I grew up in Newport Beach, California. I went to college in San Diego. I never knew until today that radiators bleed; or, rather, that they need to be bled.
You see, now I live in Buffalo, New York—a writer's city. Mark Twain lived here and wrote for the newspaper. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived here. Ishamel Reed used to teach at the high school in my neighborhood. I could go on. Really.
Quite a few literary luminaries have called Buffalo home. Why am I here? Well, I moved here for graduate school; primarily I wanted to study with one of my poet-heroes while earning a Ph.D. in American lit. I thought it would make me a better writer. To be honest, the more compelling reason is that I was afraid to strike out on my own earlier. So my adviser at UC San Diego said I had, absolutely had, to go to SUNY at Buffalo's maverick, theory conscious, raucous English department for my Ph.D. And he was right. And it was great.
But then we stayed, my wife and I. We stayed because we love this town. For one thing, it's gorgeous. I'm serious. It was the wealthiest city in the U.S. around 1900, and the architecture still shows it. Frank Lloyd Wright built several homes here. Frederick Law Olmstead layed out the system of parks and parkways. Joseph Ellicott designed the core street system—not a grid, but a series of traffic circles joining the major arteries. Late twentieth-century stupidity obscured some of the grandeur, but if you go for a walk, it's still there. Getting out for a walk and being surrounded by historic beauty is good when you've changed three lines of dialogue 1,356 times over eight hours and it still doesn't sound right.
Oh yeah, and we bought a five bedroom Victorian house, with a three car garage and hardwood floors throughout, for less than $80k. That would not have covered the down payment in San Diego.
So I write and enjoy the educated people (there are over a dozen colleges and two major universities here) and the parks and the art and the gorgeous summers and the snow in winter. But I don't care for the cold. And that's why I had to learn about radiators today. Now there are buckets of water in my basement, and I'm nervously eyeing the pressure gauge on something called a boiler. Sometimes I'm still just a tourist from a beach town. I think things will be ok, but I'll let you know more later.
2 comments:
The folks who own # 22 NEVER bled their radiators. And then one day--remember?--the one downstairs in the big front room where Clay and Olvia lived just blew. The floorboards warped all to hell. See, now that you know you are doing something about it. Unlike some morons.
yeah -radiators need to be bled. and plastic needs to go on older windows to prevent the draftiness and salt must be laid on sidewalks and steps so that when the afternoons turn warm and the snow on your roof melts in the direct, enfeebled sun, you in turn do not wind up falling on your ass since this makes a lovely veneer of clear ice on the sidewalks. oh, yes, and driveways need to be snow-blown or shoveled and it is useful to have kitty litter handy to add traction under your tires if the drive is newly snowed on but the storm is still going or there is not enough to warrant full-out removal mode. These are all things we learn, us displaced California types, when we live in a place where the sun makes only occasional appearances between November and May. I am with you, by the way, about the beauty of the city and all, but a white sand beach, a Dos Equis, and some Baja Fresh sound damn good about now.
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