The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Luyster Creek, lords and ladies. Also, a different day than the one I mentioned last week. I don’t get over to this side of the Queensiverse, the “Forbidden Northern Coast,” all that often these days. One thing Covid has made me absolutely long for is ownership of an automobile. At some point in the next year or two, I’m going to be purchasing a motor vehicle. The gyrations one endures getting around on foot during this period of time have been extreme. I make a big deal of walking just about everywhere, but under normal circumstance if my foot starts to hurt I’d just hop on a train or bus and come back home. Not an option due to mathematical probability of infection exposure, which reduces me down to taking the occasional cab here and there – but that gets pretty expensive, pretty fast.

As it turned out on this particular visit to Astoria’s loneliest and saddest waterway, a buddy of mine from the community board who wanted to check the place out picked me up in his car and we rode over.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One of the factors which is playing into my continuing thought process regarding personal transportation is what I’d be trading away – dealing with alternate side parking, the cost of insurance and maintenance – ugh. Alternatively, it makes day trips in a roughly 100 mile circle around… let’s use the Triborough Bridge as a center point reference… to photogenic subject matter possible. So, then the question about what kind of vehicle – Jeep, Van, SUV for instance – would be best for that sort of endeavor. Something I could conceivably sleep in? I don’t know. I can’t afford a car, currently, so I’m just fantasizing out loud about it. Still, would’ve been nice over the Pandemic to pack up girl and dog and go somewhere. Dog’s gone, girl’s still here.

I tell you this, walking multiple miles every other day doesn’t get easier when you get older, and I definitely start to feel a bit tired after walking from Astoria to Greenpoint and back.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Lottery winner Mitch would get one of those snazzy RV’s that are rolling around these days, the kind with satellite tv and water heaters. Regular Mitch would be lucky to be able to afford an aged mule pulling a third hand Romani wagon.

Man, it would be cool to own a mule though. I’d get her one of those straw hats and rig a tripod onto the saddle. Last time I mentioned Luyster Creek, and its generous apportionment of Poison Ivy, the fact that goats eat poison ivy (which I’ve also recently learned) came up. Further, the best of all the facts was offered, which is that you can rent goats in NYC who will graze away your poison ivy on a per diem rate.

Who needs a car if you’ve got your own mule and a set of rent-a-goats?

Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, February 8th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.

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Buy a book!

“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.