This July 4, I want to remember one patriot whose career preceded the Internet Age: Stanley Fink.

Anecdotes about Stanley are impossible to find online these days, which is unfortunate, because the memory of him burns so brightly among those of us who knew him.

Two years ago, I left a job at Verizon where I had spent nearly two decades directing financial and corporate communications. …

A tree grows in New Milford, NJ… by way of Brooklyn… by way of a courtyard garden in Turtle Bay, New York City.

The writer E.B. White used to live in an apartment overlooking that garden. From his window, the author of “Charlotte’s Web” often admired a particular old willow tree that grew next to a replica Roman fountain.

In the closing paragraph of his famous essay, “Here Is New York,” White referred to the tree as a metaphor for New York City itself:

“…In Turtle Bay there is an old willow tree that presides over an interior garden. It…

I’ve always tried to be a good boy. Too quiet, though.

Joining sides with the neighborhood bully, my first best friend threw rocks at me just days before his family moved to Parsippany NJ.

He hit me in the head.

That’s the way little kids say goodbye, and this is the last photo of us together. My sister, in the middle, has never let me down.

A Good Boy

I was taught to be

as quiet as possible.

And so I am.

With one exception:

I scream when I write.

Photos taken in Central Park on March 6, 2021; captions in haiku.

Arthur Samuels would have been 94 last week; to me, he is forever ageless

Arthur died peacefully in the arms of Harriet, his loving wife of 55 years, just three months ago.

In my memories of him, I’ve discovered lessons that are more relevant in my life today than when he first tried to teach me how to play the violin.

I met Art (I called him “Art” — which is very meta — although I now realize he was “Arthur” to his family) on a hot August day in 2007 in Tenafly, NJ.

I had replied to an ad placed by a luthier in the Twin-Boro News. A man with an older, slightly…

All photos by me.

My poetry may be bad,

but I blame the news.*

I love New York, and I have the photos to prove it.

At the close of this summer of discontent, I side with Jerry Seinfeld and Patti Smith, and against James Altucher, on the subject of New York City.

Not that it matters. All four of us are privileged, so New York isn’t really ours.

Also, as E. B. White eloquently noted in the 1949 foreword to his love-letter/essay, “Here Is New York,” the city can’t be written about or “brought down to date” by anything other than opinions and observations offered at the speed of light.

But what if…

What if, in 2020, we have the speed-of-light technology to see into…