[Leica] Where New Haven is

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

At 06:56 AM 9/29/05 -0400, Douglas Nygren wrote:
>You ask, where is New Haven?
>
>New Haven is 90 minutes east of Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, 2 
>hours and 45 minutes west of a school in Cambridge, Mass., whose name 
>is unmentionable. It lies along the divide between the Yanks and the 
>Sox (don't you dare ask who they are), and it is the home of the best 
>pizza in the U.S., and if that is not enough, it is home to a great 
>Leica repairman.
>
>All this means is that you can send your kid to Yale for an education, 
>come to visit and eat pizza or the great Italian food here and have 
>your Leica repaired while you listen in to the local argue about 
>baseball.

The above is, well, a bit absurd.

Having attended Yale University and having been awarded a degree from that
esteemed institution. and hving lived in the suburbs of New Haven as a
child, allow me to point out the following:

a)  Many of the hopeless derelicts in New Haven worry about the fate of the
New York Yankees.

b)  The rest of the hopeless derelicts in New Haven worry about the fate of
the Boston Red Sox.

c)  Most of the folks in New Haven whose IQ levels are above room
temperature are still puzzled by the move of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee
and are even more puzzled why their less prescient neighbors are hung up on
the doings of that most senior of the Minor Leagues, the American League.
The manager of the team which won the 1902 National League championship
refused to engage in a contest with the American League's winning team on
the simple and true rationale that "we are the National League champions
and are therefore the world champions".  Bless the lad for such clarity of
thought and it is a sad commentary on gross commecialization and
money-grubbing that later developments have ever granted those minor league
nines in the American League any sort of claim to parity with the Senior
Circuit.

d)  There are those who claim that Pizza was invented at a restaurant on
Route 10 north of New Haven.  It is possible, though the stuff I have eaten
there deserved no special kudos for quality.  It was okay but nothing
better than that.

e)  Now, for seafood and Greek food, New Haven is a magnificent abode, but
you snobs might have missed this part of the town.  Back in my day, thirty
years back, the seafood shops all dumped on sale whatever was left at six
on Fridays and you could pick up shrimp and oysters and clams and lobsers
at firesale prices.  And there was a Greek bistro where the food was great
and where the old Greek guys would all get up and dance on Friday evenings,
a regular affair for those of us in Classical Language studies:  we were
often joined by Donald Kagan, then the chairman of the Classical Languages
Department at Yale and  later to serve as their Athletic Director though
that job, to me,. still seems an exercize in futility.

As a chld in the 1950's, I saw Elm Street with elm trees.  By the 1970's, I
saw Elm Street without elm trees, and I was shocked.  I still grieve for
the loss of those magnificent arbors, victims of that blight which still
puzzles botanists.

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!

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