One day in 2015, when Kim and I had moved to Staten Island so I could pursue my crazy vision of building the world’s largest observation wheel on New York Harbor (why does that sound so idiotic today when it made total sense at the time?), I heard her conversing with someone out on our patio. The patio overlooked the parking lot for the half dozen orange ferries that plied the waters from there to Southern Manhattan. It was a medium-sized patio that was adjacent to the huge patio of the larger apartment next door, one that we had chosen not to rent for fear that it would just be too big for us. The two patios shared a common wall and we had perfect visibility over and into the larger patio, which, until that day, had been unoccupied. Kim was chatting with a dark haired guy with a thick Hispanic accent and a very pleasant disposition. That guy ended up being our dear friend Oswaldo, a Venezuelan by descent, who was partnered with Gary, the new Provost of the College of Staten Island. They were transplanted Californians who were taking up residence on Staten Island while Gary served as Provost for what would prove to be the last stint of long and distinguished career in academic administration. There was an immediate connection I felt with both men. I connected to Oswaldo’s Venezuelannness (his accent felt very familiar to me given my own Venezuelan heritage…having spent the first four years of my life there and still having relatives on my father’s side who live there). I connected to Gary because he had his Ph.D. in political history from Cornell and had actually been on campus when I was finishing my five year stint of studying economics, government and finance at Cornell in the early 1970s. I knew exactly where he lived and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that we had walked past one another way back when. G&O were non-native Staten Islanders, as were we, and Staten Island is a strange enough place to live that we felt immediately bound to one another as neighbors.
During the three years that we lived on “the rock”, we tended to run in the same circles. As CEO of the biggest development project on Staten Island and with Gary running the biggest university, we found ourselves on the same boards and going to all the same fundraising and social events. Staten Island, like any community has its social inner circles and we were all thrust into the inner most versions of those on a somewhat artificial basis and found ourselves naturally clinging to one another for support as we adjusted to this new and very unusual world that was in New York City, but not in New York City proper. We had come for one reason and they for another, but both couples felt intuitively that this was a temporary posting and that we were fortunate to have found like-minded souls right next door with whom to commune and commiserate. Since both Kim and Oswaldo are natural people pleasers and entertainers, we were forever eating over at one another’s apartments. When Gary was recovering from surgery (he had had half a lung removed), I would go over and spend time with him to keep him company. He, in turn, played copy editor to my book writing endeavors, and gave me lots of encouragement and advice as I went. Kim and Oswaldo played trailing spouses and spent time of several cultural boards like that of the Saint George Theater, which just meant that most of our nights out were also spent together. We got to know each other’s friends and families over those years and became as close as could be.
When we moved back into Manhattan, just across the ferry in Battery Park, our apartment became a logical stopping point for G&O for their regular excursions into the City, so we saw them almost as much for those two years before our decision to move our act out to this hilltop (which we had owned since 2012). As I mentioned, G&O had come to Staten Island from California, specifically from West Hollywood, where they still maintained a small apartment. When it came time for Gary to retire, they chose to do so by moving back to West Hollywood, about six months after we ventured west. It was during the first paralyzing months of COVID that we found ourselves mutually isolated in our cabins by pandemic quarantine. We felt bad for G&O’s restrictions to their small apartment and, truth be told, wanted company during those scary months, so we invited them to come live with us in our combined quarantine on the hilltop. They did so for six weeks and we all had a much better time of it and got along famously. Their guest suite in our home was almost as big as their West Hollywood apartment and our ability to take meals together, converse about the state of the world and choose movies together each night made the troubled time pass more quickly. If three years of Staten Island living followed by two years of ferry-crossing tag-team hadn’t solidified our relationship with one another, six weeks of cohabitation during a pandemic certainly did. We had become fast friends of the highest order.
G&O like to travel even more than we do and they have a global friend network that gives them many ports of call from Paris to Sydney and everywhere in between. They also love to cruise the world oceans and keep their schedules flexible and their bags packed to snap up deep discount cruise deals at the last minute and whisk themselves off to the Mediterranean or Far East whenever the spirit and the deal dictates. Whenever they are back on the west coast they are also busy socialites with many friends in West Hollywood and Palm Springs (a spot where they had temporarily lived once upon a time), but they always find time to come down to spend long weekends with us whenever possible. We both consider it a priority to organize our schedules so that we can be together whenever possible. There is no one we rather have in our guest suite than G&O. It just feels natural for them to be here. Even Buddy likes it when they visit. In fact, he is at this very moment standing and whimpering at their bedroom door wondering why they do not get up as early as Kim and I do to start our day with playing with the little fur ball. G&O are here for this weekend and between breakfast bar from Oswaldo, Wordle between Gary and Kim, sitting on the deck enjoying the morning air or being in our respective living room spots for movie night, it all feels as comfortable as a well-worn pair of jeans. There is nothing as pleasant as a G&O weekend.