Journal

I have a new apartment! The security deposit is paid and I can begin moving stuff in any time after May 15^th.

I’m sure my feelings will flip back and forth a few times by the end of the month. Right now, I’m surprised to find myself filled with a pleasant anticipation. Ordinarily I have a dread of moving, what with pulling up roots and all. On the other hand, as soon as I moved in here I knew, on some sub-conscious level, that I wouldn’t be staying more than a year. I guess that’s why I’ve never really minded having all the storage and moving boxes stored in the corners of my bedroom.

The new place represents some changes and explorations that I’ve been thinking about for some time now, and it meets my current economic needs. While it may seem impulsive, I’ve actually thought about it a lot over the past few months and there are plenty of escape options.

The new apartment is a two-bedroom unit (appliances, heat and hot water included) over a store on the other side of town. When I made the appointment and went to look at it, I had no intentions of taking the place. It was just curiosity that took me there. Half an hour in the place and I was writing a check. Three things sold me on it. The place is very well kept, there’s no lease, and it’s cheap.

There are two stores on the street level, one’s a hair and nail parlor and I don’t remember what the other is, (an antiques shop I think) and there are two apartments upstairs. The storefronts are new and the paint and brickwork are in good shape. There’s parking and a three-car garage in the back. The blacktop and the garage were equally well maintained.

One of the things I’d thought about before apartment shopping was neighbors, specifically, hearing the neighbors and them hearing me. When I lived in the high-rise is really wasn’t an issue because of all the concrete. Where I live now, well it would take a book for me to dish all the dirt I’ve heard through the floors and the walls. I’m sure the neighbors have their own book about me too.

I don’t like living on the first floor because I like to leave the windows open and it presents a security issue. Futher, I don’t like living under anyone because I don’t like hearing the footsteps and the sounds from the TV and stereo coming through the ceiling. So I thought an apartment over a store might be just the thing. My stereo would never bother the downstairs neighbors and there would never be any late night parties to bother me. Upstairs, there would be a hallway to separate me from the neighbors. And there is.

I was amazed at how clean the stairs to the apartments were. The walls had no marks or gouges and polished wood gleamed on either side of the cleanest rubber stair treads I’ve ever seen. The apartment smelled of fresh paint and there’s new vinyl flooring in both the kitchen and the bath. All the windows are new vinyl thermopane units that tilt in for cleaning and are covered with brand new mini-blinds, cheesy ones, but I at least won’t have to buy any.

The living room is just a bit bigger than the one here and it offers a couple of possibilities for furniture arrangement. The only eyesore in the place is the carpet. It’s one of the 70s sculptured things in a multi-toned brown and while it’s clean, it’s matted in the high-traffic areas. I can live with a tacky rug. I think.

The eat-in kitchen is bigger too, and has tons of cupboards and counter space. The fridge has a real freezer! I’m so sick of tiny internal freezer compartments behind plastic doors. I’m also sick of apartment-sized stoves and was delighted to find a standard-sized unit with a ducted range hood. The sink has seen better days, but it’s nothing a Rubbermaid sink mat can’t hide.

The bigger bedroom (mine) is roughly the same size as the one I’m in now and it has two closets. There’s a walk-in, complete with its own window and radiator, and a smaller one that’s perfect for off-season stuff and junk. On the down side, there’s no hallway so one must walk through my bedroom get to Jeffrey’s bedroom, and the bathroom (which has a tub, not just a shower stall!) is off his bedroom.

The poor layout and the issues Jeffrey and I have had are negated by the fact that there’s no lease. If either/or becomes unworkable, I (or he) can be out on 30-days notice. This was the selling point that tipped things in favor of the roommate idea. That and economics.

The new place is dirt-cheap. It’s $90/month less than where I’m living now. Jeffrey’s DSS came through and they’ll cut a check directly to the landlord for his half of the rent. That leaves me to pay my half, $237.50/month. We’ll split the electric (about $25 each) and the non-internet part of the cable bill. I’ll pick up the phone bill except for long-distance and any calls he takes from the jail. All this means I’ll be able to afford to work in a paper hat if it comes to that.

