Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Places in New York that my ghost will haunt . . .

I've been going to one particular spot on the west side of the Sheep Meadow in Central Park since I moved here.


You go in via the southwest entrance across from Tavern On The Green, walk up the dirt path that slowly disappears into grass, and just past the trees on your right is a low hill. On top of the hill is an outcropping of rock (if the Sheep Meadow was the Pacific, this would be Hawaii).


I usually park myself on the slope in front of the rock. In the 25+ years I've been doing this, I have never failed to find a spot to lay out, no matter how crowded the place is. Maybe everybody knows it's my parking space. Maybe the rock is radioactive. Maybe that explains the baldness and the headaches.

But this is where I come every Memorial Day weekend to start the summer off right by catching some rays; this is where I end up on July Sundays and Saturdays (usually after a movie); and this is where my ghost will lie, flat on its back and listening to a CD, as it turns from pale white to slightly freckled to tanned.

If my ghost is going to haunt any place on a weekend in the 22nd century, it'll be here.