It was 5:45a.m. when I turned into Vatrano Rd. in Albany, N.Y. Rich was standing outside in a red hoddie in front of his warehouse located at suite K. His 60 foot, white box truck with bold, red letter spelling "De Vendor", was loaded and ready to embark on the day's route. It was dark, freezing and way too early to be up, but to Rich and his driver, Roberto Rodriguez, this was routine. "I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and just couldn't get back to sleep," Rich said. This is something he is used to so he wasn't yawning as much as I was. Roberto, Rich and I got into the truck and headed to the SUNY University Administration Building, the first stop of Tuesday’s vending route. At this stop, Rich has four machines he is responsible for. "I send Roberto in first so he can check the machines, tell me what we need and check expiration dates because I can't see them," Rich said as he was in the back of the truck taking off the load locks. Rich goes into the building after Roberto, checking the machines in two break rooms, taking inventory and making note of what he needs. He scribbles down the amount of products he needs to fill the machine in black sharpie. "A woman asked me once, are you writing Arabic," he said. Rich's handwriting is barely legible, but he has his own short hand which he writes in a way that he can see it. Although Rich does like to talk to people, he explains that he avoids conversations with many people he passes throughout his work day because he doesn't feel like explaining his condition. "I feel embarrassed enough," Rich said as he was stocking Lays chips into the machine. "I don't use a white cane, so it's hard to explain to people because they don't understand," he said. Richard is not just your ordinary business man. He has a physical disability which has been with him since he was 19. He is legally blind. He explained as he continued to fill the slots of the machine with Doritos, Fritos and Cheetos that totally blind people are hostile to him because he has partial sight. He is somewhere in the middle, neither fully blind nor fully sighted. "Being legally blind is like being a light-skinned black person," he said.
Living Situation The only thing separating Caleb from the rest of the world is a dollar store lock tying his door to its wooden frame. Walking past his intense security system I am instantly greeted by the smell of warm apple cinnamon chai. The wooded panel walls are coated with a mixture of slightly worn punk rock posters and framed images of loved ones, all in black and white. One colored picture sticks among them, it is Caleb coated in a vomit of colored paint eating a cold cut sandwich. He begins to take off his mangled skate shoes and places them in the corner with the others, all worn and duct-taped together at the seams. He has eight of ten pairs. He explained to me that this is his “Friday picture”. In one of his photography classes he did a weekly representation of his personality. On Monday he was suited up reading calculus books and by Friday all hell seemed to break loose. There in the corner of his room neatly placed in a tin crate were his prized vinyls, listed favorites in front to back. In the front laid his The Replacements vinyl which he bought with pocket store change after a long day of skating. Sitting along his drum set stacked upon each other like building blocks, he puts on the album. The room is cold due to it being a converted Florida room. There are windows on every wall and all the blinds are drawn. He opens with wickeder basket trunk and puts on a wool hoodie, two sizes too big. I pick up the picture of his two sisters, which was taken about a year ago. There is a faint similarity in their faces. They have his smile, thin lipped which curls up at the ends. The same straight sturdy nose, that dips right before their mouths. He grabs the picture from me and smiles. His sisters are 15 and 14 months now. He explains to me while sitting legs stretched across the floor that they live in Kingston with his Deadhead mother. Just close enough to visit but far enough to run away. He visits them almost every day, just to check up on them. He has a room there, but tries not to stay over. This would mean dealing with his mother. “Although I love them and have gotten very close with my immediate family this past year, it is still hard for old shit just past me by.” Caleb said putting down the picture and turning up the music. His bought this particular record; Sometimes Things Just Disappear after one of his first shows Have Heart and PBC in Albany. It was after a night of hard core dancing and a broken nose and for ten dollar it is still one of his favorite albums to date. The room is filled with the mellow dramatic melodic rock n roll sound with a hardcore edge. Caleb shuts his eyes and rocks his head along to the music. I stare out the window; there is a construction team outside, smoothing out the tar along the sides of the road.
No different from Dylan’s direct mannerisms, is 51-year-old Police Officer Brian Potter’s personality which has undoubtedly been affected by having a career with the NYPD. Standing 6’2”, weighing 200 lbs., with buzzed-cut salt-and-pepper hair, his appearance is no less than intimidating. His voice is deep and stern at times and if you have made him laugh, your words must have been of extreme hilarity. His dark-red Irish-freckled skin than has been repeatedly sunburned over the years, has only gained wrinkles around his mouth from his smoking habits of cigarettes and cigars. His cigars “get him through [his] day” of patrolling the streets and project complexes of Coney Island, NY, a place where he has come to know familiarly over the past 19 years on the job. Living in East Islip on Long Island creates a-little-over-an-hour commute for Officer Potter which has put a strain on the relationship between him and his three children. Leaving for his drive at 1:30 in the afternoon and not returning again until midnight or later, spending time at his sons’ soccer games or his daughter’s dance recitals has never been easy. With only one year left working for the NYPD, he is now counting down the days until he can spend his days working on and enjoying his 36’ SeaRay boat. Full of stories about his arrests, injuries, fights, good days and bad days, he is never shy of conversation but rather always has something to say. He has seen blood, death, pain and crime, which would all take a toll on his overall appreciation for life. When he was being shot at in a project staircase 6 years ago, he says “the first thing that came across [his] mind was [his] family.” Although he walked away from the shooting unharmed, there was a new gratitude within him when he came home the next day and for the first time in many years, he prayed and thanked God before dinner that night. Knowing how dangerous the life of a cop can be, one might question why a person like Dylan Wood would want to join the force. He says, “it’s all part of the job”. Most interested in the attractive pension that NYPD officers walk away with after retirement, Dylan is anxious to walk away from his job in retail and start a “real career”. After spending so many years working in places such as Waldbaums and Costco, where the work is repetitive, he can’t wait for everyday to be different. Meeting new people and experiencing new places and things is what excites him the most about police work. Most difficult is the process of getting into the academy.
