second City, having grown up near it and stared wide-eyed when my mother took me there by the El, and the tracks crossed the Chicago River just after the massive Merchandise Mart. Seeing no tracks, just the river far below, I felt that we were hurtling through space with no support beneath us: scary, but exciting.
Chicago, I now learn, was built on a swamp. Why build at all, given the soggy ground? Because geography made it inevitable. As the native peoples had known for centuries, a brief portage let one go from the Chicago River to the nearby Des Plaines River, thus connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, since the Des Plaines flowed into the Illinois River, and that river flowed into the Mississippi. And when the roads and then the railroads came, any road or line intending to reach the northern Midwest and West -- Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana, for instance -- had to pass around the southern end of Lake Michigan, where a fort and then a town was built. And that town became a metropolis, the city of Chicago.
Chicago and my hometown Evanston get their drinking water from Lake Michigan. So what does Chicago do with its sewage? It pumps it into the Chicago River, and as that river flows away from the lake, its water is cleansed by a series of treatment facilities, so that clean water finally flows into the Illinois River and the Mississippi. And this system, keeping Lake Michigan free of sewage, worked for decades, including the time when I grew up in nearby Evanston. But it didn't work forever.
What happened? Starting a few years ago, rain, rain, rain. Rainstorms the like of which no one alive had ever witnessed. On May 17, 2020, the tainted water in the Chicago River rose to record levels. To keep it from flooding downtown Chicago, some of it had to be released into Lake Michigan, endangering the city's water supply. This was meant to be a brief emergency measure, but the unprecedented rain continued, so in desperation the gates were opened and closed repeatedly. Basements were flooded, and electrical power was shut off. With more such record-breaking rains predicted, the city found itself in a struggle against the lake, whose waters were rising ominously. But even before that crisis, back in 1987 gale-driven winds had driven swollen Lake Michigan waters into the city.
When my parents drove us into the city of Chicago, they usually went by way of Lake Shore Drive, a lovely lakeside highway that always had the lake in view, often just a short distance away. But now I learn that back in 1987 the lake flooded Lake Shore Drive. Lake Shore Drive, that charming highway of my childhood, under water? Inconceivable -- or so I always thought. The fact of it shatters all my assumptions, the naive presumption that, just because some things always were, they would never change. And change they did, as more storms sent Lake Michigan waters shoreward to demolish giant concrete barriers, float 3,000-pound cars, and flood low-lying city streets. Chicago's south side has become a war zone, with patio furniture replaced by sand bags, concrete blocks, and barriers. Aware that floods are eating away the very foundations of their buildings, residents live in fear.
If Lake Shore Drive can be flooded, why not all the shorelines of New York? Why not Greenwich Village? Why not any low-lying neighborhood in the city? Death by water -- the death of a whole city -- now seems like a distinct possibility. Not today, perhaps, and not tomorrow. But sometime, sooner or later, in the future. Those who study long-term weather conditions do not rule it out. Our future: death by water.
Source note: This post was inspired in part by Dan Egan's article, "The Battle Between a Great City and a Great Lake," in the New York Times of Sunday, July 11, 2021.
A Male Prostitute and His Clients: the Lawyer, the Count, the Minister, the Alderman, and the Lover of Boys, plus His Meddling Aunt
This is a fictional interview with Tom Vaughan, the protagonist of The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in my #Metropolis series of historical novels set in nineteenth-century New York. Tom, a respectably raised young man, tells how he decided to become a male prostitute and fell in love with Walter Whiting, his most difficult client. I then interview other characters, too. This is the only gay-themed work in the Metropolis series. There is some gay sex (inevitable, given the subject), but nothing too graphic and no porn. Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
THE MALE PROSTITUTE
Me: And so, Tom Vaughan, you admit you are a male prostitute.
Tom: Oh yes, but not just any kind. I service a rather select crowd.
Me: You’re not ashamed of your occupation?
Tom: Not at all. My clients need me. For some of them, I'm all they've got.
Me: But they have to pay. Quite a bit, I’m told.
Tom: Of course. I’m in demand.
Me: You were respectably raised. How did you get into this business?
Tom: Through a friend who was in it. He told me I was a b.b., a beautiful boy, and I could make money and have fine clothes.
