Coney Island - a stream of conscience

I have a deep, inseparable and genuine love for Coney Island. I was born in Coney Island Hospital during the city's g(l)ory days of 1968. My family first lived on Canal Avenue just outside of Sea Gate at Coney's western end. We then moved to an apartment building (nee projects) on Mermaid Avenue. Finally, we settled in O'Dwyer Gardens on Surf Avenue and 33rd Street in 1976. My mother still lives there.

I moved out of Brooklyn in the early 1990's to make a living at sea. But I always returned when I could. I still return. How can you not when you've shared a past with such a historic community.

These days I hear people talking (foaming) about their walk-up in Chelsea, or their brownstone in Brooklyn Heights or wherever. Sometimes I think about my childhood...throwing snowballs at each other in a half-lit deserted playground behind P.S. 188 in the early winter dusk...walking from 33rd Street all the way to Sheepshead Bay along the boardwalk to try to get a job on one of the Bay's head boats...Buying the prized pink "Spaldeen" (for you Facebook-generationers out there, go look up Spaldeen on your Wilkipedia) from Jack's discount store on the corner of Stillwell and Mermaid. Nah, you can keep your nuveau (did I spell that right?) hip diggs in Williamsburg (place was an industrial dump when I was a kid, fun to explore, but a dump). I'll never want to trade anyone for my years in C.I.