Like most recently graduated seniors out of college, Sean Murphy moved back in with his parents. His room is located in the basement of his parents home isolated away from the rest of the house. In the large, vast basement there are three rooms one of which his older brother used to stay until he moved out, the other which is a "play room" which has a ping pong table where Sean and his friends used to play ping pong and eventually when they were older, turned into a beer pong table. In his room, Sean has a futon which acts as a couch in his room. His twin size bed is stuffed in the corner of his room with his dresser to his right and alarm clock on top of that which makes the most annoying noise to wake him bright and early for work. His room also has a fuze ball table that has to have quarters inserted into it in order for it to work. Sean has had so many vivid memories in his room with his friends. With his parent's room right above his it was hard to keep them from hearing some of the nonsense that happened. He remembers one night in particular. It was his sophomore year in college during winter break and the group with his best friends were all home and came to his house before the snowstorm that was supposed to hit that night to hang out. Of course they al brought with them some leftover beverages that couldn't be left at their schools over break. His mother had just made homemade pizza that day and left it for the boys to eat. During the storm two of his friends stepped outside in the cold storm to use the woods. When returning to the sliding glass door they realized Sean and their other friend had locked them out. With pizza in hand the two friends outside decided it would be funny to wipe the pizza and sauce all over the window and make it look like a scene from the movie "Departed." Within minutes the two that were locked outside were bombarded by snow balls from around the corner of the house where the other two had went out the front door to get them around the side of the house. When they finally came inside exhausted like children from playing out in the snow Sean's annoying alarm clock read 5:00 AM. He had no idea how he would explain the mess in his room and murder scene that took place outside his sliding glass door.
In addition to the blow this takes on your self-esteem, this exchange is anything but a private affair; the prison bar display of the fence allows this shameful experience to become a show for all who aren’t too belligerent to notice it. If by some miraculous twist of fate your ID makes the cut, or you are in fact over legal drinking age, a small fee of three dollars and a black stamp that takes longer than a moon cycle to wash off your hand, is the next order of business in gaining entry to the bar. Upon this fast paced initiation, you make your way into the mob of students focused on multitasking nursing their cigarette, beer, and witty banter that rarely exceeds more than two minutes. From inside the fence, the large, smudged glass windows reveal an array of madness taking place on the inside. The laser like lights shooting around the bar are enough to cause epileptic seismic attacks on those unprepared of their force. The fog machine fills the dance floor hiding the questionable actions taking place there, also providing an aroma that smells of an albuterol inhaler prescribed to asthmatics. The DJ’s voice echoes from wall to wall as they attempt to amp up their fans dancing in each section of the premises. The bar itself is impossible to see, as half of the population is pouring over it in hopes of flagging down a bartender for their next drink. The two for one drink special leaves many patrons double fisting their beverages, and inevitably dropping one of them on the wooden floor that has soaked up gallons of spilled drinks in its day. As the fog machine dies out, the true scent of Murphy’s shines through: despair drenched in stale beer, with a hint of greasy food fried to perfection.
I switch gears into a more serious topic, Jeremy's health. He and his older sister, Vicki, were both diagnosed from birth with cystic fibrosis. His sister receiving it in a worse form than him. The disease causes the body to produce abnormal amounts of mucus in the airways, lungs and pancreas. Thompson's cystic fibrosis has led to other health problems such as diabetes. “I haven't let any of that affect me,” is Jeremy's response to all his health problems. Which is obvious since Mr. Thompson leads a life of nothing less than risky and adventurous. Any given day, Jeremy starts and ends his day with treatments for his cystic fibrosis. He puts on a vest which shakes him for about 20 minutes, breaking up all the excess mucus in his body. In addition to his shaking treatment, Thompson throws back several pills the disease and takes insulin for his diabetes. This has become nothing but routine for Jeremy and to him “it's not a big deal.” Thompson says his friends never made a big deal out of it or made fun of him for it either. He was just like any other 4th grader at the time, learning how to skateboard. Following his older sister and older friend, Josh Fromer, Thompson started learning how to skateboard. Growing up 5 minutes away from Hunter Mountain, it was impossible for Jeremy to not step foot on the man made chemicals that created something identical to natural snow. Thompson recalls his first snowboard, a K2 Dart, which was given to him by Josh. (THIS ISN'T PART OF THE PROFILE PIECE BUT I AM WAITING FOR JOSH TO GET BACK TO ME SO I CAN GET SOME GOOD QUOTES FROM HIM ABOUT THIS AND IN GENERAL ABOUT JEREMY).
(I’d like to start this profile piece with a diary entry, but I haven’t found one that I like enough.)
The door slams and in she stomps; she is always seen before she is heard. We roll our eyes at the dining room table as our night was just given a shove into dysfunctional. She huffs her way in like a bat out of hell and starts the rapid-fire questioning. What’s going on? When did we get here? What are we eating? Her Brooklyn Jewish accent is not nasal at all, rather, a husky, demanding tenor. We just stare, not even bothering to answer. These were rhetorical questions; she wanted to ask, didn’t care to know. The interrogations at family dinners she arrived un-fashionably late to were as predictable as her tardiness. She would lecture every family member the importance of being on time, and would arrive to my Grandparents’ creaky old house at least an hour late, like clockwork. If anyone else was late, however, they’d be read the riot act. Standing five feet, six inches off the ground, her salt-and-pepper hair and wrinkles make her look beyond her not even 60 years. Often clad in a clunky sweater, leggings and boots, her style reeks of the glory days. She wasn’t always this high-strung, not that I would know. I guess time and stress made her this way. Eccentric isn’t the word. Caricature-like. Something out of a sitcom, too dramatic and magnified to be real. But she was real. She was real, is real, and is my mother. It seems strange, taking a step back and looking at her like a real person, but she is. We’ve all forgotten that. Through all she’s done and continues to do, through all the fights and the seething words thrown across a moldy, one-bedroom apartment, I somehow forgot that she was her own person. This is my tribute to that person, whoever she is. I must admit, I waste so much energy despising my mother, I barely have any left to know her. She was a firecracker in her day. Her hazel eyes, now allergic to mascara, were once heavily lined with black, the high cheekbones that clearly skipped a generation, rouged to further enhancement. Her now gray hair was dark brown, longer, and cut in edgy layers. Her small figure slinked into a tight dress like she was made for it. She was “the cat’s meow,” as a prepubescent friend scribbled in her High School yearbook. Somewhere in those years, she let herself go. Grey hairs sprouted, and she started taking stock in the Jamie Lee Curtis cut. Her clothes became more loose-fitting, reeking of ‘80s jazzercise, and she stopped wearing makeup altogether. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was my complications. Maybe it was witnessing her infant go through numerous open-heart surgeries, bouts with doctors and medications, surrendering herself to prayer and the unknown. Maybe that’s why control is such a big deal now, because when I was younger and sicker, she had none. Maybe that explains it, but that doesn’t excuse it.
