It is a warm summer morning in July 1958; the sky is feathered with cirrus clouds that quickly disappear as the sun continues its hazy ascent. The whirring hush of automobiles, one endless block away on Forest Avenue, is barely perceptible from the front steps of our faux English Tudor brick house on the corner of City Boulevard and Dana Street, West Brighton, Staten Island. For a brief moment, the towering sentinels of Dutch elm lining the street sway their arms in a hint of breeze, soon becoming still as the sun bears down; the street is as still and as quiet as the empty chapel inside Our Savior Lutheran Church on the corner, where Doug Brown and I would later hide from kids who threatened to beat us up. From the front steps of my house, I can see the green and red neon Breyer’s Ice Cream leaf hanging over the front window of Ben’s Candy and Newspaper store next to Angelo’s Hair Salon. That view, down City Boulevard with the Dutch elms, the Breyer’s Ice Cream leaf, and the weary asphalt winding down to Forest Avenue, is burned in memory like a Sarah Yuster painting beckoning you to bathe in her colors of loss.
I look up into my mother’s face, a warm smile radiating from her coffee-colored eyes. She’s wearing what she always wears: a long floral skirt, a short-sleeved white blouse, and a red bandana worn like a kerchief around her chestnut hair. She tucks a dime into the front pocket of my blue shorts and adjusts the black bathing suit that I have rolled into a white towel. Placing the towel snuggly under my right arm, she hands me an index card on which she’s written in her beautiful cursive,
“Please let Matthew off at Broadway. Thank you. Ruth Selman.”
Our little dog, Trixie, a familiar Staten Island mix of Sheltie, Cocker Spaniel, and German Shepherd, comes down the steps to say goodbye. Her fur is sable; she has a white ruff and sweet, sad brown eyes.
“Don’t forget to hand the card to the bus driver and ask for a transfer. Have fun. See you later.”
I am seven years old, pear-shaped, and about to ride the majestic 107 bus alone for the first time. The reason for my journey is that it is the sign-up day at the YMCA Summer Day Camp on Broadway, where I will meet a counselor, be assigned a group, play all day, swim, have lunch and a snack, and use my transfer to take the bus back home. My mother has all the confidence in my ability to do this journey. Other mothers of 1958 have similarly released their prizes into the wings of innocence.
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