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July 19, 2005
I Love NY
...I just don't want to live there anymore. Over the 4th of July I was back east for a family reunion. My family is pretty large 30 or so, given the good Catholics that we are :-). Anyway, I had a blast, it was great to catch up with my bothers and sisters, my nieces and nephews, my mom - and believe it or not, the weather was perfect! Typically this time of year you get 90/90 weather, 90 degrees F with 90% humidity. Not this time, it was low 80s with low humidity.
We ate a lot (all Italians do that when they get together), we drank a lot (all Irish do that when they get together), we laughed, got competitive (bocce ball, crockett, golf) and just hung out. Went to the local 4th of July parade, went to a cookout at my mothers Country Club and saw fireworks, ate at the Culinary Institute of America, took the train into the city (I grew up in the Hudson Valley about 60 miles north of NY). I get back to NY a half dozen times a year for business and once or so a year for a family get together. What stuck me most this time around were the people. Most every person I came in contact with was genuine! I don't use that term lightly. New Yorkers get a bad rap for what some people call their "in your face" type of communication, but what the rest of the world is experiencing are people being genuine, its real. It's the good with the bad, the happy with the sad, the love with the anger - it's NY. New Yorkers have a way of actually saying/expressing what others are thinking, or are afraid to say - that's why I love them. For business it's great, it's a quick "yes", or a "no, that sucks, I'm doing business with the other guy"! In relationships it's very revealing, "nice shirt", "where did you get that, it looks terrible", "honey you need to change your hair style", "I'm pissed off at you", "I love you".
Another thing that struck me, listening to some of my brothers/sisters talk about their friends, their acquaintances just cracked me up. Some nicknames; Tommy "Guns", "Lefty" (lost his arm in a car accident), "Big Ears" (easy one), "Geep", "Marco", "SanDooch", "Sack", "Stugats", Joey "peperoni" (makes pizza), "mot" (a dyslexic friend of mine). Everybody has a nickname, young or old, it's like a badge of honor.
There are a number of things I love about NY, the people are top of my list, the energy, the food, the ethnicity, the attitude and oh yea - the Yankees. Where else are you going to find characters like Donald Trump, or George Stienbrenner, or Rudi Giuliani. In Des Moines Iowa?? There are also some things I can't stand about NY, the weather, the taxes, the stress, the environment - but hey, that's why I live in Colorado.
I've now spent 1/2 my life in NY and 1/2 my life in Colorado, I've learned that there there positives and negatives to most everything in life. But the people in NY, they're kind of special to me.
July 19, 2005 in Biographical, Travel, Weblogs | Permalink | TrackBack