It was Christmas Eve 1980 and Mom and I had yet to purchase our first Christmas tree as a married couple. We were just a few months removed from our wedding and honeymoon in Bermuda that August. Mom had been busy acclimating to her teaching assistantship at Fordham that fall while continuing to progress in her Ph.D. Program in Psychology. And I had just completed my first semester as a Visiting Economics Professor at Seton Hall University — my undergraduate alma mater — and was putting the finishing touches on the proposal for my doctoral thesis that addressed the growing quality gap between American and Japanese made automobiles, a hot topic of debate at that time.
It was late in the afternoon and already dark outside as we had just finished some last minute shopping at the Cross County Mall in Westchester. We had no idea where we would be able to purchase our tree as it started to snow on the ride back to our 5 story walk up apartment on Prospect Avenue in the Little Italy section of the Bronx. Luckily, we found a location off the Bronx River Parkway that was selling Christmas trees and quickly settled on one for $5 and placed the tree on the roof of our 1980 Toyota Tercel which we had purchased before the wedding.
I can still remember the excitement of carrying that first Christmas tree full of snow up those 5 flights of stairs to the apartment where our first dog Dirke waited patiently to be fed and walked. Soon, we were busily at work decorating our first Christmas tree and getting our presents lined up and ready to celebrate our first major Holiday together as a married couple. We had a quick Borgatti ravioli dinner sitting at Mom and Dad Powell’s old kitchen table that we still have to this day and then headed over to Fordham’s chapel for the midnight mass.
When Christmas morning arrived, much to our surprise there was no heat in the apartment as the building’s boiler had broken down during the night. We had a portable electric heater from Sears that helped a little bit but it was really cold inside as we opened our presents in the living room where the tree had been set up. Back in those early days before we started our family, Mom and I would go to my Uncle Nick and Aunt Pat’s house in Ridgewood on Christmas Day which was always so much fun as we assembled around their huge dining room table with Mom and Dad, my siblings, and lots of our cousins. It was always a feast with roast beef, turkey, and lots of Italian fare as Poppy and Uncle Nick cooked everything for the meal while lots of great wine would be consumed by all.
Fortunately, the boiler was working again when we got back to our apartment that evening and I have so many great memories of that first apartment that Mom and I called home for the first two years of our marriage. That apartment, our neighborhood of “Little Italy” that we lived in, and the Fordham experience always touches me in a special way during this time of year. By the following July, I would begin my career as an Energy Economist at Texaco, commuting the 25 minute ride up to White Plains where their corporate headquarters was located and then later in August, Mom would begin her career as an Industrial Psychologist at Prudential Insurance in Newark, necessitating the purchase of our second car — a beautiful 1981 Honda Civic sedan, one of our favorite cars.
We had that Civic for about 6 years as it was the car I drove to the train station when I started working on Wall Street and we then gave the car to Mary Claire and Uncle Chris in October 1986 when we moved from the house in Wyckoff to East Windsor. Chris would use that car to deliver the NYT and WSJ newspapers for a morning route in Ridgewood, something I had done myself for more than 5 years when I commuted to Seton Hall and then to Fordham.
Mom and I enjoyed every place we lived in these past 46 years — the apartment in the Bronx, the house on Lynnfield Drive in East Windsor, the 18 years living at Jamieson Place in Pennington, and of course our current home of 23 years on Sussex Avenue in Spring Lake. But 2485 Prospect Avenue Apartment 5A will always hold a huge place in my heart, especially during the Christmas Holidays and a reminder to always, always appreciate where the journey begins and every stop along the way. Oh, what a great ride it’s been and can’t wait to see what the Lord has for us in our next chapter. Love always, Dad
