Age one.

The line between reality and the fictional fillers of my patchwork memory has been smeared to oblivion. The memories I think I have may simply be my illusioned brain believing in its own fabrications.

Age three.
        
Lustrous cables of metal snakes extending far into the distance, as if summoned by an evil witch-king here to wreck the world. It was probably Brooklyn Bridge. My parents say we used to take these long walks to Manhattan, just to show me the waters, to impress upon my nascent mind the vastness of the world.

I distinctly remember the smell. Gasoline tinged with a rusty, metallic aroma - yes, aroma - I loved how its toxicity bit my nose. I’d run my fingertips over the oxidized metal fence, watching as the red fairy dust swirled up in little puffs. And then the wind would blow it all away, replacing it with the tanginess of the sea.

We always stayed to watch the sunsets. Every time I turned my head to look at the ball of red, it would be right there on the horizon, as if it had tagged along while we weren’t looking. I used to think looking at it for too long would make me blind.

Age four.

There was once when grandpa took me across the "Great East River Bridge" as he used to say, on his back. In a span of forty minutes he managed to detail the complete life and death of the Roebling family. Showing disinterest would have been disrespectful - so all I could do was feign fascination and egg him on with interjections of “oohs” and “aahs”. 

John Augustus Roebling was the king of suspension, the mastermind behind the bridges of the Niagara and Ohio Rivers. One day, he was stuck on a ferryboat on the East River - the waters were clogged with ice. He saw around him dozens of people unable to commute, and having to endure hours of being stranded in the cold. That's when it struck him. A suspension bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan utilizing the recently popularized material, steel. It would be the first of its kind to incorporate trusses to support the steel cables. Even if the main cables snapped, he claimed, the bridge would stand.

Driven by his vision, Roebling fiercely promoted his idea to  influential figures, sending letters to newspapers, businessmen, and politicians. The Civil War of the 1860s blocked any kind of progress for a few years - only in 1867 was Roeling made chief engineer for the construction of his conception.

But as prodigies of their trade are prone to do, he passed away before his brainchild could come to fruition and receive worldwide acclaim. While making some final measurements, his leg was struck by a ferryboat, and his toes were crushed. A few weeks later, he died of Tetanus.
        
At this stage I was nodding off. The afternoon air was becoming oppressive; my infantile eyelids could stand neither the heat nor the Roebling chronicles. Grandad's voice droned on as I rested my head against his soft shoulders : "But lo and behold; staying true to the engineering blood, John's son carried on with the unfinished project."

Age six.

It was my first time witnessing bona fide conflict between the adults; the people I could whine and complain to didn’t seem like such mild, passive figures anymore. The circumstances were grim :  a technologically savvy modernist versus a deracinated and senile elder. To the first, the computer was an instrument with infinite uses, unbounded in its practical value. To the other, the beeping, blinking contraption was as inexplicable as it was annoying. Who knew such a delicate looking thing could be so damnably confounding.
       
My dad and my grandpa were at it again - son trying to teach father the novelties of the times.

I had wanted them to stop - to break into grins and laughter like they always did - but it had just kept going, like a train which takes too long to stop. Surely it’ll break now? The platform’s right here! It’ll screech to a halt any moment now. But no - it keeps inching forward, bit by bit.
        
By dinnertime, the old-young antagonism had taken on a quality of real hostility. Grandpa just couldn't get how to use the Internet, and he was channeling his frustration to my Dad. Ennui fogged the room, and Dad's defeat was imminent. He would once again fail to convince his father of the merits of adopting the technologies of today.

But then he bolted upright, visibly stricken by a Eureka moment. The exasperation left his eyes in an instant; he gently pushed Grandpa away and sat down in his place. Click, tap tap tap, click. A video began playing on the screen.
        
A commentator starts talking in that 1900s tone that always reeks of sensationalism : "Robinson dashes to the plate. It's close, and umpire Summers calls him safe on the daring maneuver." It was a Youtube video of the 1955 World Series highlights - the Brooklyn Dodgers' first championship ever, and also their first win against the New York Yankees. It was a close seven games - the Yankees won the first two, after which the Dodgers won three games straight. The Yankees managed to scrape in one more win before the Dodgers performed phenomenally in the final game to bring home the winner’s pennant. Brooklynites stayed dizzy with Euphoria for weeks after the final game; not only had their home team clinched the most prestigious title in American baseball, they had also broken the Yankee's undefeated streak.
        
Grandpa couldn't believe his eyes. One of the defining moments of his childhood, being played before his very eyes. He had never imagined that such clips would have survived into the twenty-first century, let alone be accessible in a few clicks. When Jackie Robinson, the first black player in the major leagues, came on screen, he gasped in delight. Grandpa was the quintessential Robinson fan, wearing number forty-two every April 15 on Jackie Robinson day and gushing about how the number had been universally retired in honor of the baseball player;  the first such honor bestowed in human history.
        
The camera panned over the thousands of people seated in Ebbets Field, now demolished. All the men were dressed in tuxedos, and the women had on huge, ridiculously shaped hats. Old men who seemed like they were supposed to be doing something important bounced on their feet, bellowing cheers. Any one of the teens in the crowd could be Grandpa - he swore he had followed the Brooklyn Dodgers to every one of their games, standing outside the stadium if he couldn't get a seat.
        
