“Realizing how much your family loves you is a great gift"

Arturo Cordova, a Bay area veteran who was in combat for four years in Iraq, has no regrets about serving with the Marines even though he suffered serious injuries to his arm and burns in his leg when his truck hit an explosive. He described his experiences to Bay Currents reporter Heeyen Park:

“…you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the Army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug.”

No one could argue that Arlo Guthrie is not a legend in his time.

The 63-year-old folksinger and songwriter --  who grew up in Coney Island, which he called the “Holy Land” --  continues to touch people around the world with his guitar, harmonica, and piano.

When Kristin Molini of Gravesend gathered with friends in Greenwich Village on New Year’s Eve, she seemed like any other young celebrant welcoming in 2010.

But no one could tell it was no less than a miracle that she was there. She really should not have been alive.

The legendary boardwalk of Brighton Beach and Coney Island will be no more

At least that will be the case if the city Parks Department goes ahead with its plans – which Community Board 13 chairwoman Marion Cleaver confirmed are definitely slated to begin -- to replace all of the Brighton boardwalk and most of the Coney Island boardwalk with, to the shock of many residents and boardwalk visitors, concrete.

The project will create “a secondary concrete jungle,” said Michael Greco, 48, an electrician, construction designer, and inventor (who holds one patent with several more in the works).

In exclusive interviews with Bay Currents, Greco described the plan as a “boardwalk blunder” that will “not only take away from the legacy of an American icon, but also has several flaws in design.”

For one thing, textured concrete, “although appealing to the eye,” is too rough and hazardous for bicycles, baby carriages, or jogging, he said.

This Thanksgiving was special because my aunt, Sonhe Kim, was hosting two teenage boys, Hwitaeg Oh and Jihong Han, who had journeyed from Korea to America to study English.

Our Thanksgiving food – prepared by the expert hands of my cousin, Yoonsung Yang, 23, and his brother, Yoonsuk, 28 -- was all homemade. Yes, we had the requisite turkey and all the trimmings, but we also enjoyed a few things the Pilgrims never knew – like rice wine or butternut squash soup.

But these are only superficial differences. “Korean Thanksgiving and American Thanksgiving have different ways of celebrating and it feels different, but the meaning of the Thanksgiving spirit is the same,” said Yongaok Yang, Yoonsung’s 74-year-old uncle.

“I’m exhausted -- I was cooking for the last two days,” Yoonsuk said. “When I was younger Thanksgiving just meant four days off from school -- now that I am older, it is a good time to get family and friends together.”

Nature Center offers woodworking workshop

Have you ever looked at an interesting chair or table and thought, “I’ll bet it would be exciting to make something like that…”?

Well, here’s your chance. The Salt Marsh Nature Center offers a Tuesday afternoon Woodworking Workshop, taught by Bob Kaplan

Kaplan related how the workshop started two and a half years ago: “The Nature Center needed something to hold the display things in here. I started to make them here and people who visited were interested in how to make those things.  I agreed to run it as ongoing program. The people who knew about it brought friends and other people in the neighborhoods.”

At 44 years old, Tom Moran, with his husky vocals and intense guitar, reaches out to teens and young adults with the message, as described in his just released, self-published second album, that he “Ain’t Gonna Give Up.”

“Do not be destructive. Teach society to make changes in the world,” he passionately tells his growing audience in one of his songs.

A physical education teacher by day, Moran, of Canarsie, embarked on a second career as a singer and songwriter because “you got to be crazy and have a little touch on how to express yourself freely,” he said in a sit-down with Bay currents “ Music is life and love. It’s good stuff and a powerful thing. And I can spread my message in a song.”

And what is that message? “Drinking and taking drugs is enough to ruin your life, and to lose the chance of achieving a goal,” he said.

You disgusting, dirty cigarette

How can you continually be liked by smokers?

You are as filthy as unfiltered, dirty water

You are toxic to people’s minds and bodies

You are an unacceptable, dangerous and sickly thing

You have dangerous, addictive substances –nicotine, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia

Foolish people careless about their health puff you

You cause the death of innocent lives

Oh, how much I hate you!

Why are you in people’s lives?

You take away the breath of someone every single day

You are a murderer

Heeyen Park