Me: But aren’t some of your clients, well, repulsive? Fat, jowly, balding…
Tom: Yes, but there’s always something about them – the eyes, a deep, manly voice, elegant manners – that is attractive. I focus on that.
Me: Who are these clients?
Tom: Mostly married men. Lawyers, judges, merchants, aldermen, ministers…
Me: Ministers?
Tom: Oh yes. Even my mother’s minister, whom I see every Sunday at church. We met just once, but it was memorable.
Me: How can a man of the cloth justify seeing a male prostitute?
Tom: Ask him.
Me: All right, I will. But remember, you can’t be a beautiful boy forever.
Tom: You have to know when to get out. I hope to team up with Walter Whiting. He’s a great scholar and lecturer.
Me: One of your clients, I gather.
Tom: My most difficult client. I’ve even met his wife.
Me: His wife? This is getting complicated.
Tom: Interview him. He’ll explain.
Me: I will.
Tom: And my other clients. Talk to them as well.
Me: All right, I will.
HIS CLIENTS
The lawyer
Tom Vaughan? A clever little rascal, he caught on fast. Stuck
his tongue out at me, teased me, ran around the office knocking stuff over, until I caught him and spanked him. He loved it.
The count
Yes, yes, I remember Tom: auburn hair, pert nose, sensual lips. At gala I give, he jump out of cake naked, astonish guests, but then there is riot. When I leave for Europe, he cry, I cry. I never see again.
The minister
Ah yes, Tom Vaughan. I trust this will remain just between us. When he came to my rectory, we were both astonished, but we carried it off rather well. Justify my seeing him? So few understand. Desire is holy. What happene between us was glory.
The alderman
Oh Holy Mother of God and all the saints in heaven, forgive, forgive, it was a moment of folly with that randy rum slut of a lad so ripe for reamin’, not a Catholic, niver would I do it with a Catholic, oh niver, niver, niver, just a pagan or Methodist or somethin’, a cunning sodomite set in me way by the Divil.
The lover of boys
Yes, I am Walter Whiting, and a lover of boys. Tom Vaughan interests me, but experience has taught me caution. Does my wife know? Of course. I explained this all to her – ever so gently – long ago. She insists on meeting Tom. What will then happen I I don’t presume to say. And if Tom's brother ever discovers Tom's double life, it could get ugly.
Jessica Ames As Tom Vaughan's Aunt Jessie and a born meddler, I take an interest in him. He has possibilities. But he's up to something. He has a dark secret and whatever it is, I intend to find out. When Jessica Ames puts her mind to something, she rarely fails.
*** *** ***
Tom has to cope with Aunt Jessica, Walter Whiting, his brother, and a stranger who assaults him. How does he do it? Read the book. Available fromAmazon and Barnes & Noble.
My new nextdoor neighbor Jennah asked to interview me on gay sexuality, in celebration of Gay Pride Month, June. Here is the interview. If it seems long, it's because she and I kept thinking of things to add. Even so, she edited it to make it shorter. My only criticism of it is that it makes me out as some kind of hero, when I'm not. Like most people, I just plodded on, wanting to be myself, whoever or whatever that might be.
A bonus for those who read through the interview: Bob in drag!
Not me, though, I never did it. My crowd didn't do drag; his did. So I was a bit uncomfortable watching it, until I realized that it was a performance, a bit of theater, and I was the audience. No one expected me to do drag, but no show is complete without an audience. Realizing this, I was able to relax into it. And what a show it was!
Processed with VSCO with b5 preset- provided by Cliff Browder
In honor of Pride Month, I interviewed my 92-year-old neighbor, Clifford Browder; he is a long-time New York resident of sixty years, a published author, & a proud gay man. His story is a sweet one full of self-discovery, love, adventure, & sex. For many people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, each story of self-discovery is different but can bear so many similarities. This validates the unique experience it is to be queer, making these stories all the more tender, relatable, & necessary. So, here’s Cliff’s story of navigating his sexuality, love, & life.
High School
While attending high school in his home state of Illinois, Cliff started dating a young lady. For a teenager in the ’40s, being gay wasn’t even really an option, but there was always something in him that never felt settled.
