My Blog

A New York Grows Fonder Just in time for Valentine’s Day, an ex-New Yorker dedicates a love letter to a special someone­—the city of his youth. Born in Nova Sintra, Brava, Cape Verde Islands, African and bred in Hell's Kitchen. Growing up as a New York namely Brooklyn native, I was constantly spoiled by the simple luxuries of life in "The Big Apple." While other kids across the country were stuck indoors all winter, I basked in sunny snowy December days, perfect for playing barefoot in the cool astroturf - artificial grass or turf, indoors at the various ball parks. I spent my childhood years in the early ’90s eating real ice cream on bus or subway rides home from Twistee Treat, and astronaut ice cream on field trips to the The Space Shuttle Pavilion at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. The Space Shuttle Pavilion showcases the space shuttle Enterprise, the prototype NASA orbiter that paved the way for the space shuttle program. My first job was shoveling sno...

A Florida Heart Grows Fonder Just in time for Valentine’s Day, an ex-Orlandoan dedicates a love letter to a special someone­—the city of his youth. Growing up as an Orlando native, I was constantly spoiled by the simple luxuries of life in "The City Beautiful." While other kids across the country were stuck indoors all winter, I basked in sunny December days, perfect for playing barefoot in the cool grass. I spent my childhood years in the early ’90s eating real ice cream on bike rides home from Twistee Treat, and astronaut ice cream on field trips to Cape Canaveral. My first job wasn’t shoveling snow from a neighbor’s driveway, but mucking stalls as part of my chores in exchange for free horseback rides — which I took often through the then-bountiful orange groves of Gotha and MetroWest. Summers I'd work Twistee Treat or one of the theme parks or amusement parklets, that dot the cityscape, like Orlando Eye or Midway on I-Drive. Even the more challenging aspects o...

Why the current flu crisis is so severe. It may be the deadliest in nearly a decade The 2017-18 flu season, which lasts, roughly, for the duration of the northern hemisphere’s autumn and winter, may end up being as deadly as the swine-flu pandemic of 2009. Pneumonia and influenza caused nearly 10% of all deaths in the week ending January 13th, which exceeds the definition for an epidemic, as used by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The recent hospitalisation rate for flu or pneumonia, 51 per 100,000 people, is at its highest for this time of year since more accurate tracking began in 2010. More than 50 children have already died in America. Why is this season’s flu so nasty? The flu pandemic of 1918-20 invariably looms over such discussions. It infected 500m people, and killed between 50m and 100m. The situation in some cities was said to resemble an outbreak of bubonic plague. A shortage of coffins and a failure to collect all corpses led some parents to put th...

A parent and grandparent cherishes time with daughter and grandaughter. On my daughter's and grandaughter's birthday, my daughter was 35 yo and my grandaughter was 19 yo. I sat with her and her expired driver's license on a hard wooden bench at the DMV, shifting around to give my bones a rest from time to time I'd get up and pace for a bit to walk away from any back pain caused by sitting too long. The PA system blasted out numbers as if in a Bingo Hall -- "B30" "I20" -- to summon ticket holders to the desk of an eye test, a written test or renew a registration. I felt as though we were at a bingo game, waiting for the winning number to be called, a winner's excitement at winning and his or her leap up to collect the prize at hand. And on the bench, I had a revelation: The seemingly mundane event(s) I've shared with my daughter and grandaughter were both ny adventures and my rewards for just showing up. I grew up in a Suburb of New York C...

How my Soul was Fed... When a bored teenager finds a treasure beneath the attic floorboards, a future writer is born... How MY Soul Was Fed... I was 12, or 13. I was the equator, so it was an endless Summer. We, my Uncle and I was traveling to the promised land America.. We stayed in a house, a bed n breakfast on St. Vincent Island, Cape Verde Islands, Africa on our way to Lisbon Portugal and finally Brooklyn NY. This after we went to the island of Sal (salt) to board a plane and stayed in a stent with a woman and her 4 children who sleep in the one bed that's present, in the salt harvest flats on the island, that doubles as the sole international airport where we boarded a puddle hopper, known as a turbo prop to Lisbon. It was a raggedy house, with no screens on the casement windows in the attic. That house survived the many hurricanes that begin here and endup in Florida, two flies beat their wings, we have a butterfly effect and it becomes a hurricane in Orlando. I slept ...