During his year in the United States Büth found himself appreciating more than just the interesting language and people. He was starting to see the advantages to the American ways of life and ways of interacting with others. “People are a lot nicer in the United States,” said Büth. “They are more open and want to help you. They are actually interested in how you’re doing when they ask how you are, you get an honest response. In Germany you’re happy if you can squeeze a “hello” out of someone in a store.”
But after a year abroad how easy would it be to return to his home country? Speak his native tongue? And interact once again with his family, face to face?
“I was afraid I was too different for Germany and for the people here,” said Büth. “I felt like after my time in the United States I was more confident. I was more open to new ways of thinking about things and more open to things. I respected people differently than I did before. Well, in the U.S. you see so many different people. There are so many different religions and views. All those shades of gray, it was just, I don’t know, really mind opening because I could actually feel it inside of me, that I had changed since the beginning of my year abroad.”
Thinking back Büth says the changes started as soon as his family said their goodbyes at the airport. As he stood there, hugging his family and preparing himself mentally for the adventure he was about to embark on, he realized it wasn’t going to be hard to say goodbye to his family. He knew he would not see them for a year, the AFS organization that he was studying through prohibited it even if he wanted to. They asked that all families restrain themselves from visiting one another so that the student can get the full, integrated experience of living with a new family, in a new country. But he was glad they had this policy, he didn’t want to be tempted with returning home if anything started going wrong or if he was having a difficult time, this was his time to grow, to do something entirely for himself, by himself.
He looked around at his family members surrounding him, his mom and dad, his two brothers and his sister, and couldn’t wait to get on the plane. He would miss them, yes, but the unknowing of what was ahead of him, waiting for him in this brand new country that he had never stepped foot in before, it was too intriguing, he was itching to leave. His family, who could sense his excitement and eagerness to depart, were the first to leave the airport. He took his few moments of solitude to observe those around him who were saying goodbye to their own families. Some cried, some laughed, some hugged their families wordlessly, only expressing their feelings through the simple touch. When it was finally time to board the plane Büth was one of the first in line to find his seat. And as the plane took off, he couldn’t stop the enormous grin from stretching across his face.
As a child Youko was very well fed. Sushi hand rolls were served for happy occasions and nabiyaki udon was the comfort food for when she was sick. She claims that even school lunches in grade school were prepared delicately and deliciously.
When she was three years old, her mother prepared a tower of sandwiches on the kitchen counter. Cucumber and tomato, lettuce and egg, and omelette crumble were stacked in a pile. When the structure was complete, she put a weight on top of the creation. She told Youko that she would have to wait one hour for her lunch. Youko watched as the stack became shorter and shorter. After the hour passed, her mother removed the weight. She took a knife and cut straight down, splitting the sandwiches into two equal triangular piles. Different swirls of color could be seen in the seams of the crustless bread. Youko’s eyes were the size of dinner plates when her mother finally gave her a piece of each sandwich to taste.
As a child she traveled frequently. Her father was a wealthy businessman and her mother was the perfect housewife. At 10 years old, she moved from Yokohama to Fukuyama in the Hiroshima prefecture. Her mother gained a new kitchen, colored in shades of beige, eggshell, red and light green. She cooked three times a day if the family did not go out to eat.
Their home had three different places to eat. There was a breakfast counter, a western style dining room, and a short table called a chabudai. The chabudai was mainly used for traditional dinners. A hot bowl called a kotatsu would be placed in the center of the table and everyone would take from it. Curry dishes, gyoza dumplings and crabmeat croquettes were the specialties that Youko’s mother would serve to her family.
Food is a major component of Japanese culture. For Youko Yamamoto, every meal came with conversations of how the food was prepared, what sauce was used or where the ingredients were purchased. Her cooking expertise is gathered from years of traditional meals served by her mother and grandmother as well as the gourmet restaurants that her father brought her and her family to when she was young.
I put my new section into my old section...kinda tried to thread them together...New stuff starts at the third paragraph...
The first time Chucho went to the US he turned 12 years old and went to sea world. He was baffled when everyone went inside for the whale show and left their strollers and bags outside. When he came back everything was still there. “You cannot do that here in Mexico…If you leave something where it’s not supposed to be it’s lost and that’s it.” That was the first time Chucho discovered other realities than his own. “When you grow up you think that’s the way things are,” but Chucho’s curiosity quickly showed him that things in Mexico aren’t the way they should be.
He pauses with a smile on his face. “Did you know that when people get to a parking lot in Germany they park in the last spot so that those that are late get the first spots?” His expression is warmly bewildered. He shakes his head as if he himself doesn’t believe what he just told me. The more Chucho talks the more you start to feel his fascination with humanity.
Chucho tells me he wants to change the world. I tell him that I don’t mean to sound brash but what makes him so different? He takes his time when he speaks especially in English. “I feel the responsibility to leave this world better than I found it.” I pester him with another question; Why? He laughs a little and I apologize for probing him. He only smiles and says, “No, no, no it’s okay,” and stops to think.
There’s an endearing disconnect between Chucho’s developed ambitions and his pleasure in simple things. You’d think that his matured ideas would deter him from enjoyment because he empathizes so strongly with different parts of the world, but that’s hardly the case. The most I see Chucho light up is when he talks about his motorcycle. He calls her Princess. Well, his motorcycle and kids.
“If kids were ruling this world things wouldn’t be so fucked up.” Chucho says that when you’re a kid it is so much simpler to realize something because everything is logical for them. You tell a kid not to steal and they ask you why. You say, “Because you wouldn’t want someone to steal from you,” and it just makes sense. Chucho jumps back to when I asked him why he wanted to change the world. He said it started when he was a kid.
When Chucho was little his mother would tell him about kids in Africa that would die from hunger and like any four or five year old he’d ask the question why. In Chucho’s mind it didn’t make sense. “Why would kids that had no guilt and no responsibility whatsoever be dying from hunger when I have food?” Granted, Chucho was no ordinary child and his mother drilled that into his head. He took an IQ test when he was little and got a 153. Anything over 140 is said to be genius. “Yea I really feel like a genius,” he rolls his eyes and laughs a little when he tells me. He goes on to explain to me that IQ tests are irrelevant and cover such a limited part of a child’s psyche etc etc. I’m secretly impressed.
When his mom found about his “Genius” potential she pushed Chucho not to set boundaries for himself. He felt the responsibility to use his “gift.” At that point all he wanted to be was a pro skater.
