“Red Bank! Walk this way.” Taking a line straight out of Mel Brooks, The Producers, Michael waves his New York Times over his head. It’s 1998 and I am on the Red Bank Middle School eighth grade trip to Washington, DC and New York City. It’s my first trip to either place, as I am chaperoning the group, since my son Justin is in the eighth grade. We had two tour guides, Michael and a lady named Mibbs.
Johnny and Sharon Adams were the main sponsors of the trip at that time. Mibbs was such a beast that Johnny and I called her the “Tour Nazi.” A spin off from Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” episode. The kids despised her and absolutely loved Michael. He was charming, personable and enjoyed talking with the kids. I was absolutely amazed at this man’s knowledge of New York City, as I took it in for the very first time.
A year or so later, Johnny and Sharon gave up the trip. I took over as the sponsor and dropped the DC part of the trip. I was using World Strides Tour Company at that time and always requested Michael as our guide. We began to strike up a friendship and started emailing during the year.
In 2004, David Green, a new teacher at our school, came along with me on the trip. World Strides was a fiasco of a company and had us staying in Brooklyn that year, claiming there were no hotels in the city in Midtown that would book groups. I quickly found out from Michael that it was a total falsehood. He told me that since I had been there enough times and knew what the group needed, that he and I could put the package together ourselves. We proceeded to do that and made wonderful memories for a lot of kids until I retired in 2011. David took over at that point and we went a few more years, all at the guidance of Michael.
His company, To Morrows Tours of New York City, is absolutely wonderful. Oh, and a whole lot cheaper than World Strides. One year, he told me about his sweet, little poodle, Vicki and about his love of traveling. He knew I enjoyed the New York Yankees games and suggested that I come up one summer for a couple of weeks and keep Vicki, so he can go on vacation. That quickly blossomed into a “brotherly” relationship between us.
Emily and I now consider Michael family. Michael even had my own set of keys made and I can go to his house anytime I want. We just absolutely love spending time together. Cooking, talking, going on walks throughout the city. What follows are a few examples of some of those wonderful experiences.
Cooking
Michael likes to cook and has all kinds of recipes. The first meal I remember him preparing for me and Emily was his homemade pizza, which we now call “Michael’s pizza.” He got flat breads and fresh Figs. Michael says, “I’m going to make you my famous fig pizza for dinner tonight!”
Emily looks at me and says, “Geez. I don’t know about that. I don’t know if I’m gonna like figs on a pizza or not.”
I said, “Well. It’ll be a different experience. We need to learn how to eat new meals.”
Michael tells me, “Dee you like to cook. Come in here and I will show you how to make this pizza. Then when you go back to Florida, you can make this for Emily.”
He put down a layer of cherry preserves, spinach leaves, mozzarella cheese, prosciutto ham and fresh cut figs from the market on 43rd and 8th Ave. That same corner street stand is where I get all of my fruit and veggies now. We call it “our neighborhood fruit stand.”
Michael’s apartment on 45th and 9th Ave. is in Hell’s Kitchen. It has become a second home of sorts to me, since I spend at least two weeks in the spring and two weeks in the fall.
We listened to old music on Michael’s CD player and talked while he prepared the pizza. He also made us a fresh salad, as he loves having salad with his meals.
The pizzas are ready! It’s time to plate!” Michael proclaims as he pulls the pizza out of the oven. Both Emily and I take our first bite or two cautiously, as we’re not sure if we are going to like it.
Emily says, “Oh Michael! This is really good! I wasn’t sure that I would like figs on a pizza, but my goodness, all of the flavors. This is wonderful.!”
Now, about once a month, we will prepare a pizza and we call it, “Michael’s pizza.” Each time, we think of our wonderful experience with Michael. Making memories with dear friends is one of the “treats” of life to me.
Speaking of pizza, Michael loves the pizza stand down on 42nd and 9th, Two Brothers Pizza. This is where he introduced New York pizza to me and Emily.
Michael demonstrates, “Now, you take the pizza and you fold the paper plate in half like this. Then you slide the pizza out the end and you take a bite. Then, you’re ready to go eating your pizza as you walk through the streets of New York City!”
What an experience! We rarely ever eat pizza, except in New York now. We love having a “slice” of New York pizza. We even took sweet Vicki down there for some pizza one day. She absolutely loved it, too.
I enjoy cooking southern meals in a crockpot. Michael had never eaten anything out of a crockpot. The loving man he is went out and bought a crockpot for me. I’ve made all kinds of meals out of the crockpot that he absolutely loves.
Once we “plate “and he takes a bite of whatever I’ve cooked, he usually says, “Oh my! Dee! This is just fabulous. I love eating new meals from Carter’s kitchen!”
Another meal that Michael absolutely loves is my southern low country boil!
Gardening
Michael’s building has a wonderful garden area in the back. He has been the caretaker of this garden for close to 40 years. He spends his time in the spring and summer nurturing every plant and every bloom with love. He gets most of his plants from the market in Union Square. I have been with him several times. While he looks for his hostas, I seek out the stand from the Hudson Valley that sells fresh, homemade Whoopie pies. They are a Northeastern treat that I can’t find in the south. We eat our Whoopie pies as we walk around looking at all of the wonderful stands in the market.
One time after we got back, Michael planted his hostas. I snuck up on him and did a video pretending that I was him, using his voice. When he does videos, he always ends them with “Say goodnight! Gracie.” We have such a hoot acting silly and doing our videos together.
Michael loves to host dinner parties in his garden. A couple of years ago, his good friends, Cameron Foord and Bobby Bowen, came over. Michael fixed his Moroccan Tagine with couscous. Bobby brought a watermelon, which I thought was hilarious with him being a northerner and me being from the south. We did a silly video about that also. What great times we have in the garden.
