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My earlier posting of my grandparent’s house brought a flood of memories from my father! Since they included a bunch of New York figures and some New York history, I asked him if I could post his email here (that’s him on the right).

From my dad:

“The pictures really bring back memories. That was my fire truck in the picture. I still remember that gift clearly, and I was very young that Christmas, probably six or seven. If you look, you will see my folks all dressed up. In those days a lot of the neighbors would go around in a sled (if there was snow) and sing carols, and drink any grog at each house where they stopped. This was all after we were all sleeping.

When they were finished they came home and dressed the tree. You can imagine what time that was. We never saw a sign of a tree until Christmas morning. They were blessed with an excellent community spirit which still continued throughout my growing up. Jamaica Estates was a particular community. A good deal of that spirit came from your grandfather who put in many hours working as president of the association, which he was for the most years of his living there. It’s amazing how the area has retained it’s status to this very day. Some of the homes were much bigger than ours, and I would guess worth several million in this day’s market.

Many hugely successful people lived in the Estates. King Kullen, father of the modern supermarket lived on Radnor Road, the next street. Donald Trump’s father, Fred, would walk up to our house with little Donald in a carriage to gab with my father. The Conway’s lived down a couple of blocks. Jim Conway worked with me when I bought the house in Centerport. His family ran the Long Island City Savings Bank, which has grown to be quite large. Neighbors ran Sulka’s, a great mens store, FAO Schwartz, the toy empire, and on and on. One of the men was the first to buy the Empire State Building when it was resold. There are numerous stories there in Jamaica Estates. It would be fun to see how the history has gone.

You should look into the history of Jamaica Estates – it is very interesting. You might remember that the “great” depression was in 1929. I was born in ’28. My grandfather, Peter, was, among other things, a builder. When my father got married my grandfather built two houses, side by side, on Avon Road. My father designed both. My grandfather told my father that he would get the house which did not sell first. After the house next door sold to the McKenna’s, my father got our house. The Estates was to be a clone of Tuxedo Park in Westchester. The initial homes built were quite large, even by today’s standards. When the depression broke things came to a quick stop. The later homes were smaller than the earlier ones, but followed a tradition of upscale which exists even today.

When I was young, I would go into one or two of the big homes which were abandoned as a result of the depression. One beautiful big Tudor had been left so quickly that all the furniture and clothes were still there until they were finally taken by people going into the house. It was a big adventure to sneak ninto the ‘”haunted” house. There are many stories around the area which I remember fondly.”

It’s your Christmas tree too, little guy.

The house that my grandfather built in 1926, and where my father and my aunts grew up, is for sale for $1,495,000.00. It’s in Jamaica Estates in Queens. When my father was born it was surrounded by mostly farmland. But in the 1930’s the city (Robert Moses) installed Grand Central Parkway within spitting distance on the eastern edge. Here’s a picture taken I know not when, I’m guessing in the late 1920’s, early 1930’s.

I just found a shot of it now. The current owners bought it for $338,500.00 in 1997. My grandfather built it for $20,000.00 in 1926, and I don’t know what he sold it for it the 70’s, but I know he said that he’d want at least $60,000 for it in 1969. So in exactly 80 years it went from $20,000 to just under 1.5 million. Man, I’d take most of those hedges out if I bought it. The house is far enough off the street that privacy is not an issue.

Here’s a shot inside, from the 1930’s, with the incredibly high ceilings (those are my grandparents).

I wanted to get a close up of the tree, their trees were always giant and magical.

And here is a close-up of what was under the tree, the best part. The only presents I can make out are the fire department cart thing, a Felix the Cat looking thing and a pillow with Santa Claus on it.

I honestly think that if I had a spare $1,495,000.00 I’d buy it. I’m getting all verklempt just looking at these shots. The closeness of Grand Central might sound like a bad thing, but when I was a child, the woosh, woosh, woosh, of cars speeding by at night, was comforting, like a lullaby, and to this day highway sounds make me feel at peace.