“Hey John, we still watching the new South Park in half hour?” Kevin asked me from his bedroom. Our roommate over hears us from the bathroom, walks out and proposes to the both of us “Yo, Cold Case in 29 minutes?!” He walks away with a satisfactory grin. We three of us laugh and myself and Kevin solidify plans to watch the season premiere.
South Park is in its 16th season, and it’s my observation that it’s lost intrigue from the demographic that used to give it their undying support. Every Thursday of my sophomore year of high school, my peers devoted to retelling South Park jokes from the previous night. Anything anyone said, good chance it originated from the mouth of Cartman, Kyle, Stan, or Butters. I just remember the immense pressure there was to watch so that you weren’t left out the next day. It was such a staple of my growing up. But know here we are, five years later, and some of us would rather watch Cold Case (maybe ironically). Or at least make jokes about it.
Kevin, the only one of my roommates not native to America, is the only one who is enlivened by the prospect of watching a new episode of South Park. It probably seems passé for anyone like myself who endured several years of gush over a cartoon in every social setting. He’s enthusiastic. He clearly hasn’t been worn out and by beaten to death by the show like the rest of us. It’s still new for him.
The episode turns out to be a spoof on football; American football. I make the distinction because for the half hour before the show started; Kevin played FIFA ’13,the new soccer video game that was just released this week. Soccer, or Football, is without a doubt his favorite sport. One of the first commercials of the night was one for FIFA, which easily excited him. It even prompted a rant about how there would never be a strike among the soccer refs in Europe, and how the advertisements in France so greatly differ from those in the United States. It all mostly went over my head.
( these are two separate accounts. i'm not sure if i'm going to use both, just one, or neither )
“I mean, I can’t even eat a regular tomato anymore,” she states mater of fact as glances down at her iPhone. “I just joined a farm CSA, so I get fucking delivery of farmer’s vegetables every week on Thursdays. This huge box of stuff plus fruits. All organic.” The warm afternoon sunlight dances through the open kitchen window. The doorbell rings. “Can you buzz the booze guy up?” she asks as she stomps across the wooden floor in her Jeffery Cambells. Supposedly there’s a website that offers door-to-door alcohol delivery. She throws the door open and hastily throws him a 50. “Keep the change,” she mutters as she continues to be absorbed the e-mail on her phone screen.
It’s defiantly daylight, but the thick red velvet curtains hanging over the floor length windows makes it difficult to determine what time it is. Lara is sleeping on a newly purchased king size Tempur-Pedic mattress, sprawled on her goose down comforter and a wide array of colorful pillows. The room is small, but the high ceilings seem to go on forever. The hardwood floors are littered with shipping boxes containing everything from Jeffery Cambells to cookbooks to designer sex toys. A giant tree decal stretches across an entire wall, while another displays a reclaimed piece of barn furniture that now serves as a jewelry holder. More jewelry is kept on her nightstand in tiny bronze dishes ordered specially from Paris. The only light in the room comes from the green glow of the Macbook sleeping next to Lara. Finally, she stirs. Automatically she reaches for the laptop, opens her e-mail, and spends the next half an hour carefully reading and organizing every inbox into their proper g-mail folder.
The morning begins at 6:00a.m and the strong smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen fills the air of the Collins house as 53 year old Scott Collins gets ready for his jam packed day of managing and working his very own landscaping business. A pit stop is made on his way to his shop at Peppercorn’s Deli, located right at the top of the road from Collins’ house. Like every morning, Collins starts his day with a healthy breakfast consisting of awhole wheat wrap of spinach and egg whites. “ Make sure you throw some hot sauce on that too, Rick. Got to add a little kick to it!,” says Collins to the deli owner. The truck pulls into the shop. Awaiting for him are his three workers, dressed and ready to put in hard labor throughout the day. Collins lays out an agenda on the tailgate of his pickup truck and the workers examine it and study what needs to be done where. The Isuzu F series leaves the shop and they embark on to their first job site, a house on Dune Road, a very wealthy road in Westhampton Beach that consists of the backyards being the ocean and the front yard being the bay. “ It’s kind of a privilege to work on some of these houses. It’s like were on a celebrity’s property,” Collins says. Collins and his crew reach the first house of the day, where one of the workers has to go to a buttoned panel on the side of the road and type in a code that opens the steel gates to the never-ending driveway of this jobsite. The truck pulls into this pebble driveway, aligned with cobblestone, and approaches this $8.2M three-story house with an acre as their front yard, including a full sized tennis court/basketball court, and a roof consisting of a gunite swimming pool, Jacuzzi, guest house, and a beautiful view overlooking their ocean backyard. “ When I got the chance to work on these types of houses as a kid, the owners would be either in the city, work, or bringing their children somewhere on the other side of Long Island, so I would put in hard work, then jump in their pool and relax before they got back,” Collins tells his workers.
It’s the weekend, and in the living room there is a little box on the shelf flashing pictures and illuminating sound, surrounded by screaming people. Every weekend when the Arsenal soccer team competes in matches, Tayo remembers this moment, and how it made her fall in love with soccer. To say that Tayo loves watching soccer and is a huge Arsenal fan is an understatement. If the TV was to be turned off or they even lose a match, tears flow down her face like a waterfall as her passion for the team she loves brings out her emotions. This passion is fueled by something more then just her love of soccer; its how Tayo stays connected to her culture and family as they live in different parts of the world. As her family surrounded the TV one Christmas evening, Tayo sat on the couch not seeing the big deal. There were crying, screams of joy, screams of anger, as her family’s eyes became magnets to the TV set watching Arsenal score goal after goal in their match. Each goal created a spark, and Tayo suddenly became intrigued with the Arsenal team as well. Each game brings back these floods of emotions, as Tayo joined the rest of her family as an Arsenal soccer fan. When her sister and mother are in England, her dad, brothers and other sister are in Nigeria, and she’s at school in America, they can all stay connected through watching Arsenal play every week. Each time a player swings his leg back to slam the ball into the net, she knows her family is watching and reacting with yelling and screaming and what makes staying connected through sports with your family, such a unique bonding adventure, especially for a family dispersed throughout the world and intertwined with the many different cultures of our society.