In real estate, the motto is, “Location, location, location.” Moving to the west side is going to be seen as a huge step down. A few years back I wouldn’t have driven down Lyell Avenue. Now I’ll have an apartment smack in the middle of it. (For stalkers (don’t I wish) and fellow Rochesterians, it’s near the corner of Child St.) The Lyell Avenue Revitalization Committee and the police have done a good job reducing the crime rate and attracting investment, but it’s an ongoing project.

Transportation and shopping are of course major concerns for me. It’s on two bus lines, the #3 Lyell and the #16 Crosstown, and it’s a short walk to the #9 Jay/Maple. The bank, post office and a Wegman’s (the area’s largest supermarket chain) are all further out Lyell Ave. I’ll have my choice of several corner grocery stores within walking distance, a real meat market in the next block, a laundromat and my pharmacy are each a half-block away. There’s a branch of the library about 10 minutes away and the neighborhood is peppered with all kinds of restaurants. A nearby rib joint looked (and smelled) particularly interesting.

It’s all a big load off my mind knowing that I’ll have a place where I can afford to live even if I have to take up panhandling. A minimum-wage job will cover my expenses with funds to spare and I’ll be rolling in the dough at half of my former salary. The resulting loss of financial pressure has lightened my mood considerably.

I feel almost cheery.

Later...

Of course there’s always a story involved when Jeffrey and I are out. Saturday was no exception. We met at his mom’s house and walked over to the new place from there. When we reached the corner of Lyell and Child, we stopped while I checked my notes for the address to decide if we should go left or right.

Bang! Thunk!

I looked up from my notes to see Jeffrey drop all his stuff on the sidewalk and run out into the street. A Jeep Cherokee had turned right on red and hit a little old lady in the crosswalk, not five feet from us. She was trying to get up, which is a natural reaction because lying in the street is both dangerous and embarrassing. Jeffrey made sure she stayed down so she wouldn’t injure herself further in case anything was broken.

The street suddenly filled with people, some making sure the driver of the Jeep didn’t flee and others making sure traffic didn’t run over Jeffrey and the old lady. I dashed into the restaurant on the corner (a Caribbean place that smelled very good and I promised myself I’d try) and called 911. Meanwhile someone else ran across the street to the firehouse.

The ambulance was there before the fire department if you can imagine that. In a flash the paramedics had the their neck braces and backboards out and were tending to the lady. The police, (in the obligatory four cars) arrived only moments afterwards. Response time: 60 seconds. The ambulance whisked her away less than five minutes after she was hit. Emergency services are very good in that neighborhood.

Once the officials had everything under control, we found the address and the landlord waiting out on the step. After introductions, Jeffrey excused himself and went back to provide details to the investigating officer and offer himself as a witness should the need occur.

I think the landlord was as impressed with Jeffrey that he jumped right in and got involved, as we were with the way the people in the neighborhood flooded out on to the street to help. Sure there were a few gawkers, but it did my heart good to see a human wall form on the street to protect the lady from the stream of traffic.


It reminded me why I do my best to never cross a street at an intersection. I know it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but this is a case where conventional wisdom is just plain wrong.

Think about it:

At an intersection I have to worry about traffic coming from four directions. In the middle of the block there are only two directions to worry about.

At an intersection you never know if someone’s going to run the light or jump the light. In the middle of the block all the cars are moving so it’s easier to predict their behavior.

At an intersection cars preparing to turn right on red are looking at the traffic in the oncoming lane, not in front of their car, (as was the case with the Cherokee that hit the little old lady.) In the middle of the block their eyes are forward, most of the time anyway.

Finally, at an intersection pedestrians have to be on the defensive for drivers who aren’t paying attention. But drivers don’t expect to see a pedestrian in the middle of the block. It instantly gets their attention and if you have their attention, they're much less likely to run you down. It also puts them on the defensive, which in my mind, is where it should be, given they’re responsible for piloting a ton-and-a-half or more of steel.

Friday May 5, 2000

Spring finally arrived in Rochester on Wednesday. I have a different tool I use to measure the seasons.

