September 2011
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Month September 2011

Entries 4 Total

Redeployed: Afganland VI

Sep 10, ’11 10:02 AM

My old friend Sgt. Butler redeployed to southern Afghanistan this summer. We’ve been in touch lately and he’s send me some great photos of the rural world he’s been living in and what exactly he’s been up to. We even got to video chat this week for almost and hour. It’s still surreal to be able to open a little portal from New York to Afghanistan so my sister and I could talk to Kenny as he ate his gross cafeteria dinner.

Kenny is in the part of the army they used to call PsyOps. That started sounding little too video-gamey so they changed it to the innocuous sounding “4th Military Information Support Operations Group” even though they do the same work they used to. And although I like to imagine Kenny participating in some Manchurian Candidate operation or dosing village water supplies with LSD he says what he actually does is pretty boring, “I watch TV and movies on my computer all day.” He would occasionally get assigned as an RG-33 driver when the Special Forces guys need to get Kabul. Kenny says:

The first time that I was put on a mission to drive I got in and told the truck commander, that’s the guy who sits shotgun and calls the shots, that I had never driven before he had me switch out with someone else. Then they just kept putting me on missions as the driver and eventually I just had to drive.

But lately his group has been focused on preparing to wrap up the bigger Afghanistan mission and that means training local police forces so they can take over when our army finally leaves. Ken sent these photos of some of the local police recruits. Check these dudes out!

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Imagination Playground

Sep 8, ’11 8:39 PM

Sara, Bannack and I made it to Imagination Playgound today. It’s a very well designed little stop on the South Street Seaport, not terribly far from the Cooper where Chris is attending school. The park is split into three sections, a sand box, a set of massive blocks and a little water park. Bannack played until he was drenched and literally couldn’t lift himself off the ground.

In spite of his best efforts He only played with about 30% of what was available to him in the half acre or so of playground. I guess that means we’ll just have to play here again.

More photos here.

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Champagne Tennis

Sep 7, ’11 8:39 AM

We spent the afternoon with cousin Jill sipping Belvedere cocktails and playing Nerf tennis in Moët’s spaceport headquarters. Her company sponsors the US Open so they built a miniature tennis court in front of the bar, just big enough that you don’t have to put your drink down to play.

Bannack was pretty good at swinging the racket like an ax and yanking at the net but preferred running the ball back to the server to return it so I out-scored him pretty early in the match.

Does this photo make my nose look big?

Before heading back on the train to Brooklyn we all got wide slices of pie at a little hole in the wall in Chelsea. We were just a few doors down from The Leo House, the small nun-run hotel that our family used to stay in for our first few visits to New York with the Carroll College plays.

Seeing the front door triggered memories of eleven year old me eating cold porridge from the early morning breakfast buffet, talking with my mom in the drizzly shabby back garden and asking the elevator operator for a lift to the sixth floor please.

“Are you sure?” He asks me from his worn out stool.

Suddenly unsure, I nod, “Uh huh.”

He closed accordion elevator grate and pushed the brass handle  forward starting our slow and silent climb to the top floor. I took one step out of the elevator and knew immediately that I didn’t belong. The nuns lived on the sixth floor. I met one in the hallway and without a word she returned me to the elevator. I can’t remember if the operator apologized to her or not but it was an awkward ride down to whatever floor I was supposed to be on.

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Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Sep 1, ’11 12:54 AM

Sara and Chris and little June the Wheaten Terrier picked me up at JFK airport last night. It’s a short drive to their new apartment in Brooklyn and soon we were around the dining room table toasting over cold Manhattans. Maybe you’ve seen photos of their new place? It really is a unique and beautiful home, but what struck me most is that it is EXACTLY LIKE the last three places Sara and Chris have lived. So much so that Sara spent half a moment planning what to bring to a party back home, forgetting for that little while that she was in a New City. They’ve definitely found the right place.

This clown was catching up on sleep and had a long nap into the afternoon. He was up just after Chris and his brother Mike came home and the five of us, plus June, went for a meander through Williamsburg.  McCarren Park was busy with little kids and littler dogs. Skaters filmed each other grinding on hurricane Irene’s one downed streetlight while outside the cameraman’s frame three sunbathers lay working on tans and a woman daubed at her plein air oil of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral that just peaked out over the trees.

Bannack alerted us every time he saw a subway station by asking for a, “Ride? Ride? Ride?” Sara and I had three dollar falafel at the corner just past the Bedford stop. We passed highfalutin dive bars, a few dusty book stores, a top notch cheese shop, a heavy metal barber shop with a pile of cow skulls in the window, a panoply of the coolest retail experiments of the millennium. But my favorites were the Brooklyn Art Library and Mast Bros. Chocolate storefronts sitting side by on North 3rd Avenue.

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