It was 5:45a.m. when I turned into Vatrano Rd. in Albany, N.Y. Rich was standing outside in a red hoddie in front of his warehouse located at suite K. His 60 foot, white box truck with bold, red letter spelling "De Vendor", was loaded and ready to embark on the day's route. It was dark, freezing and way too early to be up, but to Rich and his driver, Roberto Rodriguez, this was routine. "I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and just couldn't get back to sleep," Rich said. This is something he is used to so he wasn't yawning as much as I was. Roberto, Rich and I got into the truck and headed to the SUNY University Administration Building, the first stop of Tuesday’s vending route. At this stop, Rich has four machines he is responsible for. "I send Roberto in first so he can check the machines, tell me what we need and check expiration dates because I can't see them," Rich said as he was in the back of the truck taking off the load locks. Rich goes into the building after Roberto, checking the machines in two break rooms, taking inventory and making note of what he needs. He scribbles down the amount of products he needs to fill the machine in black sharpie. "A woman asked me once, are you writing Arabic," he said. Rich's handwriting is barely legible, but he has his own short hand which he writes in a way that he can see it. Although Rich does like to talk to people, he explains that he avoids conversations with many people he passes throughout his work day because he doesn't feel like explaining his condition. "I feel embarrassed enough," Rich said as he was stocking Lays chips into the machine. "I don't use a white cane, so it's hard to explain to people because they don't understand," he said. Richard is not just your ordinary business man. He has a physical disability which has been with him since he was 19. He is legally blind. He explained as he continued to fill the slots of the machine with Doritos, Fritos and Cheetos that totally blind people are hostile to him because he has partial sight. He is somewhere in the middle, neither fully blind nor fully sighted. "Being legally blind is like being a light-skinned black person," he said.
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ReplyDeleteThe only thing separating Caleb from the rest of the world is a dollar store lock tying his door to its wooden frame. Walking past his intense security system I am instantly greeted by the smell of warm apple cinnamon chai. The wooded panel walls are coated with a mixture of slightly worn punk rock posters and framed images of loved ones, all in black and white. One colored picture sticks among them, it is Caleb coated in a vomit of colored paint eating a cold cut sandwich. He begins to take off his mangled skate shoes and places them in the corner with the others, all worn and duct-taped together at the seams. He has eight of ten pairs. He explained to me that this is his “Friday picture”. In one of his photography classes he did a weekly representation of his personality. On Monday he was suited up reading calculus books and by Friday all hell seemed to break loose. There in the corner of his room neatly placed in a tin crate were his prized vinyls, listed favorites in front to back. In the front laid his The Replacements vinyl which he bought with pocket store change after a long day of skating. Sitting along his drum set stacked upon each other like building blocks, he puts on the album. The room is cold due to it being a converted Florida room. There are windows on every wall and all the blinds are drawn. He opens with wickeder basket trunk and puts on a wool hoodie, two sizes too big. I pick up the picture of his two sisters, which was taken about a year ago. There is a faint similarity in their faces. They have his smile, thin lipped which curls up at the ends. The same straight sturdy nose, that dips right before their mouths. He grabs the picture from me and smiles. His sisters are 15 and 14 months now. He explains to me while sitting legs stretched across the floor that they live in Kingston with his Deadhead mother. Just close enough to visit but far enough to run away. He visits them almost every day, just to check up on them. He has a room there, but tries not to stay over. This would mean dealing with his mother. “Although I love them and have gotten very close with my immediate family this past year, it is still hard for old shit just past me by.” Caleb said putting down the picture and turning up the music. His bought this particular record; Sometimes Things Just Disappear after one of his first shows Have Heart and PBC in Albany. It was after a night of hard core dancing and a broken nose and for ten dollar it is still one of his favorite albums to date. The room is filled with the mellow dramatic melodic rock n roll sound with a hardcore edge. Caleb shuts his eyes and rocks his head along to the music. I stare out the window; there is a construction team outside, smoothing out the tar along the sides of the road.
No different from Dylan’s direct mannerisms, is 51-year-old Police Officer Brian Potter’s personality which has undoubtedly been affected by having a career with the NYPD. Standing 6’2”, weighing 200 lbs., with buzzed-cut salt-and-pepper hair, his appearance is no less than intimidating. His voice is deep and stern at times and if you have made him laugh, your words must have been of extreme hilarity. His dark-red Irish-freckled skin than has been repeatedly sunburned over the years, has only gained wrinkles around his mouth from his smoking habits of cigarettes and cigars. His cigars “get him through [his] day” of patrolling the streets and project complexes of Coney Island, NY, a place where he has come to know familiarly over the past 19 years on the job.
ReplyDeleteLiving in East Islip on Long Island creates a-little-over-an-hour commute for Officer Potter which has put a strain on the relationship between him and his three children. Leaving for his drive at 1:30 in the afternoon and not returning again until midnight or later, spending time at his sons’ soccer games or his daughter’s dance recitals has never been easy. With only one year left working for the NYPD, he is now counting down the days until he can spend his days working on and enjoying his 36’ SeaRay boat.
Full of stories about his arrests, injuries, fights, good days and bad days, he is never shy of conversation but rather always has something to say. He has seen blood, death, pain and crime, which would all take a toll on his overall appreciation for life. When he was being shot at in a project staircase 6 years ago, he says “the first thing that came across [his] mind was [his] family.” Although he walked away from the shooting unharmed, there was a new gratitude within him when he came home the next day and for the first time in many years, he prayed and thanked God before dinner that night.
Knowing how dangerous the life of a cop can be, one might question why a person like Dylan Wood would want to join the force. He says, “it’s all part of the job”. Most interested in the attractive pension that NYPD officers walk away with after retirement, Dylan is anxious to walk away from his job in retail and start a “real career”. After spending so many years working in places such as Waldbaums and Costco, where the work is repetitive, he can’t wait for everyday to be different. Meeting new people and experiencing new places and things is what excites him the most about police work. Most difficult is the process of getting into the academy.
