THE VIEW FROM OCEAN HILL

You grow up in a little conclave of family values, ethnicity, neighborhood and street values, educational tenets and local jargon, which stays with you all your life. It never occurs that it is in itself something anymore special than anyone else’s life. So you get older, move on, and it still stays with you!


When I started writing this blogue, it never occurred to me that it would open a whole new world of people, places and things. What happened is blogging made me new connections with the world, brought me back to my old connections, and re-established my youth. It put me in contact with people I should have known, wish I had known sooner, and am happy that I did indeed write this blog up.

Crossing a span of 55 years, I have covered a lot of ground, childhood and teenage years, and in the last three years especially.

My blogging buddy, Jim Pantaleno: http://spaldeendreams.blogspot.com/ is a good example. He found me through the internet, reading my blogue, and we have had the chance to meet for dinner twice, and I got the pleasure of meeting part of a wonderful family. I have reconnected with my high school classmates running a reunion, and lately, my old friend from Brooklyn, my next door neighbor, Mike Mangino who I hadn’t seen in 55 years! www.bayorthopedic.com
After our last dinner together, Jim lent me a book called: ‘The View From Ocean Hill’, about my old neighborhood, and in particular my street, Hull Street! Written by a guy by the name of Lou Alba, he goes into his days growing up in the neighborhood on Hull Street, in the 1950’s! It took me back; rather it threw me back to my childhood, and those wonderful days!
I always thought I was lucky to grow up in that neighborhood, with all its special places, people or characters that populated the streets, and the special color that went into living day to day in Brooklyn. Reading this book made everything special once again, and made me proud to know I came from Ocean Hill in Brooklyn.

Thank you Jim, Mike, and Lou, and Mom and Dad for living there