There are these long, narrow strips of granite embedded in the sidewalks of Broadway in Lower Manhattan. I’ve seen them as far south as Battery Park and as far north as the Woolworth Building. They’re spaced a few yards apart. Each of them is inscribed with some famous 20th-century person/event and a date. For months now, I’ve been dying to know why they’re there and what they’re for.

I finally posted an Ask MetaFilter thread about it this afternoon, but before someone posted the answer I wound up figuring it out by myself. It suddenly hit me that that part of Broadway is known as the Canyon of Heroes, used for ticker-tape parades. (My brother and I went to the parade for the New York Rangers after they won the Stanley Cup in 1994.) So I typed “canyon of heroes” into Google and came up with this and this. It turns out there’s a granite slab for each ticker-tape parade that has been held in Lower Manhattan since 1886.

And here (linked from one of those pages) is a list of Manhattan ticker-tape parades through 2000.

The night before last, I dreamed that I was in my childhood bedroom. Through the window I could see a couple of bullies outside on the front lawn, about middle-school age. I knew that they were part of some larger amorphous group that was out to get me.

One of them put up a ladder and climbed up to my window, on the second floor, while another of them taunted me. The ladder guy reached my window and was at eye level with me. I was terrified, but also angry. So I pushed him. The ladder tipped backward and fell onto the lawn, and so did the bully. I saw his head clunk against the grass. He was clearly unconscious, and maybe dead. The other guy, who’d been taunting me, looked on in awe.

I felt awful and scared. The guy might be dead, and his parents were sure to find out and have me put away for life. What had I done?

***********

When I was a kid, we had these next-door neighbors who had moved to the New Jersey suburbs from Texas. The father was a local minister. It was a strange family. The older son would chop wood in the backyard, and I was scared of the younger son, Chris, who was a mean bully and a year older than me.

One spring or summer evening, I was in my backyard with my best friend. We were playing on the swingset. Chris was in his backyard, and for some reason — with no immediate provocation — I started taunting him. I’d never done that before. I supposed I felt protected by my friend’s presence.

I recited a long impromptu speech. The only part I remember saying is, “This is my be-bullied-no-more speech.” It went on for a while.

Later that night, my family was eating dinner in the kitchen. My brother, four years younger than me, said, “Chris said he’s gonna kick your ass.” My dad asked why, so I told him the story. My dad responded, snidely, “If I were him I’d want to kick your ass, too.”

Matt and I watched the first episode of “Joey” last night. It was not as good as it could have been, but I enjoyed it more than I’d expected.

Here’s a weird coincidence from a couple of reviews:

When Gina brags that she looks incredible for the mother of a 20-year-old son, Joey replies, “You rarely hear the argument for teen pregnancy” — a joke that would sound much more natural coming from Chandler or even Ross.

— Alan Sepinwall, New Jersey Star-Ledger (Wednesday)

Joey’s dry retort – “You rarely hear the argument for teen pregnancy” – is funny, but it’s the kind of sardonic aside that Chandler would make, not Joey.

— Alessandra Stanley, New York Times (Thursday)

And here’s another one from the same two articles:

Gina, who has long nails, tacky hair and tight outfits, isn’t exactly a stretch for de Matteo — optimistic “Sopranos” fans who refuse to believe Adriana died because it happened off-camera can convince themselves that she’s in Witness Protection posing as Joey’s sister.

— Alan Sepinwall

Ms. de Matteo plays Gina with the same décolletage and Italian-American panache she had in “The Sopranos.” (At times it is almost as if Adriana had survived the hit and was relocated to Los Angeles under the Federal Witness Protection Program.)

— Alessandra Stanley

I’m just saying.