Broadway
The first Broadway show I ever saw was on the trip in ’98. It was Phantom of the Opera. Oh, my goodness! I’d rather go to a dentist for a colonoscopy. What an absolutely hideous experience for someone seeing Broadway for the first time. Not only did I go to sleep, but one of my basketball players went to sleep with his head on my shoulder. When we woke up, I had drool all over my shoulder. Some guy named Fat Tom, with half a hockey mask, chasing a girl around screaming and hollering the whole time and nobody had any idea what any of them were saying.
Thank goodness for Michael. As the years passed, he has taken us to some absolutely incredible shows. Now, I absolutely love Broadway. Emily and I have seen well over 100 shows, throughout the years. Our all-time favorite is Mamma Mia, which we have seen five times on Broadway.
A couple of years back, Michael and I went to see Groundhog Day. Afterwards, we walked around having a wonderful, intellectual discussion about the meaning of the show. Each day may seem the same, but is very different and it’s what you make of it. There was a wonderful, full moon out that night. We took pictures of it and then went on his roof to take it in even more.
If we learn to “live in the moment,” our lives take on a much deeper meaning.
Singing
Michael absolutely loves to sing. It is his daily mental therapy. Every morning as he’s making his morning coffee, he is almost always humming or singing “Send in the Clowns.”
One morning while he was humming the song, some crap fell out of my brain. I started singing, “Where are the clowns? They’re at Citi Field. They’re called the Mets.”
Michael began laughing hysterically saying, “Dee! That’s just fabulous! I have to write that down.” So, he sat down at his computer and wrote out some lyrics to “Send in the Clowns,” with me substituting words about the Mets and how pathetic they are.
Michael will often do a video of a song he sings and post it to Facebook. I have encouraged him to do that more often, singing is good for the soul.
Walking
I don’t even know where to begin on this topic. Walking around the great city of New York has been nothing short of an absolute thrill for me. Michael is a walking encyclopedia of New York City history. It seems that he can tell you the history and story of every building on every block in the city.
After we have our morning coffee and read our newspapers, the New York Daily News for me and Michael, The New York Times, we usually decide what we’re going to do for the day.
Michael will say, “Ok Dee. What do you have in mind for the day? Where would you like to go?”
I usually say, “I don’t know. Where do you think you would like to take me today?”
Then we will discuss the neighborhoods that we have been to and the ones I haven’t seen yet.
A couple of years ago, we spent a wonderful afternoon at Governors Island. Emily‘s friend Ming was born there. We walked all over that place. It was such an incredible experience.
One of my favorite places to go with Michael is Ferrara‘s Bakery in Little Italy. We go there and get cannolis. He tells of a story that his mom always went to Ferrara’s to get his birthday cake when he was a kid.
Not far from Ferrara’s is Economy Candy, one of the oldest candy stores in the country. When we were in there one time, I went to the back to get some dried mango and dried pineapple. Michael was looking around and as the girl weighed the fruit and put it in a bag, Michael just walked by, stuck his hand in the bag and took a piece out, started eating and walked off. The girl’s eyes got big.
So, I seized the moment. I said, “What the heck? Who is that old man? Why did you let him take fruit out of my bag? I don’t know that man, he’s probably a vagrant.”
The girl’s eyes popped out of her head and she didn’t say a word. When we got outside, Michael and I had a great laugh.
Another time, I got to the counter to check out and I had a pack of old, baseball cards from the 1970s. When I went to pay for them, I asked the guy that was working there, ” Now when I open this pack of baseball cards, if the bubble gum inside is stale, am I allowed to bring them back for a refund?”
The poor sap looked at me in bewilderment and said, “Um… Nobody has ever asked me that and the manager isn’t here, sir?”
Michael began to laugh hysterically. I just love hearing him laugh.
Neighborhoods
Michael has taken us to some incredible neighborhoods over the years. One of our favorite days was in 2014. He took us to the Upper West Side, near Columbia University. We walked all the way back down to 45th St. along Riverside Parkway. He pointed out all the elegant buildings and a lot of people that stayed there. We stopped and sat in the park several times along the way, passing by Grant’s tomb, Babe Ruth’s apartment, etc. He even showed us where he lived back in the early 70’s.
Another time, he took us through the Village and down to the Bowery. I had just finished reading “The island at the center of the world. ” It was about Pegleg Stuyvesant and the Dutch settlement that started New York many years ago. We ended that day having a great meal in Little Italy.
He’s taken me to the Stonewall Inn, where in 1969, a riot took place that is now seen as the turning point in the fight for LGBTQ civil rights.
One day, when we were walking down the Lower East Side, he totally surprised me as he took me up to this outdoor basketball court with a huge fence around it.
He said, “Dee! Do you recognize this place?”
I said, “No I don’t.”
He said, “Oh come on! You love basketball. It’s called “The Cage.” It’s a legendary New York City basketball. It’s been around since the late 1970’s.”
I read up on it when I got back to the apartment.
That same day, Michael took me by the boyhood home of Hank Greenburg, the Cheers Restaurant, and the famous Chumley’s on 86 Bedford St. Then, to a little, restaurant type theater, Boots and Saddle, where Harvey Fierstein performed early in his career. Emily and I just love anything that Harvey Fierstein is in. We saw him play Edna Rosenblatt in Hairspray on Broadway.
Another summer when I was up there, Michael was on vacation. I went back down to The Cage and they were having a huge New York City Streetball tournament. There were people all around that place. It was like a college basketball atmosphere. I must’ve stayed there for at least an hour. Just hearing the basketball hit the pavement and the squeaking sound of sneakers is music to my ears.
Well, folks, so anyhow.. I hope you’ve enjoyed just a few of my “Michael” stories.
I guess it’s time to ‘Say goodnight, Gracie.’
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