“In high school, I went steady with a girl, and I was attracted to girls; I have always been attracted to women. But there was one thing missing… Good, ole steamy LUST,” he said with a laugh.
“When I was going steady with this girl, it was our first big affair on both sides. We were sweet 16, and she was very patient, but I did get around to kissing her eventually. While we went steady, we had wonderful times together, but there was something in me that couldn’t accept this happiness. I would get angry at her for no reason, and it could spoil the evening. It bothers me to this day that this was the case. I just didn’t know myself. Now, with my ancient wisdom,” he said with a smile, “I know I just needed to know myself better, but at 16, how much self-knowledge are you really going to have?”
He explains, “We broke up, on my initiative, but after that, we still dated. We would update each other about the other dates we had. And we necked like crazy! I no longer felt bound to her but was still involved with her. We were just terrific friends & during all that time, I didn’t think of myself as gay. I didn’t even know what it was.”
Cliff headed to California for college after graduating high school.
He dated some women during his college years but claimed he must have been a “boring date” for the ladies since he never wanted to pursue anything sexual with them. During this time, he only knew of one gay man at his university (though this wasn’t how they referred to gays at the time), but he still didn’t consider himself gay. Looking back, he says he knows some of his friends were gay as well. But in the late ’40s, this was just the way it was! It wasn’t anywhere near normalized yet.
After college, Cliff moved home to Illinois for a year & struggled. He was later offered a full-ride scholarship to live & continue studying French (as he did in college) in France. He says this opportunity genuinely saved his life & gave him something to live for. During his time in France, he was hitchhiking & recalls one of his first conscious thoughts that led him to believe he may be, in fact, gay.
“I was hitchhiking once during my second summer in France. There was this, I call it, camaraderie of the road. A guy on a motorcycle stopped to pick me up and take me to an intersection where he knew I would have more traffic. I just instinctively knew that if that guy made a pass at me, I would just fall into his arms. I didn’t really think about it; it was just a sudden feeling.”
It wasn’t until he moved to New York to attend Columbia University that he began to explore his sexuality truly.
Cliff says, “A friend of mine from college, who was gay, was making discreet passes at me. He brought me out, just as a nice thing to do for a buddy; He wasn’t enamored with me, which helped me process & focus on this new development.”
Cliff explained that his friend had to take off quickly, leaving him alone after his first sexual experience with a man. This left him overwhelmed & feeling like he had to do quite a lot of debriefing on his own. So, he went to a basement restaurant at Columbia to get some food & ponder his new experience.
Cliff then began venturing out to gay bars to meet even more exciting & like-minded individuals.
“I was adjusting to a lot after moving to New York. School, making new friends, going to gay bars, & learning about gay life. I was sort of just learning who I was in this world,” says Cliff.
In New York, Cliff explained, there were pockets of gay life relatively easy to find in The Village, but this didn’t mean that it was normalized yet. This was still the 50’s, after all.
“During this time, the mafia owned most of the gay clubs & the police were being paid off to keep them open. You would be in a crowded or even overcrowded gay bar on weekend evenings, & police in uniforms would come in. They wouldn’t even bat an eye at what they were seeing & head to the back of the bar to talk to management. Then, they would come back out & leave. We took for granted that this was the way life was,” he explains.
Towards the end of Cliff’s time in school at Columbia, he began feeling an overwhelming itch for newness, adventure, unknowns, & self-discovery. He quickly finished his dissertation & moved to San Francisco, California, to begin a new era of his life.
His first day in San Francisco was nothing short of the adventure he was so eagerly anticipating.
After dropping his things in his room at the Y, he wandered to Coit Tower to explore the city a bit. While at the tower, he met a man named Dick, who almost immediately struck up a conversation with Cliff and then invited him to lunch. He accepted & experienced his first sexual encounter in San Fran, fully embracing his new life in a new city.
“Later that day,” he begins, “I went to The Coexistence Bagel Shop, which was a hangout for beatniks (a young person in the 1950s and early 1960s belonging to a subculture associated with the beat generation) & tourists. There I was, looking at a map of the city, & a guy said to stay at The Golden Eagle Hotel. I moved in for months & only paid $5 a week! $1.50 a night or $5 for the whole week!”
