My Brooklyn Accent

I'm a storyteller and a people person.  I also enjoy writing.  So I'm doing this blog for my sanity, a perfect calorie-free way for me to find joy. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you I have a lot to say. I can talk on the phone with a friend or make small talk with a stranger while waiting to check out at CVS. Both make me happy because I am curious about what's going on with people. I really am. There's so much going on these days. We're all trying our best to carry on through a pandemic. I have learned so much about myself and other people during this time. Some good, some bad. It's made me think even more of my childhood and how my grandparents and parents would have coped. Better than me I'm sure.  I have so much to say. I can talk/write about anything from my occasional annoyance at Facebook posts, to changing my hairstylist (again) to trying to lose weight (again). That's what I want to do on this blog. Talk/write about what's on ...

Truth is, I never knew I had a Brooklyn accent. Growing up in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, my friends’ grandparents who had emigrated from countries like Italy, Syria, Greece and Lebanon had the accents, not me. I first “felt” my accent when I was a doctoral student at the University of Buffalo. I was enrolled in molecular biology; a challenging class that introduced me to the emerging science of cloning and gene expression. I asked a lot of questions.  For the first time in my life I felt self-conscious about my accent. Maybe it was the smirk on my professor’s face or the stares of my smug classmates who were mostly from Long Island. Looking back now, I often think, they were from Long Island, what the hell did they have to be so smug about?  Despite my Brooklyn accent, I successfully completed the class. One of the Long Islanders commended me on my performance, however, the complement was short lived because he followed it by saying he was surprised I did so well. Apparently, my...