Looking back: Getting nostalgic in the NYC subway – heading home from the Bronx where i taught a local seminar at my buddy Tito's school. It's fun coming home from 238th street Station – I have not been up here since my early days working as a bouncer in the early 1990's. So much change in both the environment and myself – it's good to reflect at times like this and see where you came from and where you are headed. One of my earliest NYC memories is from here on these tracks. In 1991, a desperate man blocking the subway at the above-ground section of the tracks between 125th and 137th street on a freezing cold night – the few passengers on the train at that late hour screaming and cursing at him to move or jump so the train could continue. Eventually he walked to the side of the tracks and silently jumped over the rails to his death on the street below. The passengers went quiet – death has a way of shaming the rambunctious into silence. I remember thinking “this ain't New Zealand” as I peered through the window and he fell into the freezing darkness. It was an early lesson on our need for creating a positive infrastructure of friends and comrades around us – when those leave, so often hope soon follows. Now it's a different world and a chance to reflect on what was and where I'm going. Always grateful for the lessons of the past, both the dark and the light, and hopeful for the future.
