Everything Old Is Old Again

When I was growing up in the Bronx, the two- and four-legged alike of all ages sat outside—sometimes on their front stoops, the sidewalk, and in their backyards, too. They gazed out their windows a lot, as well, observing the goings-on of that unique moment in time in that one-of-a-kind place. I remember this old man—who lived with two of his rather old, unmarried daughters—passively sitting in a rocking chair beside his bedroom window. For hours upon hours—with no perceivable expression on his face—he watched us playing the games that urban kids played in those bygone days. This inscrutable old geezer seemed glued to that rocking chair, which didn’t do much rocking and was far enough away from the window to make him appear ghostly. He was—from my youthful perspective—an eerie wax figure with an ancient pair of eyes that lorded over us morning, noon, and night. Yes, even in the evening hours, I could see him—from my bedroom window—still in his rocking chair and staring, inertly as ever, into the darkness.

Really old people in multiple family homes housing extended families were quite commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s. There was, for instance, this old lady’s mother, who was, as you can imagine, even older. She sat out in our communal concrete backyard with nothing much to see but concrete, garage doors, and underwear hanging on an extended series of clotheslines. Even in the dead of winter, on the coldest of days, this woman sat—covered in multiple blankets—gaping at the barren landscape from dawn to dusk. I suppose she took lunch and bathroom breaks every now and then, but I must have missed them.

Other than being a little creeped out, I didn’t give this recurring spectacle much thought when I was six and seven years old. Now, I can’t help but wonder what that old lady—who had come to America's shores from an impoverished Italian town—was thinking as she whittled away the hours in a beach chair in a cobbled Bronx backyard. It’s quite evocative, actually. Of course, the really, really old folks from my youth were, in many cases, not that prehistoric at all—certainly not by contemporary standards. Looking back, that bundled-up senior citizen was probably about the same age as the main presidential contenders in 2020.

Well, that was then and this is now. There are some old timers from the old country who, I see, are carrying on the tradition. They sit out on the sidewalk in front of their homes in every kind of weather and in every season of the year. It’s been a remarkably mild, snow-free winter in these parts, but on one of the coldest mornings—with temperatures in the teens—the oldsters were spotted soaking up the sun and kibitzing like it was a warm summer’s day.

But a new day has dawned for sure! Recently, I’ve encountered this elderly woman racing around the busy Bronx streets and shopping in her motorized scooter. I’ll call her “Mrs. Green” and ponder if those really old people from my past, who sat endlessly for hours both inside and outside, would have preferred dashing around town instead? It might have made their sedentary lives a little more interesting. Who knows? Then again, it also would have detracted from a very special snapshot in time that—in my opinion—was a whole lot more lively in its deceptive lifelessness than it is today.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)