Imagine

Tuesday morning, our last day in NYC, we decided not to go back to the National Stationery Show because I'd seen the best of what I really wanted to see, the handcrafted cards. So we ate breakfast at Cafe Europa instead of at our usual Pick-a-Bagel. Then we walked up through Central Park to Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon memorial. Above is the picture I took of the mosaic that was donated by Naples, Italy. We learned quite a bit about Strawberry Fields from a couple of tour guides that came through with their groups while we were there. Almost every country in the world donated a tree or plant in the 2-1/2 acre tear-drop shaped area. It's the only place in 843 acre Central Park that is privately maintained, through donations, including $1 million donated by John's widow, Yoko Ono.

The benches that you see in the background of that picture surround this paved area. There is a plaque on each one dedicating it to the memory or in honor of friends and family. Some quoted Lennon lyrics. It was pretty moving, actually.

Gretchen, however, takes performance art pictures. She takes these red shoes with her on all her trips and has pictures of them all over the place - Washington, DC, Florida, her oven, you name it. It's her thang. When her photographs become famous, you can say you knew her back when.

So naturally, I had to take a picture of her taking a picture of the shoes. (Shhh, please don't wake the homeless man in the background. Sleeping, bent over like that, was giving me a backache.) What I should have been taking pictures of was the people trying to figure out what Gretchen was doing.

Two nice German (?) women asked Gretchen what she was doing. Then they took our picture for us and Gretchen took their picture for them.

But our very favorite was this man who had to find out what kind of shoes they were because he just loved them. Gretchen talked him into posing with the shoes. It took some coaxing but he finally did. He picked up one shoe, put it to his ear, saying he was "Maxwell Smart". Then he put both shoes over his ears and said he was Little Black Sambo. (Gretchen, do I have that right? I couldn't hear his explanation for that.) He was very funny - on purpose, I mean. We were laughing with him, not at him.

After he and his friend left, Gretchen walked back over to where I was sitting, "That is why I love New York!"

This is The Dakota, where Yoko Ono still lives.

We walked all the way around it - it's a very impressive building. This is the front gate which residents can drive into, parking for only 15 minutes, like to unload the car perhaps. It looked like there was a courtyard in the middle. We especially liked the really nice wood shutters on the windows you can see in these pictures.

John Lennon's death is definitely one of those I-remember-where-I-was things. It took, literally, a couple of years for me not to tear up when I heard his song, Imagine, on the radio. I'm really glad we made time to see all this. It was all meaningful to me, and a nice day for a nice walk.

John & Yoko, outside The Dakota, September 1980, three months before he was murdered.