Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore


How does it feel? To be without a home. Like a complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.

My son is staying with my parents for three days. After a while, frantically juggling your kid and work ceases to be cute to anyone involved. Million dollar day camp starts Monday.

At about 3pm, Brian emailed me with the realization that we had FREE TIME TO HANG OUT.
We got together and went to have dinner across the park on Avenue B. My brother told me to check out Mercadito between East 11th and East 12th. Very nice.

One problem. Where the hell was I? Avenue B looks like Brooklyn Heights. The buildings are all cleaned up. All the store fronts are swanky boutiques and cafes. Everyone at our very nice restaurant was swanky. At closer look I realized that my neighborhood is filling up with ridiculous gift stores...like the store around the corner on East 10th street with the unlimited number of flavored olive oils. Wasn't it just yesterday when no one cooked in my neighborhood and the alleged corner grocery store was neither a grocery or a store in the legal sense?

One block down Avenue B in another cleaned up building was the Tompkins Square Gospel Fellowship. I think they are related to an imported Christian youth group that recently decided to hanker down in our neighborhood this summer. These teenagers are instructed to approach children playing in the park like my eight year old son and invite him to particpate in Christian basketball camp. Blatantly approaching children without parents near them is not cool.

Hmm...what would Jesus do...I think Jesus would say "Hey guys, I understand that your heart is in the right place but the next time you go up to children under 13 without their parents present I will rip you a new asshole."

Even the Hare Krishnas, the Mormons, Jews for Jesus, and friggin Scientologists haven't pulled that stunt yet (although they will take your blood pressure in Times Square). Leave conversion issues to parents and direct solicitation of children in city parks to pedaphiles.

And leave Tompkins Square Park to children, dog runs, plants, performance art, homeless people, skate board dudes, people hanging out and drag queen festivals.




4 comments:

Kranki said...

Especially the drag queen festivals.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'd be livid - for a variety of reasons.

The picture reminded me - how was Pride this year? Did you go?

Milliner's Dream, a woman of many "hats"... said...

jAgain, you are right...Jesus said, "Let the little children come unto me"...not, "Go get them away from their parents."

Hh

Unknown said...

I appreciate the thoughts on Christian teens inviting other teens and children to organized games in the Park. These visiting teens do not understand all the dynamics of inner city living. They come from safer neighborhoods and we will do more in training them to speak with parents first if the parent is present. The motives of the teens are good. I am sure that parents are training their children on how to respond to strangers. The visiting church teens were inviting the kids to participate in organized games in the park or basketball tournaments in a local school yard. These kids get these types of invitations all the time in the park.

These groups have been commended by many in our neighborhood for all that they are doing to have organized games for the community. The compliments outway the criticisms 100 to one.