She Gave Him The Brooklyn Bridge

About ten days ago, I imposed upon a very good woman who I knew a very long time ago.  My imposition?  A favor.  

In early December, she shared on Instagram a simply stunning photograph she had taken of the Brooklyn Bridge.  In the interest of full disclosure, she takes stunning photographs regularly.  I cannot recommend heartily enough following her Instagram feed (apeaseye), which is public.  Her bio is "NYC literature professor looking for the things language can't capture."

Anyway, if you follow my advice and begin following her on IG, you might not want to ever give up the fact that I am the one who sent you her direction.  After all, I am the asshole who took advantage of her good nature to track her down almost thirty-five years after we were friends and neighbors on Farrand Hall's 4th floor at the University of Colorado, Boulder to ask her for a favor.  

That simply stunning photograph of which I spoke above (and which I have furnished a copy of here - it is a photo of the photo and it still is stunning) spoke to my favorite Brooklyn boy.  My father-in-law Joe was born and raised in Brooklyn.  He has lived in New Jersey for decades but at least a small part of his heart has always remained in the borough where he was born. 

At Joe's request, I wrote Allison a short letter asking her if she would sign her photograph for Joe.  She did.  Of course, given both her gift for the written word and the size of her heart she did not merely write her name:

To Mr. Joe Bozzomo, 

Here is to the Brooklyn of our past,

our present, our future, and our DREAMS.

Best, Allison Pease

He is as taken with her inscription on the back of his photograph as he is with the photograph itself, which is framed on the wall in his man cave near his television.  Its placement is by deliberate design. It is not close enough to the television that its placement on the wall is a distraction. Yet it is close enough to the television that when he sits in his favorite chair watching TV, he can see it and take a journey far beyond the dimensions of his television's screen... 

...a journey from his present and into his past, his future, and any dream he wants to dream.  

-AK