See, some people use the calendar and there are all sorts of dates you can use. They don’t seem to fit for me though. You can forget the official date, March 21^st. That’s still a season we call winter. If it can snow, it’s still winter in my book. It’s not spring yet because it’s Daylight Saving Time, or when they fill the Erie Canal, or when the law says you have to remove your snow tires or because it’s after Easter. Not for me anyway.

Of course, the joke around here is that we do indeed have four seasons, Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter and Road Construction. Even that calendar is a bit ambitious by my scale because Road Construction starts on April 1^st no matter what the weather.

Other folks are more in tune with nature and I fall into that category, but I don't use the same milestones as most people. Spring has not arrived yet when the crocuses bloom, or the forsythia, or the daffodils and tulips. It's not here yet when the trees (or even the lilacs) begin to bud or even when they leaf out.

It’s not spring yet simply because the lakes, ponds and streams have thawed. It’s not spring yet when the trout are running. It’s not spring because the lawn needs to be mowed, the yard raked, fertilizer spread or annuals planted.

It’s not spring yet when you can leave your winter coat home, or your sweater or when the restaurants on Park Ave put their tables and chairs out on the sidewalk or the boys in the bar begin their rut.

Nope. All these things have validity for other people, but for me there are three sure indicators of spring, and they all happened on Wednesday.

1) I wore a t-shirt outside all day without once getting goosebumps.
2) I not only felt compelled to, but actually could open every window in the house.
3) They rolled all the old folks out to the sidewalk at the nursing home down the street.

Now it’s spring.


Summer arrived yesterday. Last night more specifically. We had a remarkably short spring.

Summer is here when I can leave all the windows wide open overnight and don’t need more than one blanket on the bed.

And when the air goes from damp and drippy to muggy. It’s muggy enough to float a barge today.

The fans are dusted and ready for action and we’re planning an afternoon at the beach tomorrow. The forecast sounds like a beach day even though until July, Lake Ontario will be cold enough to cause hypothermia, (unless you wear a wetsuit.) We’re going to stay long enough for the first sunset at the beach. On Sunday we’ll run over to Highland Park to see how the lilacs are shaping up for the Lilac Festival which starts on the 12^th.


I spent the first day of spring with my parents. Their neighborhood holds it’s annual garage sale on the first weekend of May. Wednesday was preparation day.

“Do you think you could come by and go through your stuff in the basement?” is how the invitation was worded. Translation: “We’re tired of all your shit in the basement and, oh, by the way, we have a ton of stuff you can carry up to the garage for us.”

So I spent an hour in their basement going though my stuff. It fell into three categories: Stuff I could put in the garage sale, nostalgia boxes, and records.

My contribution to the garage sale was a box of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books and an electronic flash unit.

I promised to move out the nostalgia boxes when I move. The stuff inside them can be categorized into stuff I can toss and stuff I can’t. I can’t make those decisions under pressure because everything in them carries memories.

There’s the usual junk, stuff like the only trophy I ever won, 3^rd Place in the Town of Greece Bicycle Safety Rodeo in 1966. The engraved plate fell off it when I pulled it out of the box Wednesday and I found myself wondering if that meant I should toss it or find some glue.

There’s a whole box of stuff from when I was heavily into photography in my teens. Hundreds of rolls of negatives (blank and white), several dozen prints (mostly black and white), a few boxes of color slides (but no slide projector) 8mm movies (again, no projector) and, remarkably, a few dozen rolls of exposed but undeveloped film along with a few rolls of unexposed film.

Then there’s my tapes. No, we’re not talking cassettes here, or even 8-tracks (although there was one of those). I’ve got easily 50 reels of tape from my days in radio. What do I do with that? I also found the reel that I made of my grandfather telling stories and jokes. How can I part with it, but how will I ever play it?

The largest grouping of stuff in the basement are my records. A five-foot cube of boxes packed to bursting with dance music from the 70s and early 80s. It would take a truck to move them. There’s a lot of junk in there but many gems. I don’t and won’t have the space to store even the ones I’d like to keep. I don’t have a turntable. I don’t have the time or initiative to sort through them all to sell. It seems a shame to toss them all.

