It is hard to believe that it has been 8 years since the attacks here in New York. I remember being in Colorado eating breakfast at Gunther Toodies with my Dad and brother when the waitress said a plane hit the World Trade Center. Being a sophomore in high school who had never been to NY, I really didn't know what the buildings looked like. I spent the entire day at school just watching the news and wondering what it meant. Now that I live here in New York only about a quarter of a mile from Ground Zero, I can only imagine what it would have been like to have lived here through it. It is quite humbling.
So in honor of what happened, I chose Josie's suggestion to do a day of service. Just a couple months back, the President made September 11 the National Day of Service and Remembrance. So when the big guy Obama says you do a day of service, you say 'just because I voted for you doesn't mean you can tell me what to do but I'll listen to you, alright yes okay do it'.
Today I did a program through the Jewish Community Center. I know, I'm not Jewish, but that doesn't matter because this place does a lot of really cool stuff. They have an indoor pool, awesome Hebrew art, AND a security guard. They have a giant open house this Sunday if you are around town and want to check it out. There site is here. They were
wonderful people and were very welcoming to all of us volunteers. They even had a breakfast of bagels and cream cheese for us (no jokes I promise). But as a gluten and dairy intolerant fellow, I was only able to enjoy these delicious circles from afar.
There were a bunch of different jobs to be done for the day, so I decided to join the group heading to the the Jewish Home, an elderly house on 106th Street that takes care of people in their last phase of life. The outdoor cleaning of central park was cancelled because of the awesomely crappy weather outside. Since when is allowed to rain on a holiday? I was with a large group from CUNY Maritime. Good people. They have to wear a uniform everyday. Bummer. I once had to wear a uniform in high school, but that just pretty much meant owning 2 pairs of pants that I rotated everyday for a year, and then going to Goodwill to find the UGLIEST collared shirts possible. Anyway, at the Jewish Home we were assigned to the 6th and 7th floor doing some arts and crafts, with each person given a resident to help.
I was assigned to Sid. He was awesome. Sid was the type of disgruntled old man who knows everything and gives everyone a hard time just for the fun of it, but I think he took a liking to me right away, because we dove into some pretty awesome conversation while making our American flag picture frame. Check that thing out. It's a thing of beauty. He had the attitude of 'I don't need to be doing this, but I will just to amuse my people'. Let me recap the first little part of our conversation:
'Hi I'm Patrick what is your name?' 'Sid' 'Nice to meet you Sid' 'Listen, Pasha, youre Irish aren't you?' 'My name is Patrick' 'That's what I said, Patrick. You're Irish huh?' 'Yea why?' (rolling his eyes) 'Yea I knew it".
Sid told me about how he...deep breath....was born in 1928, grew up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Delancy Street, had Polish parents, pitched semi-pro baseball with Puerto Ricans in Coney Island (but never once hit them with a pitch because if they did "well that's the kind of stuff they would knife you over." Oooookay.....), got a $50 signing bonus for playing with them, went to City College and got a degree in accounting, worked for a European airline as an accountant, eventually got his own firm, traveled the world (because of the airline. He liked Spain the best, but China was a close second), got married and had a couple of kids (a son and daughter), and moved to Jersey to retire. He also told me, as an Irish kid, to eat at the Blarney Stone for its lamb leg, and that I need to get traveling. Whew. Sid and I were only together for about 30 minutes. What a good guy. I hope I can look back and say I've done that much in life. Isn't that a good looking picture frame?
I also spent some time with Rico, who was also a talker who took a liking to me. We had a great
time making a white picket fence picture frame and talking about life, like: which is better, California or Florida or New York? California. Who has better weather? California. Who has the best shows? New York. Who has the most beautiful women? Miami. Rico was actually born in Colombia, but moved to Florida when he was pretty young. He spent most of his adult life working for IBM here in the city. A smart cookie. And while he never had any kids, he still stays pretty close with his brother who also lives in the city. They go to Queens together often. I asked for what and Rico looked at me suspiciously and said "you know....things". Nice.
It ended up being a wonderful day around the Jewish Home, because you could genuinely tell that all the residents there were so happy to have us there with them. It made me feel really good inside, and I'm hoping it made them feel good too. Volunteering is a fun thing, I wish everyone would do it a little bit more often. Luckily, I have been getting a lot of suggestions to do community/volunteer activities, so hopefully I can keep it going.
Well that's all for now. Keep the suggestions coming. Next week I am going to start putting up a poll allowing you to vote on 15 or so suggestions that I should do, and I will do the top 7 or 8. Let me know if you have any suggestions on how I can improve the blog as well, whether its layout or anything else. Have a good day.
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