If there’s a rich person out there with a spare 1.5 mil, please buy me this house. Thank you in advance.

I gave this image the title of “Paraboys.” It’s a picture of Charlie Stuart, J. B. Rhine and Gaither Pratt, the main guys on the staff of the Duke Parapsychology Lab when they began.

It was a discussion of the relative insignificance of ESP now, compared to other abilities and knowledge, that sent me into a bit of a downward spiral the other night. Who knows if we will manage to come up with any kind of significant contribution to humanity, history, the world, in the very short time we’re given. We don’t always get to know that in our lifetime. You do your best, but who knows if you are making the right choices at the time that you are making them?? You could find yourself at the end of your life going, “Uh-oh. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” We don’t know now where the work at the Parapsychology Lab might eventually lead, or if ends up being all for nothing. That’s the kind of thinking that freaked me out the other night. Everything I do might end up being all for nothing. Just one bad choice after another.

I guess that’s why people say love is the only thing that matters. Although it seems I am not the good choice maker in that arena, either. (There’s still time, there’s still time, holy mother of God, tell me there’s still time.) But if you have love, it’s something to point to that’s very satisying, even if you manage nothing else in life.

Speaking of choices, here’s a short video taken at the party I missed because I went to the Loser’s Lounge. That is Anne at the end of the table. Anne is fun.

I just realized, looking at the title on this entry, that according to the Duke guys, I can influence the flip of the coins. So, I may think I’m surrenduring to chance, but maybe there’s no such thing. You don’t get out of the responsibility of choosing. You can’t palm it off on fate.

Coffee, reading and posting on Echo, and a cat on me. This is Finney, stretching out on my lap. He waits for me to wrap myself in this fleece blanket, then jumps up. I think he just wants to curl up on the blanket and figures, “If the only way I’m going to get to be on this blanket is to sit on you, so be it.”

My agent’s holiday party was a lot of fun. I met Heather and Jon from www.dooce.com. I MET HEATHER AND JON. I read her blog every day, and the two of them were just so charming and attractive, and very tall, it turns out. But I think I’m in love. I want to marry them.

Then, I met the husband of one of the partners and I forget the name of his company, if he ever even told me, but he was explaining what he does, and then he was telling me about this program the military uses, which sounded scarily brilliant, in fact, it was all so utterly fascinating, I was riveted. But it gave me one of those moments where you are reminded of just how small you are in the universe. If you think about what everyone does every day, to keep the world going, to keep producing food, transportation, keeping people alive, safe, you know, as I am writing this I realize there is no way in a blog post that I am going to be able to convey what I want to convey. There is a huge, massive, amount of effort being expended each day, some of it incredibly interesting, we all have our part, but sometimes you are reminded of how small one’s part is, how little the contribution. Someone comes up with ideas for programs like this, implements them, there is a war in Iraq and there are people making decisions about things like wars, who are not necessarily the same as the people who design ways to fight them. Worlds away from me important decisions are being made. Which is not to say I agree with them, by the way, Iraq war bad. I’m just saying. There is just all this massive smartness churning all over the place and I’m just this spec, a sub-atomic spec, in fact, physics is centuries away from discovering the small thing that more adequately describes my place in the universe (and in time, oh God, if you throw in the perspective of time, forget it) and I am making the future-tiny-thing-to-describe-it contribution.

And that reminded me that there are all sorts of things that motivate me and one of them is self-loathing. I was very happy to learn years ago that I’m not the only one who sometime thinks to myself, “I hate myself, I hate myself,” and then, to break up the monotony, “God, I’m such an idiot.” Thank the fucking lord it’s not the only thing that motivates me, but man. I do hate myself sometimes. I feel better having gotten that off my chest, though.

I should pack it in today and go to a movie. Oh! But the Loser’s Lounge is tonight. That should be fun.