I deferred doing anything with the promise to have them out by the end of summer, (or Almost Winter at the latest.) Since then I’ve thought of calling the local “Dancin’ Oldies” station to see if they would take them off my hands. They certainly need the material since all I’ve ever heard on the station is Barry White, Kool & the Gang, KC & the Sunshine Band and the occasional Rick James. But I also know broadcasters don’t use vinyl either and all I have are the 12” remix versions anyway. When has the radio ever played anything longer than four minutes? Sigh.

I could only take an hour of all that, so I covered everything back up and carried my box of books and the flash unit upstairs to the garage. In the garage was the long-forgotten golf bag. I don’t play golf, I don’t have clubs. Why do I have a golf bag? I won it.

Back in 1995 the Ryder Cup matches were played here in R-Town at the Oak Hill Country Club. Naturally it was a very big do with lots of corporate pavilions. Vince and I were big advertisers on Time-Warner cable and they invited us to the matches. We drank their booze, ate their food and learned how to “golf-clap”. I followed the golfers around and really enjoyed it. But then I enjoy almost all live sports, even when I don’t know much about them.

After the matches were over, Time-Warner had a drawing. I would have been happy with a hat. I won a golf bag just like the ones the players used. It’s a Miller top-of-the-line 9½” staff bag embroidered with the Ryder Cup, Oak Hill Country Club and Time-Warner logos. It has sat in my parents’ basement ever since, still wrapped in plastic with all the tags and stuff.

If it doesn’t sell in the garage sale, I’ll put it on E-Bay. If it doesn’t sell there, I guess I’ll have to use it for an umbrella stand in the new apartment. Of course, I’ll have to buy an umbrella.


My parents don’t usually sell at garage sales. They buy at them and resell the treasures at the flea market (swap-meet to those of you in the south and west). But they have some excess inventory to clear along with the usual household ejecta. And rocks.

Yes, my parents sell rocks. Ya can’t beat the cost (free) and the only carrying costs are, well, carrying the things around. Otherwise, it’s pure profit. Now these aren’t ordinary everyday rocks. No, they’re genuine imported granite. Chunks of the Great Canadian Shield. And apparently they sell pretty well. On every trip home from the cabin, my parents stop and put 100 pounds or so of rocks in the trunk and pile them in the back yard for the garage sale.

So I moved rocks. It sure beat sorting nostalgia boxes in the basement. After seeing how expertly I moved rocks, my dad said, “Now we’ve got some stuff to come up from the basement.” Okay. There were only a dozen boxes, but he carried those. I carried the lead.

Yes, lead, also known as “Pb” or atomic number 82 on the Periodic Table of the Elements. As if the rocks weren’t heavy enough, now I was carrying lead. A quarter ton of it from the basement to the garage. This was his “extra” lead after having cast nearly 5,000 .45-caliber bullets, 1,000 for his 357 and a few hundred mini-balls for his muzzle-loader. I hope he lives long enough to shoot all those rounds. I don’t want to have to move it all at an estate sale.

So, if you're out in the Town of Greece this weekend, please, I implore you, stop by the neighborhood garage sale in the housing tract behind Wal-Mart. Forget about the toys, clothing, bric-a-brac, tools and Martha Stewart stuff.  Buy an oversized, overweight golf bag, some rocks and some lead.

Or you'll have to read about me moving it all back next week.

Saturday May 6, 2000

CAUTION!

When I redesigned Scenic Route in August 2000, I did not go back to edit links in the existing Journal pages.

The links in this column and those in the page header and footer will work properly with the new design. Links within page body text may not.

I recommend that when you’re finished reading this page you close this window and use the links in the right frame of the previous window to avoid the confusion of having multiple windows open to the site.

If you arrived here from another site, there’s lots more here!

CAUTION!

When I redesigned Scenic Route in August 2000, I did not go back to edit links in the existing Journal pages.

The links in this column and those in the page header and footer will work properly with the new design. Links within page body text may not.

I recommend that when you’re finished reading this page you close this window and use the links in the right frame of the previous window to avoid the confusion of having multiple windows open to the site.

If you arrived here from another site, there’s lots more here!