Amman, Jordan and  the West Bank city of Nablus........ and Ravenscroft

It seems I have appointments to keep.  My Palestinian/Jordanian friend and his sister are awaiting me in the city of Nablus on the West Bank to attend a birthday celebration with them. The email I received from him includes a surprising message that evoked a pleasant memory from years past. In the note he asks if I remembered the story I once told him of a soccer match I refereed a few decades ago 'at a high school called Ravenscroft.'  "I heard back from the royal palace," he writes.  He mentions a warm response and a “Yes we remember that day and that moment well!”

Amman

 

Nablus

 

 

 

 

American Memories:

Atlantic Beach    .....  So much fun

                                                                                              

As a teenager, I remember going to Atlantic Beach with my family and occasionally running into Raleigh classmates--maybe while walking down the beach to Sportsman’s Pier, or while cracking into a candy apple at The Circle (I loved playing putt-putt at Anchor Golf Green there--once winning a free pass after making a hole-in-one on number 18). Remember those rides?   When I was a little kid I loved the bumper cars.  Not so much, though--that scary roller coaster named The Little Dipper.  :-)

 

 

 

 

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Fort Macom

I remember running all over that old fort playing Civil War.  We kids loved Fort Macon.

 

 

A Trip to New York City and the World's Fair in the Summer of ‘64

There was the time my family and I were at the New York World’s Fair during the summer of 1964 when the Newsomes, who lived down the street from our house in Raleigh, walked right past us as we waited in a long line to get into the General Motors pavilion.  What a small world, I thought, and what a fun fair. Remember seeing the first Ford Mustang, and Michaelangelo's Pieta....

And that great fair food-- especially those delicious Belgian Waffles slathered with whipped cream and fresh strawberries!

 

 

 

 

Baseball and Hotdogs and Stickball in the Bronx

One particularly hot morning, I elected to stay with a favorite uncle of mine while the rest of my family headed back out to the fair. The two of us watched the Mets play the Phillies that afternoon on TV in his air-conditioned apartment located off the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. The Phillies' Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game that day out at Shea Stadium as Uncle Charlie and I watched the entire game from the comfort of his living room while munching on kosher franks topped with brown mustard and sauerkraut. Best hotdogs I ever ate.

 

After the baseball game I drifted out onto the side street beside my uncle's apartment building to play stickball with the neighborhood kids.  My uncle took a seat on the stoop and watched his nephew from North Carolina try to hold his own with those young New York teens.  Crossing paths with my Uncle Charlie was the best of times.

Stickball in the Bronx

A Soccer Crossing

The two tall figures in dark suits, wearing military sun glasses, stood up firmly against any further incursion by the referee. The soccer ball had rolled just past me and off the field in front of the St. Alban's team bench, so I slipped over to kick it back but quickly realized that the two bodyguards were standing in protection of a young Arab teen who was seated behind them. One of the men retrieved the ball, though, and gave it a quick juggle with his feet, to the amusement of onlookers, before passing it out to me. We both smiled at each other as I returned to the playing field with the ball in hand. When the first half ended a few minutes later, I picked up the game ball and took it back over to the two guards and the young teen who now stood with them, and dropped it at their feet. To make a long story short, we (all four of us) kicked the ball around for a few minutes and delighted in friendly banter, the two Arab bodyguards and their young charge showing off their juggling skills to the enjoyment of a burgeoning crowd of fans from behind the bench area—I did notice that the eyes of the young boy’s protectors never wavered away from their duty, though, even while deftly displaying their soccer skills. The young Jordanian prince, the brother of the future King Abdullah, was openly delighted and happily passed the ball over to the match referee. A cherished memory.

King Abdullah of Jordan

King Abdullah of Jordan fights against Isis

I am told that a further surprise awaits me in Amman. And the birthday girl says in Nablus too!

I hope my little stories stir up pleasant memories of your own and that our paths do cross again some day--maybe at next year's Class Reunion?    :-)

Dan(ny)

Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and all the famous sites in Israel are on my bucket list.  Hopefully we'll head that way after we go back to Spain next year.