“That night, I went back to the Coexistence Bagel (having just had sex) & another guy approached me. This is not at all how I lived in New York, but he was very likable & invited me back to his place; I spent the night there. He wasn’t one to get right into things, so we slept side by side & very stealthily through the night; his hands made their way over to me. I had never had sex twice in one day & it was not the way I was going to live in the future, but it was part of my new life.” Two meetings of happenstance during his first week in California with passionate flings resulted in much-needed friendships. Cliff remained friends with both men & saw each of them quite regularly.
During his time in San Francisco, Cliff taught at a Jesuit school, made many friends through his social life, & fulfilled his longing for something “new.” Cliff was later offered two new job positions out of state after living in California for a few years—one in Walla Walla, Washington, & one in New York City.
“It really didn’t take much consideration. What kind of gay life would there be in Walla Walla??”
30, Flirty, & Thriving in the City
So, he packed up his life in Cali & headed back to NYC to teach French at St. John’s. Cliff loved his time teaching at St. John’s & said that the students were absolutely delightful. He also shared that he could tell some staff & faculty were gay, but sexuality was definitely not an open conversation since it was a Catholic school.
This didn’t stop him from continuing to enjoy the gay scene back in New York. Cliff rented an apartment on Jane St. in the West Village which happened to be close to many gay bars & clubs. He was even reunited with his first Californian fling, Dick, again in NYC.
Aside from exploring his sexuality, Cliff also began exploring other areas of himself that he hadn’t spent much time navigating yet. He started going to therapy for no reason other than to get to know himself better. “I sensed that I needed it for self-knowledge. It helped me look at parts of my life that I had never looked at closely. I learned how to show emotion & to not be afraid to show emotion.”
During this time, he also began stage writing. Although it wasn’t his full-time job yet, Cliff found solace in being creative & putting his words on paper.
Now that Cliff was in his 30’s, he’d seen many friends marry, including gay friends. However, these gay friends weren’t marrying someone of the same gender; they were marrying women. This phenomenon happened because identifying as gay wasn’t socially accepted yet in the 1960s, many people would still marry, heterosexually, to start families & try to have a “normal” life.
“For a while, I was tempted by ‘straight life’ because if you’re going to ‘change’, it would have to be now; I couldn’t wait forever. But like I said, I was always attracted to women, but the question was, how far could I go?”
“A friend of mine named Eddy got married and had a son before he realized he was gay. He wanted a second son, but it took a great effort to manage that, though he did. Finally, he told his wife they should agree to go their separate ways, but she wanted to stay married to him, even so. They were in Europe, where he taught in an American school, but then they came back here, he got a house in Vermont where he planted his family, and during the week, he taught in a school in Boston. On weekends, he rejoined his family in Vermont, but he frequented a gay bathhouse in Boston during the week,”
Cliff explains, “A mutual friend and I agreed that this arrangement was good for him, unconventional though it was. For the first time in his life, he could satisfy his gay sexuality, but his family was not affected. Conventional morality would condemn the situation, but I don’t think it could fully appreciate its complexities.”
In the later 60’s while on a trip with friends, Cliff attended the show called “Pajama Game” & had one of the most unexpectedly dreamy evenings.
“The only seats we could get were the front row, which wasn’t ideal. The chorus came right up to the footlights. There was a chorus boy upfront & our eyes met for just a split second. After the show, we went to a bar & I saw the chorus boy across the room. He approached me & said, “You’re the one who wasn’t applauding!” As it turned out, he remembered our eyes meeting too.”
“One of the chorus boy’s friends who owned a car offered to drive us to where each of us was staying that evening. In the car, I reached around and stroked the chorus boy’s neck without the driver noticing. Ted (chorus boy) mentioned to me later, “I liked that.” We dropped him off at his hotel, and then the driver dropped me off at mine. It was one of those warm summer nights & I just wasn’t ready to go back to my room. So, I walked back towards Ted’s hotel & who did I meet coming toward me? TED!”
