BROOKLYN

Recently I had a couple of hours to kill and went to see the movie, Brooklyn. I read the little excerpt and it seemed like something I wanted to see, mainly because of my fondness for Brooklyn. I lived there a couple of years while I went to grad school at LIU (Long Island University). LIU was a great fit for someone just back from Nam. Originally LIU was supposed to be one of many schools spread throughout NY. It never happened. I didn't know why. The locals called it Jewish University. I choose not to see that as derogatory as when they called me Cracker. A term of affection. 

My MA was in Sociology and part of our thesis project was a survey of the Bedford Stuyvesant area and the NY City welfare system. We (my fellow student) had to devise questions, go house to house for a couple of blocks and then stand on a corner and see if we could get a few people to talk with us. 

This doesn't sound so out of the ordinary when you just looked at it on paper. What made it downright funny was the timing. It was 1972, the Vietnam war was winding down and here were two college types, one white with a deep southern accent and the other black. Both of us were Vietnam vets and angry. It could have been comical, not to mention dangerous, but as I remember it, several street hoods as my bud called them, answered our questions and pronounced us dumb as dirt or something like that. But, for me, I developed an admiration for Brooklyn. It was the epitome of blue collar, lots of Irish, Italians and Jews. They didn't seem to mix but from my perspective, they got along well.

 Brooklyn was the first place I ate real pizza and discovered bagels. 

Going to see the movie, “Brooklyn,” was a chance to maybe recognized some of the things I remembered. It didn't work out that way. “Brooklyn,” the movie was incredibly timely, however. A young Irish girl comes to NY. The experiences of homesickness, finally meeting a love although Italian. Sister dies, she goes back to Ireland and it has changed. She had secretly married her sweetheart but the temptations to remain in Ireland were immense but through some crafty insight, she regains her composure and returns to Brooklyn. 

A sweet little movie, coming of age, the emigrant experience. The movie didn’t capture what I hoped, places that I wanted to recognize, as it wasn't about Brooklyn even though the title implied it. But, what the begingles, see the movie.