Author: sbornstein2014
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Wantagh, Not Montauk
“I grew up in Wantagh, not Montauk,” This was usually met with a blank look, and I would quickly add, “Wantagh, it’s near Jones Beach.” Maybe there’d be a brief acknowledgement, but inevitably the conversation shifted to something else because in the eyes of many, Wantagh doesn’t quite have the star power of Montauk. My hometown may…
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October 7, 2023
This is a short piece with some of the characters in the novel Swimming to Jerusalem five years later. In that context it is best understood by those that have read the book.
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An Immigrant Tale
The ‘Ur-Bornstein’ Nathan was the first and the original Bornstein in the New World. With the exception of a few sepia photos and an old postcard there are few artifacts from his past. All I have are some stories and whatever I’ve conjured up based on them. I have often wondered what went through the…
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And We Are Still Here
Mrs. Parker’s Greeting I once read that when Dorothy Parker picked up the telephone or opened the front door her greeting was “What fresh hell is this?” That goes through my mind each morning when I open up the door and pick up the New York Times (I am still old school and like to…
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Swimming to Slovenia
When I started this blog in 2014 I focused on my first swim trip to China. Since then it has meandered into other topics. This entry is back its original roots – my recent journey to Lake Bled, Slovenia for the International Winter Swimming Championships. The Swedish-American Winter Swimming League My 2015 trip to China…
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The Little Bagel Boy
In the little shetl I grew up in on the south shore of Long Island, diversity meant there were Jewish families from Flatbush, Jewish families from Midwood, Jewish families from Brighton Beach and for a touch of exotica, a sprinkling of Jewish families from the Bronx (which most Brooklyn Jews considered ‘upstate’). Needless to say…
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O Nebraska!
Village Babies Kerry and Madeline were born in 1990. We were living at 18 Grove Street in Greenwich Village. I had had lived there over a decade, moving in shortly after graduating from college. The studio was on the top floor of an ivy-covered townhouse at the corner of Bedford Street down the block from…
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Pygocentrus nattereri
The Pygocentrus nattereri, also known as red-bellied piranha, is native to the Amazon River. These fish are aggressive and will eat each other in certain situations. They don’t swim in the rivers surrounding New York City, though looking back at the last few months of the Amazon debacle, it’s possible a few of them swam…
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Last Weekend in the Hamptons
The other Long Island Even though I grew up sixty miles east, I had never been to the Hamptons until I was in college. My Long Island was certainly different than the charming and now over-glitzed preserve of villages comprising the east end of that 120 mile stretch. The small neighborhood in Wantagh (not to…
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Once Around the Sun
I am not observant and Dave was not Jewish. But as May approached I could not help but think that this would be the first yahrzeit – the anniversary of one’s death. In traditional Jewish custom one lights a candle and says prayers in memory of the deceased. I don’t do either. The best I…
Swimming to Jerusalem 