Just back from a great New York trip. Everything was perfect – even the weather cooperated with us. And the Yankees were great as well. Walking around Fort Greene and Park Slope in Brooklyn brought back many memories. Those neighborhoods are beautiful and full of life but when I lived in Brooklyn in the early 70’s they were terrible slums devastated by the effects of poverty, drug wars and crime. The small carriage house I lived in near the Pratt campus used to sit behind a house of prostitution and was next door to a vacant lot where junkies would shoot up at al hours of the day and night. Now the vacant lot is a new building in a row of beautifully restored homes. The Graham Home for Old Ladies, once literally a home for older women that was converted to a whore house was now apartments.
Perhaps the best part was seeing old friends. We were the guests of Deborah and David Backus and their brilliant daughter Marland. We arrived in time for Marland’s birthday party where the kids who had all grown up together and their parents got together to celebrate. Having not seen many of these children for years it was shocking to see that they had grown into young adults. The Backus’s first daughter Taylor was there as well, now a Vanderbilt student, and I enjoyed speaking to her and all the kids who now were either in college or actively involved in looking for one.
Watching her kids grow up
- Blowing out the candles
- Marland and Taylor show off the birthday togs
- These beautiful sisters
- It was a really great day!
What a pleasure… great friends, great food and wine, the delight of seeing young adults we had known as babies who are now really cool people!