Cliff says, “It was one of those things you imagine happening in a novel! He took me back to his luxurious hotel room & we kinda fumbled around with sex but were pretty tired. I woke him up to watch the sunrise together that morning. Then, later that morning, Ted had a date with the same guy who had driven us home the night before. I was trying to get away before, but he ended up seeing me. It was a bit awkward, but oh well. Ted told me to come around & see him again at intermission for their last performance of the show that same evening.” He did, of course.
Love, Life, & Everything In Between
Around this same time, Cliff decided to quit his job, live on his savings for a bit, & pursue writing. He was offered a freelance position not too long after, through some connections he had, so his decision paid off in his favor. He now worked remotely (very ahead of his time) & he was pursuing a career that he thoroughly enjoyed.
While Cliff was in this stage of his life, he met a man named Bob who became his life-long romantic partner.
“In 1968, I met Bob at a gay bar named near the West Village. He was sitting & facing the wall, away from the crowds. I noticed right away how tall he was. He was reading a Jane Austen book: Persuasion. I walked over to him & asked, “Are you reading this for class because you have to or just because you want to?” He was very courteous; that was the first thing that registered to me about him. Bob responded, “I’m just reading it for pleasure.”
“Then we started talking & I discovered that he had wanted to learn French, so I spouted some French with him. As we were leaving the bar, Bob told me to go ahead of him & wait outside for five minutes, then he would follow. The name of the game that night was persuasion!”
“We walked back to my place, but Bob wasn’t interested in coming in. So, I walked him back to his place somewhere near 5th avenue. He let me come in & I sat on his bed. I remember he looked a little shocked, but there really wasn’t much seating in his place. He didn’t want to have sex that night, but he did tell me he wanted to see me again.”
Cliff says while laughing, “He counts the day we met as our anniversary; I count the day we first had sex.”
For the first few years, they spent a couple of nights a week together & lived in their separate apartments, but after two years of exclusively dating each other, they decided to look for a place together. So, in 1970, they rented the apartment in the West Village that Cliff still lives in today! Cliff remarked they had only looked around for about five minutes before saying, “We’ll take it!”
They were ecstatic to get settled & slowly began furnishing the apartment with Salvation Army furniture, much of which is still in the apartment today.
“When his friends met me, they approved because they knew he could use some stability & Bob gave me companionship. We had our ups & downs. The first three years, we didn’t know each other yet.”
“One time, after we’d been together for several years, we had an honesty hour on our couch that used to be right here,” he gestures to the wall he’s sitting against in his comfy chair.
“My one indiscretion,” Cliff began, “happened when Bob wasn’t just out of the city, he was off in France. When he went off for the first time to Paris, I told him I didn’t mind if he wanted to have a little fling over there as long as it ended when he came back here. He insisted he wasn’t going to do that, but while he was gone, I connected with a man I already knew & we had fabulous sex. I was more interested in him than he was in me, which was good because there wasn’t any temptation to have an affair. He ended up losing his shorts while he was up here,” he said, chuckling, “I had to find them before Bob returned home. They had slipped between the bed & the wall, so I mailed them back to him.”
“Bob’s honesty hour was a bit more complicated. He had an affair with a man named Don in Washington DC back in the day. I knew he was seeing a friend Don upon his visits to DC for work, but I didn’t know that they were still lovers—but they were. While talking about Bob’s affair with him, I learned I wasn’t a jealous person. I have seen jealousy kill relationships.”
Cliff described him & Bob as a pretty conventional gay couple. However, Bob would love to get dressed up in drag with some of his friends for fun. Both of these photos are of Bob decked out in his drag attire.
Processed with VSCO with b5 preset- Provided by Cliff BrowderProcessed with VSCO with b5 preset- Provided by Cliff Browder
Considering the time Cliff grew up, I was curious how navigatinghis life with family played out.
When I inquired about his family dynamic & his being gay, he responded, “Back before Gay Lib, you didn’t tell your family you were gay. Result: They never really knew me—not completely. After Gay Lib, I came out to my two first cousins, both of whom had met Bob and liked him. They had guessed as much; I merely confirmed it. So there isn’t a lot to tell. My father died while I was in Europe. My mother and brother were in Illinois; I was in New York and saw them only at Christmas unless there was some special reason for me to go there at other times. My mother was not a clinging mother, but she quietly regretted that I showed no sign of getting married. But Bob sent her Christmas gifts that delighted her. They never met.”
