The Write Angle: Seeing Daylight Savings

It's been a week now and I’m just about acclimated to Daylight Saving Time (DST). While I know it's controversial in some circles, I believe that—in the big picture—it makes sense. It certainly enhanced the summers of my youth. The longer summer days—sunlight-wise in the waking hours—supplied us with more usable time in the Great Outdoors. More time to play the games that little people had played for generations, which they, sadly, don't play anymore. Nowadays, kids don’t actually need that additional sunlight, which was so very precious to us. They can stare into their mind-numbing devices anywhere, during all four seasons, and at any time of the day. Since this is the last week of Winter 2019, I thought I’d tie up some loose ends and gaze with anticipation at the prospect of spring. It was seventy-five degrees in New York City today!

I'm still on the Pizza Trail here. In my old neighborhood—Kingsbridge in the Bronx—during the 1970s and 1980s, a fiery debate raged. Who had the better pizza: Sam's or Riviera just down the block? I was a Sam's guy, but Riviera's pizza was quite unique and very tasty, too. There was a period of time in the late-1980s when I thought Sam's had lost a little of its former luster, with pizza makers—for one—undercooking the pizza pies. So, I patronized Riviera for a spell. Typically, my pathway home would have found me walking directly past Sam's Pizza with its elongated picture window. The one with a bird's-eye view of sidewalk passersby. But I chose a detour in this instance. I didn't want the staff at Sam's to spy my grease-stained white paper bag, the evidence of my treachery. Sam's used brown paper bags.

Once upon a time, in the early-1980s, I labored at a mom-and-pop shop called Pet Nosh. It was located on Northern Boulevard in the Little Neck section of Queens. There was an excellent pizza place called Sal's a few doors down. Sal himself was there every day and the shop endured for another twenty-five years. They don't make 'em like Sal's Pizza anymore.

In the late-1970s my family vacationed in the cozy shore town of Lavallette, New Jersey. The Oven Pizza filled in admirably—during my vacation from Sam's—for a couple of weeks in the summertime. It's still in the same location—on Grand Central Avenue—and called The Oven Pizza all these years later. As the late Mel Allen would say, "How about that!"

Forty-one years ago this summer, my mother, brothers, and I passed through the town of Sag Harbor on Long Island. Proof that pizza assumed an important role in our lives, a picture was taken of the place where we stopped for lunch: Conca D'oro Pizza. I Googled the name and was surprised to learn that it survived in the same spot—with the same ownership—until 2017. Conca D'oro had opened its doors in 1975 and we dropped by 1978. It lasted another four decades. That's time for you! Now it's a totally remodeled hip pizza place with hipper than hip pizza selections.

In a photo album scrapbook of the Summer of '78—that had nothing to do with a Barry Manilow album—a manual typewriter was employed to identify the pictures therein, including Conca D'Oro Pizza and the fact that "Carol Bellamy worked there." Carol Bellamy was a prominent New York City politician at the time and her doppelganger, a waitress in Conca D'Oro.

The waning days of winter in Van Cortlandt Park. Its swimming pool is in the backdrop. A friend of mine, who regularly drank in the park on summer evenings thirty years ago, remembered watching youths scaling the closed pool's fencing at night. His most vivid memory was the sight of an expectant mother making the climb.

This is a barbecue pit section in the sprawling park. I prefer its stark winter look to its littered summer one.

This is the very field where we would "hit some out" on a summer's night. DST lent a helping hand.

When I snapped this picture the temperature was in the high fifties. At this time of year, that's a freakin' bone.

I've tried to capture an image that includes planes, trains, and automobiles—or even planes, trains, and school busses—but always come up short. It's a plane problem that I intend on solving.

Life is all about endings and beginnings and so is the Van Cortlandt Park, W242nd Street, subway terminal.

I've seen this mysterious Number 13 on the Number 1 train on one other occasion and can't for the life of me figure out how it got there. There is no Number 13 train in New York City.