When I think about being 10 years old, the greatest memory I have was moving from our smaller ranch-style house to a larger split-level house in the same town. At the time it felt like we were moving to another part of the state, but of course it was only about 6 blocks away (admittedly, these were long, curvy blocks, which made it seem further). Riding our bicycles from the new house back to the old neighborhood seemed so far; I remember thinking at first how amazing it was Mom and Dad were letting us ride our bikes so far away! My brother CC hadn't been to the new house yet, so on moving day he wrote his bicycle and had to ask neighbors along the way where the moving truck had gone, which was how he eventually found the house. As for the house...it was olive green on the upper portion and brick on the lower portion (later Mom and Dad painted the top portion white with deep-red shutters and trim). The house was remarkable to CC and me because we had stairs for the first time, and not just 1 set of stairs but 3 sets, including stairs that went down to a basement. We moved right before Halloween that year, and so that holiday was a strange one with all new territory to scout out for candy. Uncle Eddy is the one who took CC and me around, I remember. My costume alternated from being a scarecrow to being a ghost that year; CC went as "Pedro," with a floppy sombrero, cigar, and painted-on mustache (admittedly racist in retrospect, but what did we know?). We lived in our old house for 7 years and in that new house for over 9 years before we moved on again...lots of memories there...
I have other vivid memories from being 10 years old, but all that is the first thing that jumps out at me today. And here we are on
bklynbiblio, now celebrating 10 years of this blog.
I started this blog after
my trip to Provincetown with JM. I've been back there 3 or 4 times since then, and traveled to many other places. So much happens in a decade...yet the spirit of this blog has remained the same. Today's post is #588, and very little has changed in the topics written about, based on the tags for each post:
New York still comes in at #1 (163 posts), followed by
19th-century art (114),
England (99),
photography (98), with
art exhibitions (84) and
sculpture (83) neck-and-neck for 5th place.
As I've expressed in recent posts, I hope I will have time to write more. I'm winding down 2 big essays, one of which will be published later this fall, and a few conference/symposium projects are in the works, all of which I hope to blog about soon. Sometimes I contemplate whether I should "close" the blog and call it a day, but then I hear from a few of you who enjoy reading what I write, and I realize this blog--even though posts are intermittent--helps me keep in touch with some people, and for that reason we'll keep it going. My thanks to everyone who reads this blog and has helped sustain
bklynbiblio for the past 10 years. On to more future memories...
