Let’s Build a “Kibbitz Spot” …
(Roll-up your sleeves)!
Should I begin once upon a time there was an unexpected miraculous patch of green space in the humble, crowded tenement neighborhood.
🌳🌳🌳
It had no official name…so the inhabitants gave it an affectionate name that suited its function, by themselves.
It was shaped by 2 Brownsville, ole Brooklyn streets meeting together…on Stone Avenue.
Most important it became a gathering place for the old people that lived in “the neighborhood” …in the 1930's-1950's.
They’d crowd the spot to gossip and tell jokes. “Kibbitz”!
Some spoke heavily accented English, some Yiddish, some Russian or Polish…or all of the above…simultaneously.
Smaller clusters chatted away in Italian, or Spanish.
What a busy little meeting place, which is why it was known affectionately as “Kibbitz Park”, (even by folks that didn’t know what kibbitz meant). It just sounded right!
“Kibbitz, kibbitz, kibbitz” …joke around! 🤣
“Kibbitz Park” was triangle rod- iron gated, locked grass “park” with wooden benches, only on its outsides.
Cigarette smoking aged immigrant men in their caps, grandmas in printed housedresses, argued politics, religion, exchanged recipes & kidded around with equal zeal… good-naturedly. 😏🙄😉👨🦳👨🦳🧓🤝
Simple pleasure and companionship…as the autos, trucks & bikes drove by🚗🚲🚚.
(Remember thi s was before TV, air conditioners, or cell phones… so not the isolation lifestyle seniors live…now…)
The reason it came to my 81-year-old mind, is because Saturday Night after” *The 5 Pavillion Pearls”, & I have our weekly dinner out…we gather on the long bench, in the lobby of our apartment building. 👩🦳👩🦳👩🦳👩🦳👩🦳
A habit that has taken root. With 3 of us “girls” from Brooklyn, remember you can take the girl out of Brooklyn, BUT YOU CAN NOT TAKE THE BROOKLYN OUT OF THE GIRL!!! 🤣
We chat & laugh & reminisce…we “kibbitz” just like the old people of my childhood in Brooklyn. Today we are the old people on “a Kibbitz Bench” …👩🦳👩🦳👩🦳👩🦳👩🦳
As the world turns…
Let’s bring back old-fashion Kibbitz Spots…we need them to enrich our seniors’ lonely lives… ❤🧡💛❤🎈🎈🎈
