anthony sylvestry, joey manopella, veto montalto, michael marachia, … these were some boys on the block back in the early 1960s.
not sure if i am spelling their names correctly, i hung out with veto (and his sister vita) more that the other boys, they were a little younger and friendly with my brother. but when we all hung out together we played stickball, or hide and seek, or games on our stoops and sometimes just listened to music.
since my mom was staying with jake and i for the whole summer we did a lot of reminiscing. people we used to know, people who are now dead, people we don’t know what ever happened to them. mom is 95, and has lived in a lot of neighborhoods, in pennsylvania, in greece, in manhattan, in the bronx, in brooklyn and queens, on long island.
her visit made me think of how slow time seems to go by when you’re really old and you don’t have much to do, and you knit all day to pass the time. how when you were young you had other things to fill your time and it seemed to go too fast.
i don’t know what i will do with the rest of my life, but i do know that creating things fills my time.