“When Bob wanted me to meet his parents, I thought he was crazy, but once I met them, I realized that he had always introduced his friends, gay or not, to his family, so this was not so unusual, and we had many pleasant family dinners.”
Bob sadly passed away a few years ago, but since his death, Cliff has read all of the many journals that Bob left behind (an entire shelf’s worth).
“I know from Bob’s diaries that he found it so wonderfully satisfying that we knew each other’s bodies so well. He loved that this part of his life he could just relax into. We got to know each other so well. It was so calming to know each other.”
“Once,” Cliff began with a laugh, “our bed collapsed. It was a Salvation Army bed & we didn’t have clamps on it. The lack of those could have caused the collapse, or maybe it was just the action.”
Cliff (left) & Bob (right) Processed with VSCO with b5 preset
Cliff still writes his blog from home, he’s a published author many times over, & he has friends who visit him often.
One of the things I love the most about listening to Cliff’s story is that he always seemed to remain true to himself even when it felt hard. No matter how you identify, what your gender is, what you believe in, what you want to do, or where you want to go, remembering to listen to that little inner voice that is quietly screaming at us who we are, is SO important..
Forbidden Brownstones has received another good review, four out of four stars, by a reviewer for OnlineBookClub.org. The reviewer says:
"Browder's appreciation for the history and spirit of New York City ... comes out on every page, making it very difficult to put the book down."
For the full review, go here. It is the fifth title in my #Metropolis series of historical novels set in nineteenth-century New York.
July 4: Honored Holiday or Time to Goof Off?
Three years ago I polled my friends, business associates, and blog followers about what, if anything, they did on the Fourth of July. Here is a summary of the results, originally published in full as post #418.
So what did we do on the Fourth? Some twenty answers are in, enough to draw some conclusions.(One of my publishers declined to answer, perhaps puzzled by my innocent intentions.) Nobody entered Nathan's traditional hot-dog-eating contest on Coney Island, and for that I am grateful.
Few of us are patriotic as the old-time Tammany politico G. Washington Plunkitt understood the word. He told of sitting with other Tammany stalwarts in a hot, humid Tammany Hall listening to a reading of the Declaration of Independence, followed by four hours of speeches and music, before the champagne- and beer-anointed celebration could begin in the basement. Corrupt in other ways, Tammany honored the flag and the holiday.
Here now are our ways of doing the Fourth, presented in categories.Admittedly, these categories are arbitrary, since a given answer may fall into two or three of them.I’ll use the category that seems most relevant.
TRAVEL
·Friends who were traveling had little time for the Fourth. One friend was waiting with her husband at Calgary International Airport in Alberta, Canada, for a flight to New York, returning from a two-week visit to Japan and her native Taiwan.
·Another friend was flying home to New Jersey after visiting his family in Traverse City, Michigan, which was hosting the National Cherry Festival, with cherries all over the place. Back home in New Jersey, from his building's terrace he watched fireworks at night.
·Another friend was with her husband in Paris, with no special plans for the Fourth.But inspired by me, she decided to read the Declaration of Independence.
RURAL AND SHORESIDE DELIGHTS
·One friend was with her partner at their country house, hacking at the jungle of weeds in their garden, then taking a quick dip in their pool.A light lunch, then a nap, then dinner in a nearby restaurant.No interest in the nonsense being staged in Washington; hopes afternoon rains will descend on the presidential (i.e. Trump) parade.
Another friend was staying with friends, “unplugged,” at a lake house that, ironically, belongs to a patrician English family. They had grilled hamburgers and sausages on the Fourth, and discussed but didn’t see fireworks.He is newly devoted to kayaking.
A friend who lives on Staten Island went to the Fort Wadsworth Overlook and sat in the shade on a lawn chair, gazing out at all of New York harbor, with the city in the distance. As she did so, she listened to a seaside concert of band music from several decades.
·A friend who lives on a little island off midcoast Maine consumed a cold tuna salad and strawberry shortcake, then watched a beautiful sunset and the fireworks of the towns along the coast, their noisesounding like distant thunder.She had flags and bunting on display at her shop and on the front porch of a nearby guest house, which for me is a reminder of how the Fourth used to be celebrated, and maybe still is, in small towns throughout the country.
