I Used To Do That

Last Friday, I met Dave and '97 NHS alumna Jamie visiting from Tucson at the Brooklyn Bridge Park to watch the rubber ducks. Every year, the New York chapter of Special Olympics conducts a Million Dollar Duck Race to raise money. People purchase ducks ($5 each) in the weeks preceding the race. Then they dump thousands of ducks into the East River and the person whose duck crosses the finish line first wins a million dollars. I like the idea of a million dollar duck race, but doesn't a one hundred grand duck race sound good too? Then NY Special Olympics would be 900 grand richer. I guess it works itself out in the end.
So we waited and waited and the ducks did not arrive. "The ducks! The ducks! Where are the ducks!?" we asked ourselves. I even called 311, a telephone number here in NYC that sometimes provides its callers with any bit of information. No...we were in the right place. But? Where were the %#@!?& DUCKS?
Dismayed, we headed for the subway station, only to hear what sounded like a band concert in the distance. I think when one lives in New York, one expects everything to be so urban. So hearing a marching band when you're in uber-industrial swank Dumbo, Brooklyn, you ask yourself, "Whaaa!?" We rounded the corner and in this parking lot was a marching band practicing. Instead of playing "God Bless America," they were playing Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff." And while they're playing, they're also dancing. It was straight out of the movie, Drumline. These kids were great. When they had a break, they'd grab their ankles and start hopping around. The sousaphone players would swerve their hips up and down as they played. They had us entertained plenty. We had been in marching band ourselves back in the day, but I think the most complicated move we made was executing a 90-degree turn while still playing. Anyway, it was nice to be diverted from the usual urban sounds (cars honking, sirens blaring, gunshots) and to see talented kids using music to do good things.

P.S. Kidding about the gunshots.

Also: Ticket was purchased for Thanksgiving weekend. I fly in Thanksgiving morning and leave that following Monday; Saw Lewis Black yesterday at Carnegie Hall. Now that's a big hall; Wisconsin beat Michigan yesterday! First time since 1994. What I would've done to be at Camp Randall last night; Sighted: Elijah Wood at Pearl River in Soho.