Like most recently graduated seniors out of college, Sean Murphy moved back in with his parents. His room is located in the basement of his parents home isolated away from the rest of the house. In the large, vast basement there are three rooms one of which his older brother used to stay until he moved out, the other which is a "play room" which has a ping pong table where Sean and his friends used to play ping pong and eventually when they were older, turned into a beer pong table. In his room, Sean has a futon which acts as a couch in his room. His twin size bed is stuffed in the corner of his room with his dresser to his right and alarm clock on top of that which makes the most annoying noise to wake him bright and early for work. His room also has a fuze ball table that has to have quarters inserted into it in order for it to work. Sean has had so many vivid memories in his room with his friends. With his parent's room right above his it was hard to keep them from hearing some of the nonsense that happened. He remembers one night in particular. It was his sophomore year in college during winter break and the group with his best friends were all home and came to his house before the snowstorm that was supposed to hit that night to hang out. Of course they al brought with them some leftover beverages that couldn't be left at their schools over break. His mother had just made homemade pizza that day and left it for the boys to eat. During the storm two of his friends stepped outside in the cold storm to use the woods. When returning to the sliding glass door they realized Sean and their other friend had locked them out. With pizza in hand the two friends outside decided it would be funny to wipe the pizza and sauce all over the window and make it look like a scene from the movie "Departed." Within minutes the two that were locked outside were bombarded by snow balls from around the corner of the house where the other two had went out the front door to get them around the side of the house. When they finally came inside exhausted like children from playing out in the snow Sean's annoying alarm clock read 5:00 AM. He had no idea how he would explain the mess in his room and murder scene that took place outside his sliding glass door.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the blow this takes on your self-esteem, this exchange is anything but a private affair; the prison bar display of the fence allows this shameful experience to become a show for all who aren’t too belligerent to notice it. If by some miraculous twist of fate your ID makes the cut, or you are in fact over legal drinking age, a small fee of three dollars and a black stamp that takes longer than a moon cycle to wash off your hand, is the next order of business in gaining entry to the bar. Upon this fast paced initiation, you make your way into the mob of students focused on multitasking nursing their cigarette, beer, and witty banter that rarely exceeds more than two minutes. From inside the fence, the large, smudged glass windows reveal an array of madness taking place on the inside. The laser like lights shooting around the bar are enough to cause epileptic seismic attacks on those unprepared of their force. The fog machine fills the dance floor hiding the questionable actions taking place there, also providing an aroma that smells of an albuterol inhaler prescribed to asthmatics. The DJ’s voice echoes from wall to wall as they attempt to amp up their fans dancing in each section of the premises. The bar itself is impossible to see, as half of the population is pouring over it in hopes of flagging down a bartender for their next drink. The two for one drink special leaves many patrons double fisting their beverages, and inevitably dropping one of them on the wooden floor that has soaked up gallons of spilled drinks in its day. As the fog machine dies out, the true scent of Murphy’s shines through: despair drenched in stale beer, with a hint of greasy food fried to perfection.
ReplyDeleteI switch gears into a more serious topic, Jeremy's health. He and his older sister, Vicki, were both diagnosed from birth with cystic fibrosis. His sister receiving it in a worse form than him. The disease causes the body to produce abnormal amounts of mucus in the airways, lungs and pancreas. Thompson's cystic fibrosis has led to other health problems such as diabetes. “I haven't let any of that affect me,” is Jeremy's response to all his health problems. Which is obvious since Mr. Thompson leads a life of nothing less than risky and adventurous. Any given day, Jeremy starts and ends his day with treatments for his cystic fibrosis. He puts on a vest which shakes him for about 20 minutes, breaking up all the excess mucus in his body. In addition to his shaking treatment, Thompson throws back several pills the disease and takes insulin for his diabetes. This has become nothing but routine for Jeremy and to him “it's not a big deal.” Thompson says his friends never made a big deal out of it or made fun of him for it either. He was just like any other 4th grader at the time, learning how to skateboard. Following his older sister and older friend, Josh Fromer, Thompson started learning how to skateboard. Growing up 5 minutes away from Hunter Mountain, it was impossible for Jeremy to not step foot on the man made chemicals that created something identical to natural snow. Thompson recalls his first snowboard, a K2 Dart, which was given to him by Josh. (THIS ISN'T PART OF THE PROFILE PIECE BUT I AM WAITING FOR JOSH TO GET BACK TO ME SO I CAN GET SOME GOOD QUOTES FROM HIM ABOUT THIS AND IN GENERAL ABOUT JEREMY).
ReplyDelete(I’d like to start this profile piece with a diary entry, but I haven’t found one that I like enough.)
ReplyDeleteThe door slams and in she stomps; she is always seen before she is heard. We roll our eyes at the dining room table as our night was just given a shove into dysfunctional. She huffs her way in like a bat out of hell and starts the rapid-fire questioning. What’s going on? When did we get here? What are we eating? Her Brooklyn Jewish accent is not nasal at all, rather, a husky, demanding tenor. We just stare, not even bothering to answer. These were rhetorical questions; she wanted to ask, didn’t care to know.
The interrogations at family dinners she arrived un-fashionably late to were as predictable as her tardiness. She would lecture every family member the importance of being on time, and would arrive to my Grandparents’ creaky old house at least an hour late, like clockwork. If anyone else was late, however, they’d be read the riot act.
Standing five feet, six inches off the ground, her salt-and-pepper hair and wrinkles make her look beyond her not even 60 years. Often clad in a clunky sweater, leggings and boots, her style reeks of the glory days. She wasn’t always this high-strung, not that I would know. I guess time and stress made her this way. Eccentric isn’t the word. Caricature-like. Something out of a sitcom, too dramatic and magnified to be real. But she was real. She was real, is real, and is my mother.
It seems strange, taking a step back and looking at her like a real person, but she is. We’ve all forgotten that. Through all she’s done and continues to do, through all the fights and the seething words thrown across a moldy, one-bedroom apartment, I somehow forgot that she was her own person. This is my tribute to that person, whoever she is. I must admit, I waste so much energy despising my mother, I barely have any left to know her.
She was a firecracker in her day. Her hazel eyes, now allergic to mascara, were once heavily lined with black, the high cheekbones that clearly skipped a generation, rouged to further enhancement. Her now gray hair was dark brown, longer, and cut in edgy layers. Her small figure slinked into a tight dress like she was made for it. She was “the cat’s meow,” as a prepubescent friend scribbled in her High School yearbook.
Somewhere in those years, she let herself go. Grey hairs sprouted, and she started taking stock in the Jamie Lee Curtis cut. Her clothes became more loose-fitting, reeking of ‘80s jazzercise, and she stopped wearing makeup altogether.
Maybe it was me. Maybe it was my complications. Maybe it was witnessing her infant go through numerous open-heart surgeries, bouts with doctors and medications, surrendering herself to prayer and the unknown. Maybe that’s why control is such a big deal now, because when I was younger and sicker, she had none. Maybe that explains it, but that doesn’t excuse it.
