Beginning when I was around eight years old, I had a secret love.  I would say hello to her whenever I saw her – at least once a week - when I visited my grandmother who lived in an apartment at 43-24 43rd Street in Sunnyside.  As my grandmother later told me, my beloved’s name was “Pinkie.”

 

​          Whenever I visited my grandmother, there was Pinkie, a graceful young beauty in a painting on the building lobby wall.  Whenever I saw her, she came to life for me.  I imagined her eyes were following me as I walked slowly across the lobby to the elevator.  Next to her was a painting of someone who might have been her boyfriend, “Blue Boy.”  Nevertheless, her eyes were on me the whole time, every time I visited.  

 

          The vision of her loveliness remains with me still as I walk through my memories from those days as a young boy.