FLASHBACK: On My Own (1975-1977)

I found a studio on West 70th Street after moving out of Stuart's place.  If I squinted I could see the Hudson River between the elevated West Side Highway and the abandoned railroad yard.  This gantry obscures the building, which was featured in Network, during a scene (@3:47) when New Yorkers open their windows and scream "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore."  Kind of like what happened when a certain New York reality TV star was elected president exactly four decades later.

My new apartment had great sun and a fire place, too, an absolute necessity during the winter when the electric bill regularly exceeded the $200 I paid in rent per month.  My father drove up from El Paso with a trailer of stored furniture.  He helped me move in and paid for a butcher block dining table.  

I hung my wheels above the hearth.

Audrey lived around the corner with Tom and their cats.  

We both made good use of Riverside Park.  I loved taking her picture.

Tom spent a lot of time at OTB.  We took the subway to Aqueduct one afternoon.  It was a step up from Fascination in Times Square.

Audrey and I watched Brideshead Revisited on my tiny Sony Triniton TV but mostly I read novels, searched for love and listened to "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" by Joni Mitchell. Prince said it was one of his favorite albums, too.  Critics at the time panned it.

This is Sammy, Audrey's Siamese.  She had two kittens.  I actually liked sweet ol' Felix better but he wasn't nearly as photogenic.

My father also towed a used Honda 350cc motorcycle from El Paso.  Audrey and I rode it to the Hamptons where we spent a very damp Memorial Day in a rented room.

She must have taken this picture.  Can anyone say "ingenue?"

There were sunnier days at the beach with Veruschka, too. 

Jeff, my sophomore roommate at Columbia, must have taken a break from medical school to join us on one of our Hamptons outings.

Audrey and I won a dance contest at Hurrah, a punk and New Wave club in the neighborhood. Can this have been the night?

Paul's grandmother lived around the corner on Riverside Drive.  She had a Bicentennial Party.  We got to see the tall ships from her living room.  Note the crowds on the Westside Highway.

Susan was the daughter of my mother's best friend, Laura.  She and her husband lived in the neighborhood, too.  They occasionally invited me to dinner and drove me to the airport when I returned to El Paso for the holidays.  If it weren't for this photograph, I would have forgotten their kindness to me.  At the time, they seemed so much older than I.

Carrie, a friend of Cynthia's at Columbia, and I became much better friends after graduation, probably because she and her boyfriend, a football player, had split.

We even rode down to see my aunt and uncle at their new home in Manahawkin, on Long Beach Island.  Carrie eventually married another classmate.   They moved to Detroit and adopted a Russian baby who almost became a professional ballet dancer.