He followed them, that is, until the Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers. 1957, the year they left, was a dark period in Brooklyn history. It was as if a chunk of everyone's hearts had been ripped away; a source of pride that only Brooklynites could call theirs, gone forever.
        
As I curiously gazed at his nostalgic face - a feeling I had yet to experience - Grandpa placed his wrinkled hands on the mouse and asked : "Tell me how you did that."

Age seven.
        
Remembering it feels like recalling a good dream. You remember, with remarkable vividness and detail, the series of events. You can mentally picture yourself back at the same place, seeing what you once saw, thinkings what you once thought.

Coney Island's one of those places that accompanies one's childhood, a staple of every family outing. During the first ten years of my life, when the thrill of amusement parks hadn't worn off yet, the area was like my heaven on earth - a retreat where I could seek refuge from stuffy city life.
        
It was a cold November morning. I was at the age when you just about gain some consciousness of your surroundings, and could be left alone for the most part, without supervision. My family was sunbathing and talking adult stuff at the seaside, one of those long conversations involving coffee and tea that you knew would take centuries to end. I decided to take the opportunity to explore.
        
For the first time in my life, I strolled into Luna Park  -  the only surviving amusement park among the three from Coney Island's heyday : Dreamland, Steeplechase Park, and the one I was beginning to regret stepping into alone.
        
Grandpa had painted pictures of the neighborhood in my vivid imagination back at home - one steeped in controversy, greedy businessmen, and an angry public. The island used to be the paragon of public entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, attracting Americans near and far with its wild roller coasters and looming Ferris wheels. Many of the flamboyant attractions were manifestations of recent technological advances - the Island was, in fact, home of the very first roller coaster in America, Switchback Railway. One Doctor Martin Couney even made baby incubators a Coney Island fixture in his attempt to garner support for its adoption in American hospitals. He ended up saving the lives of more than 7000 neonates. 
               
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a quaint looking carousel. Walking around the structure, I barely made out its name with my primitive reading skills - "B and B Carousell". It had an odd air about it - the paints on the horses were fresh, the lights were bright, and the paper signs unfaded - yet it struck me as being ancient. Maybe it was the design of the horses, or the palette of bright colors on their flanks. Whatever it was, the carousel reminded me of a relic from past civilizations; a decorated fossil.
       
In 1964, after a few decades of economic decline, Coney Island's last major amusement park closed its gates. And a name which may evoke strong feelings nowadays  purchased the land - Fred Trump, father of Donald Trump. In the purely avaricious and scornful manner characteristic of the Trump family, Fred lobbied hard to have the area rezoned so that he could build apartments on the property. So convinced was he that the place would never regain its amusement haven status that he organized a public funeral for all theme parks in Coney island. He invited the funeral attendees to throw bricks at the stained glass windows of the remaining amusement park, Steeplechase. Trump never did get to build his lucrative housing on the site.
       
I took a few steps forward before realizing I had lost my orientation. Where was the entrance to the park? I had read somewhere that if someone walks straight, his body will naturally lead him into one big circle - so that's what I decided to do. Hot Dog stands and roller coaster tracks streamed past as I ran. I bumped into and jostled past everyone in my way, blinded by a throbbing sense of apprehensiveness.

I kept repeating to myself, as my eyes scanned the park, the full history of the place. They were the only solid consolations that came to mind - the accumulated vomit of Coney Island trivia that Grandpa had forced down my throat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I mentally chanted Coney’s life and death to the rhythm of my hurried footsteps.

In the 1940s, a series of fires destroyed Luna Park. It became a parking lot, then a housing development, following the steady conversion of most amusement zones to residence areas. In 2010, they rebuilt Luna Park, and made it into what it is today - a fairly prosperous theme park, but attracting only half the amount of people its predecessors had.

Eventually I arrived back at the carousel. So the old tactic does work - but I wasn't any better off. As I looked up once more at B and B carousell, I realized what a fool I'd been.
       
I inched around the ride, squinting intently at each word on the carousel poster. Ah, yes. The word I had first seen had been "and". I turned around a hundred and eighty degrees and walked straight.

Age ten.

We left Brooklyn for good.
      
It’s a curious phenomenon. I remember so much more about my last seven years than about my first ten - only snippets and yellow photos of my time in Brooklyn remain. But the thing is, my heart throbs when I think of the place. It throbs, and pounds, and wants to burst out of my chest. I guess that’s what home means - somewhere your most rudimentary thoughts were formed, where trifling places and smells and colors take on magnitudes more of meaning. 

No one can claim that they would still have been attracted to their hometown if they had been born elsewhere. It stands to reason that no one has any control over where he is born - hence his allegiance to his birthplace could very much have been to another, if only his mother had fallen in love somewhere else. But the reality of the matter is that you were born in that country, and you did grow up in that town. There is no use hypothesizing about what could have happened; what did happen is carved in stone.

I lived in Brooklyn. Breathed in Brooklyn, saw in Brooklyn, thought in Brooklyn, and touched Brooklyn. Laughed in Brooklyn; cried in Brooklyn; made friends in Brooklyn; lost friends in Brooklyn. And throughout it all, I immersed myself in the lore of its rich history, absorbing its culture and atmosphere. At the end of the day, I walked out proud of my heritage; I walked out a Brooklynite.

As George Orwell once said : "When you come back to [England] from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements more blatant...Talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspaper, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive in [English] civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain."