Thursday

From table to table all along the Mall you could hear Aretha.  All day there were fitting tributes in the media, and you could go online & search out decades of marvelous concert clips.  Fulton was maybe the best though. It's on the street in a communal mood of love and sadness when the music swells your heart the most, and Fulton, even a Fulton diminished in vibrancy in recent years, was a fine place to be. I remembered when Sinatra died, twenty years ago.  I happened to be in Carroll Gardens that day, and from Smith to Court to Clinton, Henry, from open storefront doors and upper floor windows you could hear him.  Today, in a handful of blocks I moved through Respect to Say a Little Prayer to Chain of Fools to Natural Woman.  And then I turned around and walked right back again.