Going through Times Square, now almost squeaky clean and very touristy, I was remembering how the area was 25 years ago: live sex shows, three-card monte games, shady characters at the entrance of vacant store fronts. Call me old-fashiond, but I miss those things.

Christmas brings back such fond memories: Mom in the kitchen making cookies; Dad in the driveway skinning muskrats. We had a pump with a handle. I never tried it in the cold. My mom said she did when was a girl with predictable and painful results.

Christmas in New York is always different. After eating cheap falafel with my family in the East Village we saw a Santa in a store shopping for a new bong. The corn cob pipe apparently is passé. Further on a guy in a Spiderman costume was pulling two young female tourists in a pedicab and popping wheelies while they screamed.

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