Imagine my delight when I got this note from Michael David Nolan, a former Brooklynite, who now resides in San Francisco.
Would love to blog my Brooklyn memoir installments. I grew up in
the Midwood section but went to Sunday School in Park Slope at the
Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture at the corner of PPW and 1st.
So I asked Michael Nolan to send me his bio:
Michael David Nolan was born on June 21, 1941 to Harold Francis Nolan, a native of Brooklyn, and Lena Porgoman, a native of Kaluszyn, Poland, who grew up on the Lower East Side. Michael attended PS 217 (Coney Island Ave. & Newkirk) and PS 99 (East 10th & Avenue K). He grew up just down the street. He played center field for the Avenue J Spartans as a teenager. He attended Midwood High School and graduated from Columbia, class of ’63. Active in peace and civil rights movement of Fifties and Sixties. Worked for CBS News (1965-67) and Pubic Broadcast Laboratory (1967-69). Moved to California in 1969. Resident of San Francisco since 1970. Member of SF Mime Troupe and co-founder of Pickle Family Circus. Public relations consultant for last 20 years. Elected member of the SF Democratic County Central Committee. Father of Rosy, 30, of Brooklyn, and McLean, 26 of Oakland. Produced and performed in BrasilCuba-SF Carnaval Contingent this year.
So here’s the first installment of Michael’s Brooklyn Memoir
I first told my children, Rosy and Mac, a year ago on my summer solstice birthday in Brooklyn that I was going to write a book about my family and my home borough. I had a rough concept and a title: "Proximity" and it was to describe the value and influence of living and working close to one another in previous generations. And how much of that has been lost in my generation when many of us migrated west to California.
The song title above, "I Could Write a Book" was composed by Lorenz Hart (music by Richard Rodgers). Hart is one of my favorites. He wrote the lyrics to "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and "My Funny Valentine". Turns out he was the son of Jewish immigrants and attended Columbia where he met Rodgers. Two things he and I share in common. But for the fact that my Polish Jewish immigrant mother married an Irish Catholic from Brooklyn.
So here it is… the preface of my book. How am I doing so far?
How great to read the first installment of your book! Like you, I have thought so much about a book of short stories related to my Brooklyn childhood. My prologue describes the hissing radiator on POETS ROW in the Capital Hill area of Denver Colorado. There was a radiator hissing steam and several windows rattling so much noise in the wintertime circa 1990. Dreams of my chldhood circa 1947-8 floated around my studio apartment and I began writing.
The result: a poem called THE HISSING RADIATOR and a book titled SECOND LAMPPOST ON THE LEFT.
Good luck completing your book, Michael
from Zisa (aka Janice Moglen)
My friend Bob Stern (now deceased) went to school with Larry Hart. You knew him as Lorenz.
Yes, he was very talented….
How great to read the first installment of your book! Like you, I have thought so much about a book of short stories related to my Brooklyn childhood. My prologue describes the hissing radiator on POETS ROW in the Capital Hill area of Denver Colorado. There was a radiator hissing steam and several windows rattling so much noise in the wintertime circa 1990. Dreams of my chldhood circa 1947-8 floated around my studio apartment and I began writing.
The result: a poem called THE HISSING RADIATOR and a book titled SECOND LAMPPOST ON THE LEFT.
Good luck completing your book, Michael
from Zisa (aka Janice Moglen)
My friend Bob Stern (now deceased) went to school with Larry Hart. You knew him as Lorenz.
Yes, he was very talented….
How great to read the first installment of your book! Like you, I have thought so much about a book of short stories related to my Brooklyn childhood. My prologue describes the hissing radiator on POETS ROW in the Capital Hill area of Denver Colorado. There was a radiator hissing steam and several windows rattling so much noise in the wintertime circa 1990. Dreams of my chldhood circa 1947-8 floated around my studio apartment and I began writing.
The result: a poem called THE HISSING RADIATOR and a book titled SECOND LAMPPOST ON THE LEFT.
Good luck completing your book, Michael
from Zisa (aka Janice Moglen)
My friend Bob Stern (now deceased) went to school with Larry Hart. You knew him as Lorenz.
Yes, he was very talented….
Thank you, Louise. I’m honored to be in the company of such fine hometown literary and journalistic talent.