The people you meet at Ralph’s Ices, Staten Island
Last summer, a time that seems a lifetime ago, My family went for our traditional July 4 trip to visit my parents on Staten Island. It was a beautiful summer night. The moon was out and full. After dinner we went for a walk at South Beach. The boardwalk and the pier were crowded with people enjoying the ocean. Back then, everyone loved how close they were to the ocean.
After our walk we enjoyed a rite of summer on Staten Island: a trip to Ralph’s Italian Ices. The one across from the Shop Rite on Hylan Blvd. No sit down place here, you order your ices at the window, and eat them in the parking lot.
Behind us on line was a couple who were friends with my parents, actually neighbors who lived just blocks away on Staten Island’s Fox Beach. My mom knew the woman, who was a receptionist at a dental office where my mom was a dental heigyentist. My dad knew the man because they umpired men’s league baseball in the summer together on Staten Island. My husband and I were introduced, we said hello politely, and then went back on our own to enjoy our lemon and watermelon ices.
I had forgotten that encounter until last Saturday night. My parents have lived on Staten Island since 1970. Dad has retired from over 30 years teaching high school and coaching at Tottenville High School. Mom has retired from over 30 years of working at a pediatric dentist practice on Staten Island. That means they run into people they know, who they taught, coached, cleaned teeth, on Staten Island EVERYWHERE.
This Saturday night, mom called me from Sandy-ravaged Staten Island. Our conversations are terse and tense. She sounds tired, stressed about the loss of their car, their roof, the damage to all their possessions in their basement. But still, mom knew they were the lucky ones.
That night, mom called me to tell me they were headed to a double wake. She asked me if I remembered meeting this nice couple in the parking lot of Ralph’s ices. That man, the one my parents casually introduced us to back in July at Ralphs? That man was John Filipowicz, who drowned in his basement with his 20-year-old son when they went to get more flashlights and candles.
Every connection means something, even it’s a brief and casual introduction in a parking lot on a summer’s night. I hung up from my mom and dissolved into tears, thankful that it was just a car and all the belongings in our basement that we lost.
Their story was published here in the Staten Island Advance.
Rest in peace, John JOHN FILIPOWICZ and JOHN FILIPOWICZ JR, two victims of Sandy.
Remembering my Forgotten Borough after Sandy
These are the blocks I used to bike through as a kid. Fox Beach was the detour my sixth grade bus took each morning to pick up a few kids on the way to school. The street was so narrow the bus could barely squeeze by.
These tiny bungalows, once used as summer getaways for the elite Manhattanites in the 1920s, became the blue-collar neighborhoods of my childhood in Staten Island. Tucked away “below the Boulevard,” the streets around New Dorp and Cedar Grove beaches had a feeling that they had been left back in time. Mom and pop delis and restaurants. Hardly any cars came by in these quiet narrow streets a few blocks off the water.
Out the window of my childhood bedroom, beyond another block of townhouses and a wetland field, I could see the ocean. Almost a week ago, this ocean swept into the old neighborhood. My parents evacuated, but neighbors who stayed behind said a wall of water came charging down the block, flooding basements and first floors, and then rushed back to sea as quickly as it came.
I’ve been listening to coverage of Hurricane Sandy. Lots of talk about the Jersey Shore and Manhattan, even Queens. As usual, little talk about my forgotten borough.
Here is a Youtube video posted on Facebook by one of my former high school classmates. Please watch it. Please, in your prayers, don’t forget Staten Island, the forgotten borough, it’s full of some great people.
this weekend marks the one year anniversary of my son’s Bar Mitzvah, hooray. I think about life’s small blessings. Thank goodness we celebrated this milestone last year and not this year, what with an impending relocation and the destruction back home in NYC after Sandy. Note to any bar/bat mitzvah kid scrambling for a last minute speech: first and foremost, the Torah teaches you ethics. If you are looking to lift a speech off the Internet on the day you are taking responsiblitiy for your own actions, think twice. I’ve seen a lot of searches on my blog stats for “bar mitzvah speech vayera” So, you are now responsible for your own actions, including those of plagiarism
It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to write a blog post, perhaps because I’ve been a little pre-occupied. Hosting a Bar Mitzvah that includes many out of town guests becomes a four-day affair. My column, teaching and profile pieces also kept me spinning these last few weeks. So instead of my rantings, I’ll offer my son’s Bar Mitzvah speech (otherwise known as a d’var Torah – words of Torah) for this post. I am thankful that he took direction from me during the writing process. After all, what are writing/blogging moms for?
Shabbat shalom,
It has been an honor reading from the torah today. Actually, I was kind of lucky
that my parasha is Vayera. Unlike other parts in the Torah that deal with leprosy, animal sacrifices, or the appropriate punishment for stealing an ox, Vayera offers a classic narrative of stories we all know: the destruction…
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Stacy Gittleman 