Manhattan Project...

Notwithstanding the fact that a cellar room in our big barn was allegedly constructed in the 1960s as an atomic bomb shelter – thick concrete walls and metal doors, still oh-so-handy in this unsteady day and age - the Manhattan Project we’ve undertaken is just a bit of whimsy Francesco & I invented while warring against the damned brambles that gird a little ‘park’ of red oaks north of the house.

As we’ve hacked and chopped along the twenty long rows of trees, we’ve begun referring to the lanes with New York City street names. The easternmost has become 1^st Avenue, followed by 2^nd, 3^rd, Lexington, Park East, Park West, Madison, and 5^th. We call the next series Central Park, through which 6^th, 7^th, and Broadway thrust, before the continuation of the grid: 8^th (and/or Central Park West), 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, 12^th, and West Side Drive.  This plan also makes our entry road FDR Drive and we have a little copse of trees along the track that we’ve come to call Governor’s Island.

I have the grandiose idea of extending this map of New York to our whole property, with Brooklyn being the woods east of the barn, Westchester the pinewoods to the north, the Palisades to the east, Long Island and the Jersey Shore to the southeast and southwest. I have it in mind to draw a fancy map, embellished just so – although I have yet to impart this idea to Francesco. As we have veto powers over each other’s crazy ideas I suspect he will exercise his. If so, I will retreat to the bomb shelter with a jar of peanut butter and a comic book to sulk. Hopefully, Arcadio will join me.