Inside and Outside the Station Wagon

As a child, I once mistakenly pressed the "B" button in the elevator in my grandparent's Miami Beach apartment building, and found myself intruding on the custodial staff at lunch time. There was an absolutely revolting smell I couldn't identify. It felt like a violent attack (if you told me it was mustard gas, I'd have believed you). I mashed the "door close" button, desperately trying to escape. It was garlic. As a child, my parents would drive around the Lower East Side looking for parking so we could eat lunch at Ratner's. We passed malevolent-looking people lazily hanging around on the sidewalk. So these were "the mean streets!" How fortunate I was to live where things were NICE! I've spent the overwhelming majority of my life on such streets while suburban douchebags gawked from air-conditioned station wagons. As a child, Ricky Ricardo's band always sounded alien and a little corny. "Not our kind, dear." I just hit a link and got a live audio page blasting intense salsa music.…