As the Leopard was riding the Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan a couple of weekends ago, I began to reminisce growing up in the NYC area as a youth. One of my earliest memories is of my dad occasionally gathering my family when the mood struck him, and as a "treat", we'd pile in our wood-lined station wagon and we'd drive across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge around dawn Friday or Saturday Summer evenings. He'd look up at the lights and say emotively, "Look--Beautiful"!
As tacky as it sounds, I enjoyed this, because my Dad was seldom around during the week, working two jobs and taking classes. I think it was a a not-so-subtle attempt to bond with my sister, brother and me in some way.
