IMPRESSIONS: ON A TRIP TO NEW YORK

Picked up at LaGuardia, traveling out to the "Island,"wondering how anyone can find their way around; viewing the New York skyline across the bay from a new city-like community; spending a day in the lower East Side, pushing aside people to get a theater ticket to wait in line for a corn beef, cole slaw, Russian dressing sandwich on rye; marveling at the make over of Orchard Street where once immigrants sold their wares on push carts now an upscale neighborhood of shops and apartments; listening to an articulate Brandeis graduate as she spoke of the realities of immigrant life as we toured a turn-of-the-20th century small, cramped, dark three room apartment in which a family lived and worked; to extremes in 2011, a small, intimate Italian restaurant in which we sat at a small table for eight regaling each other with good conversation, wine and hilarious memories.

On streets, where buses' heavy exhaust pushed aside the intense heat and their front ends kneeled leaving off passengers in wheelchairs and senior citizens pushing shopping carts with groceries; marveling at dog walkers with six to 12 dogs, some pedigreed, some not, all coming at me on the sidewalk; sirens wailing; horns honking; people walking, running, some half naked, others dressed and holding umbrellas protectively against the sun; restaurants with big alphabet letters on their windows to designate they had passed the Health Department's test for cleanliness, while others shut tight because they had not.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art with lines one usually sees at stadium-sized events waiting hours to see the Alexander McQueen extraordinary exhibit of clothes, accessories, using feathers, sea shells, metals, chiffon, materials earthy and voluptuous, costumes of all kinds mimicking cultures from the world over along with our own, some galleries entitled "Savage Beauty," all of it in an erotically pulsating setting at times three dimensional and digital as people strained to get close enough to the displays, creative and theater-like.

Leaving the hustle and bustle behind, traveling about seventy miles out to a serene area in the country to a small cottage by a lake; refreshed by cooling breezes and a full, beautiful moon; Caramoor a 90 acre Mediterranean estate built in 1930s as a private home, now a center for music and arts, listening to a concert of Beethoven and Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1, played thrillingly by Sarah Chang and the Orchestra of St. Luke's.

Coming back over the TriBorough Bridge the heat had obliterated the city's skyline with a veil of haze, smoke and fumes; on my way home to St. Louis, sharing with much of the rest of the country unbearable heat and savoring a good time.

ALL THIS AND ERRORS TOO?

Since 2009, I have shared my observations, experiences and opinions with my readers. In turn, readers have shared their comments with me. When I have been wrong or made a mistake, much to my embarrassment, readers have let me know.

In one of my June posts, I described the less than friendly reaction by a neighbor to a stray Canadian goose that had alighted close to his property. In my description I called the offspring of the goose "ducklings" instead of goslings.

I was surprised by the number of readers who advised me of my error. So herewith, is my correction and apology, amidst urgent national and international issues. Though I have had no buy out offers from Murdoch or Huffington, I am delighted my blog is even read.

HOME GROWN TERROR HERE TOO?

Reading today's New York Times (7-24) I looked for an explanation for the tragedy which unfolded in Norway. I found some of my answer in the article which carried a quote by Kristian Anderson, a researcher at the London School of Economics.

Anderson is quoted as saying, "In some ways the homegrown nature of the terror made it harder for Norwegians to accept. With 9-11 in America people could ask. 'Who are they?' and could pour their rage out on someone else," he said. "But we can't disavow this person he's one of us. That's a sobering thought."

Our home grown tragedies were Kent State University, a high school in Columbine, a day care center in Oklahoma, a shopping center in Arizona, on a quiet street as a child walked home from school in New York City, and in communities across the country where shoot outs are commonplace every day.

When we permit unreasoned rhetoric to overtake our thinking, our language and our actions, there are not guns enough, nor walls high enough to secure us from terrible invasions of loss of life, property and our way of life. Perhaps that is the sobering fact we need to face.

THE SUMMER OF PARADOX?

As the summer gets underway, I am struck by the number of paradoxical events that are unfolding. On one hand, the Space Shuttle Atlantis, engines spewing fire and smoke roars off toward the heavens. While here on Earth, individually and collectively we work to conserve energy.

The Atlantis carries with it, in addition to brave man and women,a large payload of food to store in the Space Station for the future. On Earth, we grapple with the need to feed our growing populations as we attempt to inventory and conserve plant life, even as untold number of plants and crops were destroyed by floods of biblical proportions.

The roar of Atlantis as she lifts off fills us with awe and a sense of adventure. Yet we look for a way to escape the roar of a tornado, hoping it will pass without destroying life and property.

For all its sophisticated equipment, Atlantis is tethered to us to work out her problems here on Earth while she floats majestically in the Universe.