-Suzy Berkowitz
During his year in the United States Büth found himself appreciating more than just the interesting language and people. He was starting to see the advantages to the American ways of life and ways of interacting with others.
ReplyDelete“People are a lot nicer in the United States,” said Büth. “They are more open and want to help you. They are actually interested in how you’re doing when they ask how you are, you get an honest response. In Germany you’re happy if you can squeeze a “hello” out of someone in a store.”
But after a year abroad how easy would it be to return to his home country? Speak his native tongue? And interact once again with his family, face to face?
“I was afraid I was too different for Germany and for the people here,” said Büth. “I felt like after my time in the United States I was more confident. I was more open to new ways of thinking about things and more open to things. I respected people differently than I did before. Well, in the U.S. you see so many different people. There are so many different religions and views. All those shades of gray, it was just, I don’t know, really mind opening because I could actually feel it inside of me, that I had changed since the beginning of my year abroad.”
Thinking back Büth says the changes started as soon as his family said their goodbyes at the airport. As he stood there, hugging his family and preparing himself mentally for the adventure he was about to embark on, he realized it wasn’t going to be hard to say goodbye to his family. He knew he would not see them for a year, the AFS organization that he was studying through prohibited it even if he wanted to. They asked that all families restrain themselves from visiting one another so that the student can get the full, integrated experience of living with a new family, in a new country. But he was glad they had this policy, he didn’t want to be tempted with returning home if anything started going wrong or if he was having a difficult time, this was his time to grow, to do something entirely for himself, by himself.
He looked around at his family members surrounding him, his mom and dad, his two brothers and his sister, and couldn’t wait to get on the plane. He would miss them, yes, but the unknowing of what was ahead of him, waiting for him in this brand new country that he had never stepped foot in before, it was too intriguing, he was itching to leave. His family, who could sense his excitement and eagerness to depart, were the first to leave the airport. He took his few moments of solitude to observe those around him who were saying goodbye to their own families. Some cried, some laughed, some hugged their families wordlessly, only expressing their feelings through the simple touch. When it was finally time to board the plane Büth was one of the first in line to find his seat. And as the plane took off, he couldn’t stop the enormous grin from stretching across his face.
As a child Youko was very well fed. Sushi hand rolls were served for happy occasions and nabiyaki udon was the comfort food for when she was sick. She claims that even school lunches in grade school were prepared delicately and deliciously.
ReplyDeleteWhen she was three years old, her mother prepared a tower of sandwiches on the kitchen counter. Cucumber and tomato, lettuce and egg, and omelette crumble were stacked in a pile. When the structure was complete, she put a weight on top of the creation. She told Youko that she would have to wait one hour for her lunch. Youko watched as the stack became shorter and shorter. After the hour passed, her mother removed the weight. She took a knife and cut straight down, splitting the sandwiches into two equal triangular piles. Different swirls of color could be seen in the seams of the crustless bread. Youko’s eyes were the size of dinner plates when her mother finally gave her a piece of each sandwich to taste.
As a child she traveled frequently. Her father was a wealthy businessman and her mother was the perfect housewife. At 10 years old, she moved from Yokohama to Fukuyama in the Hiroshima prefecture. Her mother gained a new kitchen, colored in shades of beige, eggshell, red and light green. She cooked three times a day if the family did not go out to eat.
Their home had three different places to eat. There was a breakfast counter, a western style dining room, and a short table called a chabudai. The chabudai was mainly used for traditional dinners. A hot bowl called a kotatsu would be placed in the center of the table and everyone would take from it. Curry dishes, gyoza dumplings and crabmeat croquettes were the specialties that Youko’s mother would serve to her family.
Food is a major component of Japanese culture. For Youko Yamamoto, every meal came with conversations of how the food was prepared, what sauce was used or where the ingredients were purchased. Her cooking expertise is gathered from years of traditional meals served by her mother and grandmother as well as the gourmet restaurants that her father brought her and her family to when she was young.
I put my new section into my old section...kinda tried to thread them together...New stuff starts at the third paragraph...
ReplyDeleteThe first time Chucho went to the US he turned 12 years old and went to sea world. He was baffled when everyone went inside for the whale show and left their strollers and bags outside. When he came back everything was still there. “You cannot do that here in Mexico…If you leave something where it’s not supposed to be it’s lost and that’s it.” That was the first time Chucho discovered other realities than his own. “When you grow up you think that’s the way things are,” but Chucho’s curiosity quickly showed him that things in Mexico aren’t the way they should be.
He pauses with a smile on his face. “Did you know that when people get to a parking lot in Germany they park in the last spot so that those that are late get the first spots?” His expression is warmly bewildered. He shakes his head as if he himself doesn’t believe what he just told me. The more Chucho talks the more you start to feel his fascination with humanity.
Chucho tells me he wants to change the world. I tell him that I don’t mean to sound brash but what makes him so different? He takes his time when he speaks especially in English. “I feel the responsibility to leave this world better than I found it.” I pester him with another question; Why? He laughs a little and I apologize for probing him. He only smiles and says, “No, no, no it’s okay,” and stops to think.
There’s an endearing disconnect between Chucho’s developed ambitions and his pleasure in simple things. You’d think that his matured ideas would deter him from enjoyment because he empathizes so strongly with different parts of the world, but that’s hardly the case. The most I see Chucho light up is when he talks about his motorcycle. He calls her Princess. Well, his motorcycle and kids.
“If kids were ruling this world things wouldn’t be so fucked up.” Chucho says that when you’re a kid it is so much simpler to realize something because everything is logical for them. You tell a kid not to steal and they ask you why. You say, “Because you wouldn’t want someone to steal from you,” and it just makes sense. Chucho jumps back to when I asked him why he wanted to change the world. He said it started when he was a kid.
When Chucho was little his mother would tell him about kids in Africa that would die from hunger and like any four or five year old he’d ask the question why. In Chucho’s mind it didn’t make sense. “Why would kids that had no guilt and no responsibility whatsoever be dying from hunger when I have food?” Granted, Chucho was no ordinary child and his mother drilled that into his head. He took an IQ test when he was little and got a 153. Anything over 140 is said to be genius. “Yea I really feel like a genius,” he rolls his eyes and laughs a little when he tells me. He goes on to explain to me that IQ tests are irrelevant and cover such a limited part of a child’s psyche etc etc. I’m secretly impressed.
