Editor’s Note: NYC Dads Group member Gregg Jobson-Larkin does an amazing job describing our invigorating “stroll” over the Brooklyn Bridge last week to celebrate the final four of the NCAA “March Madness” college basketball tournament.
“Growing up, spoiled a lot of things.”
Author Betty Smith’s esteemed introspective commentary in her novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn rang true on this year’s warmest day so far, at least in the hearts and minds of 20 NYC Dads Group members and their children. They gathered to celebrate the NCAA basketball tournament and participate in the BOB “Motion Madness” Brooklyn Bridge event.
Sultry R&B singer Alicia Keyes waves from a black ghost-proscenium multi-screened multimedia mecca of Jumbotroned light wizardry to a packed house of 19,000 fans at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. She shouts, “Brooklyn, I Love YOU!” And of course, the crowd goes LOUD, uproariously. The band strikes the introduction for “This Girl Is On Fire,” one of her latest releases, and in that moment, all my mind can envision is the troupe of NYC Dads Group members.
About half of the NYC Dads Group community includes fathers who have the esteemed charge of daily raising the wee-one(s), while the significant other is away at other work. Dennis and I are of such honored pedigree, such is our lineage, our fatherly station in this form of metropolitan family lifestyle choice. We, the NYC Dads Group, are a growing trend of parentage with nearly 750 New York Metro area-based members.
Our group met on the Manhattan plaza of the “The Great Bridge” just like the opening ceremonies on May 24, 1883, and in homage to that grand pomp and circumstance opening day, the BOB Motion Stroller Madness Armada of Dads pushed on across the wooden bridge path atop the bustling East River.
These Brooklyn-bound NYC baby dads and their toddler elite were elevated and suspended on a grand Programme of Exercise, by chief engineer Washington A. Roebling’s engineering marvel, built by 1,000 workmen.
That day’s past, and this day’s present are reminisced by this 1883 vintaged description: “A holiday for high and low, rich and poor; it was in fact the People’s Day. More delightful weather never dawned upon a festal morning. The heavens were radiant with celestial blue of approaching summer; silvery fragments of clouds sailed gracefully across the firmaments like winged messengers, bearing greetings of work well done; the clearest of spring sunshine tinged everything with a touch of gold, and brisk, bracing breeze blown up from the Atlantic cooled the atmosphere to a healthful and invigorating temperature. The incoming dawn revealed the twin cities gorgeous in gala attire.” This excerpt is from the book titled, Opening Ceremonies of the New York Brooklyn Bridge by The Brooklyn Eagle Job Printing Department.
It was a day for paparazzi photographers, sightseers, onlookers, passersby and the just plain curious, paused; taking in the vision of fatherly-stroller loveliness. Dads Group members attempt to quell inquiring-mind queries with informative banter and quaint repartee, as the well-practiced PR-friendly troupe posed at the Manhattan tower, doling out snacks to their chauffeured mini-elite passengers, and then pressed on to the Brooklyn terminus of the marvelous bridge.
We, like grass-eating bovine lounged on the rolling hill of green grass partitioned only by concrete promenade river views and quaint park restoration structures. Our bundles of joy sprawling, running, scootering and eating from our fatherly bento, zip-locked, lunch-wrapped preparations. It doesn’t get any better than this. Priceless!
Alicia Keys sings a New York anthem, and unlike the chairman’s version Frank Sinatra proclaims, “If you can make it here…” well we made it, up, over and under the Brooklyn Bridge … only Alicia sings, “In New York.” And just like that, I’m back in the concert moment, head-nodding to Jay-Z, which all just happened to have occurred on the very same day!
The entire experience was another point of growth. The Alicia Keys concert? A close second to the Brooklyn Bridge excursion.
About the author
Gregg Jobson-Larkin is a proud father of three children. He lives in New York with his family.
**Disclosure: This is a paid, sponsored post with Britax / BOB. The opinions expressed in this post are our own and have not been influenced by our sponsor. We limit our advertising to relevant partners that offer products and services we believe in and use ourselves.
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