FAMILY
·One resident of Lincoln, Nebraska, went to a lake outside of town where his grandmother used to live, and visited with nieces and nephews, and lit fireworks by day and by night.(Fireworks are legal in Nebraska on and around July 4.)Result: sunburn.
·A resident of Alexandria, Virginia, had a cookout on the Fourth with his partner, parents, siblings, and cousins by the dozens, prior to a big family reunion on July 6, some thirty strong.
NOTHING MUCH
·
A friend in Massachusetts said that he didn't really observe any holiday.
·A friend in North Carolina made a delicious banana nut bread on the Fourth, but otherwise did little else.
·A (now former) publisher of mine, a resident of south Texas, announced emphatically that she doesn’t celebrate holidays.
·A friend in Brooklyn Heights went to a barbecue in New Jersey, but then came back to the Heights and hid in his apartment, as his beloved Brooklyn Heights Promenade got overrun with people wanting to see the Macy’s fireworks.He felt grumpy like a true New Yorker.
·One friend ignored the holiday completely because his longtime partner had had some kind of an attack and was now in the hospital for tests, unable to recognize his partner or remember his name. My heart goes out to them both.
RAREANDSPECIAL
·One friend went to a couple of friends’ barbecues, but also donated money to RAICES, a Texas nonprofit, in support of treating immigrants humanely at the border.She feels queasy about celebrating the nation’s hypocrisies with regard to liberty past and present.
·Another respondent and a friend saw three movies in three different theaters back to back, getting drinks or snacks near the theater entrances in between.
·A cousin in Kokomo, Indiana, said that Kokomo celebrates its automotive heritage just as enthusiastically as it celebrates the nation’s birthday. Local pioneers claim with some credibility to have produced the first U.S. automobile (sorry, Henry Ford). The festival fills the town square with booths selling food and silly games for kids, while a nearby park becomes a carnival with all kinds of rides. She avoided the brouhaha at all costs, but took bran muffins to a friend recovering from surgery.Otherwise, she hid.But her husband, being a beer distributor, had no time off; his trucks ran all day.
·Another Kokomo resident sat with family under a beach umbrella and did some reading at a nearby quarry that has a beach, and then did a few laps on jet skis, an aquatic motorcycle.
TRADITIONAL
For me, a traditional Fourth involves flags, a parade, and fireworks.When I grew up in Evanston, Illinois, long ago, my family flew the flag from a second-story window, as did our neighbors.Then there was a long parade that we watched on nearby Central Street, and a magnificent display of fireworks at Dyke Stadium, the Northwestern University football stadium, that night.
Personal fireworks were still legal, but could not be sold in Evanston.We lit sparklers that traced patterns of sparks when we waved them in the air at night; little sticks called snakes that, when lit, stretched out like tiny black snakes; and Zebra firecrackers, which popped and crackled wickedly.Somehow we managed not to burn or blow ourselves up, but this was all small-time kid stuff compared to Dyke Stadium at night.These memories of the Fourths of long ago were matched by only one respondent, maybe two.
·On the afternoon of the Fourth, a friend in Lincoln, Nebraska, took her kids to a neighborhood party in a parkThere the kids paraded down a sidewalk with decorated bikes and wagons, following which they ran in a sack race and tossed balloons.In the evening she took them to their grandmother’s place and (quite legally) set off fireworks.
·Another friend, based here in the city, had dinner with friends who live near the East River.Then they went out to watch the traditional fireworks that were set off down around the Brooklyn Bridge.
And what did I do?After reading the Declaration (nine minutes), not much.I made a note at the time, but I can’t find I, it must be lost.I cooked in, but I don’t remember what.And I listened to classical music on WQXR, so I must have had a dose of Bach and Beethoven and Vivaldi, though I can’t be sure.
CONCLUSION
Most of us don’t celebrate the Fourth in the traditional, old-fashioned way. Maybe we take our freedom for granted.But maybe just doing things that our society allows us to do, whether travel or relaxing in the country or kayaking or jet skiing or seeing movies or just loafing about, is a way of celebrating freedom.Instead of talking about it, you just do it, you live it.