When his mom found about his “Genius” potential she pushed Chucho not to set boundaries for himself. He felt the responsibility to use his “gift.” At that point all he wanted to be was a pro skater.
“Hey John, we still watching the new South Park in half hour?” Kevin asked me from his bedroom. Our roommate over hears us from the bathroom, walks out and proposes to the both of us “Yo, Cold Case in 29 minutes?!” He walks away with a satisfactory grin. We three of us laugh and myself and Kevin solidify plans to watch the season premiere.
ReplyDeleteSouth Park is in its 16th season, and it’s my observation that it’s lost intrigue from the demographic that used to give it their undying support. Every Thursday of my sophomore year of high school, my peers devoted to retelling South Park jokes from the previous night. Anything anyone said, good chance it originated from the mouth of Cartman, Kyle, Stan, or Butters. I just remember the immense pressure there was to watch so that you weren’t left out the next day. It was such a staple of my growing up. But know here we are, five years later, and some of us would rather watch Cold Case (maybe ironically). Or at least make jokes about it.
Kevin, the only one of my roommates not native to America, is the only one who is enlivened by the prospect of watching a new episode of South Park. It probably seems passé for anyone like myself who endured several years of gush over a cartoon in every social setting. He’s enthusiastic. He clearly hasn’t been worn out and by beaten to death by the show like the rest of us. It’s still new for him.
The episode turns out to be a spoof on football; American football. I make the distinction because for the half hour before the show started; Kevin played FIFA ’13,the new soccer video game that was just released this week. Soccer, or Football, is without a doubt his favorite sport. One of the first commercials of the night was one for FIFA, which easily excited him. It even prompted a rant about how there would never be a strike among the soccer refs in Europe, and how the advertisements in France so greatly differ from those in the United States. It all mostly went over my head.
( these are two separate accounts. i'm not sure if i'm going to use both, just one, or neither )
ReplyDelete“I mean, I can’t even eat a regular tomato anymore,” she states mater of fact as glances down at her iPhone. “I just joined a farm CSA, so I get fucking delivery of farmer’s vegetables every week on Thursdays. This huge box of stuff plus fruits. All organic.” The warm afternoon sunlight dances through the open kitchen window. The doorbell rings. “Can you buzz the booze guy up?” she asks as she stomps across the wooden floor in her Jeffery Cambells. Supposedly there’s a website that offers door-to-door alcohol delivery. She throws the door open and hastily throws him a 50. “Keep the change,” she mutters as she continues to be absorbed the e-mail on her phone screen.
It’s defiantly daylight, but the thick red velvet curtains hanging over the floor length windows makes it difficult to determine what time it is. Lara is sleeping on a newly purchased king size Tempur-Pedic mattress, sprawled on her goose down comforter and a wide array of colorful pillows. The room is small, but the high ceilings seem to go on forever. The hardwood floors are littered with shipping boxes containing everything from Jeffery Cambells to cookbooks to designer sex toys. A giant tree decal stretches across an entire wall, while another displays a reclaimed piece of barn furniture that now serves as a jewelry holder. More jewelry is kept on her nightstand in tiny bronze dishes ordered specially from Paris. The only light in the room comes from the green glow of the Macbook sleeping next to Lara. Finally, she stirs. Automatically she reaches for the laptop, opens her e-mail, and spends the next half an hour carefully reading and organizing every inbox into their proper g-mail folder.
Austin Collins
ReplyDeleteThe morning begins at 6:00a.m and the strong smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen fills the air of the Collins house as 53 year old Scott Collins gets ready for his jam packed day of managing and working his very own landscaping business. A pit stop is made on his way to his shop at Peppercorn’s Deli, located right at the top of the road from Collins’ house. Like every morning, Collins starts his day with a healthy breakfast consisting of awhole wheat wrap of spinach and egg whites. “ Make sure you throw some hot sauce on that too, Rick. Got to add a little kick to it!,” says Collins to the deli owner.
The truck pulls into the shop. Awaiting for him are his three workers, dressed and ready to put in hard labor throughout the day. Collins lays out an agenda on the tailgate of his pickup truck and the workers examine it and study what needs to be done where. The Isuzu F series leaves the shop and they embark on to their first job site, a house on Dune Road, a very wealthy road in Westhampton Beach that consists of the backyards being the ocean and the front yard being the bay. “ It’s kind of a privilege to work on some of these houses. It’s like were on a celebrity’s property,” Collins says. Collins and his crew reach the first house of the day, where one of the workers has to go to a buttoned panel on the side of the road and type in a code that opens the steel gates to the never-ending driveway of this jobsite. The truck pulls into this pebble driveway, aligned with cobblestone, and approaches this $8.2M three-story house with an acre as their front yard, including a full sized tennis court/basketball court, and a roof consisting of a gunite swimming pool, Jacuzzi, guest house, and a beautiful view overlooking their ocean backyard. “ When I got the chance to work on these types of houses as a kid, the owners would be either in the city, work, or bringing their children somewhere on the other side of Long Island, so I would put in hard work, then jump in their pool and relax before they got back,” Collins tells his workers.
It’s the weekend, and in the living room there is a little box on the shelf flashing pictures and illuminating sound, surrounded by screaming people. Every weekend when the Arsenal soccer team competes in matches, Tayo remembers this moment, and how it made her fall in love with soccer.
ReplyDeleteTo say that Tayo loves watching soccer and is a huge Arsenal fan is an understatement. If the TV was to be turned off or they even lose a match, tears flow down her face like a waterfall as her passion for the team she loves brings out her emotions.
This passion is fueled by something more then just her love of soccer; its how Tayo stays connected to her culture and family as they live in different parts of the world. As her family surrounded the TV one Christmas evening, Tayo sat on the couch not seeing the big deal. There were crying, screams of joy, screams of anger, as her family’s eyes became magnets to the TV set watching Arsenal score goal after goal in their match. Each goal created a spark, and Tayo suddenly became intrigued with the Arsenal team as well.
Each game brings back these floods of emotions, as Tayo joined the rest of her family as an Arsenal soccer fan. When her sister and mother are in England, her dad, brothers and other sister are in Nigeria, and she’s at school in America, they can all stay connected through watching Arsenal play every week. Each time a player swings his leg back to slam the ball into the net, she knows her family is watching and reacting with yelling and screaming and what makes staying connected through sports with your family, such a unique bonding adventure, especially for a family dispersed throughout the world and intertwined with the many different cultures of our society.