The Neighborhood Social Club

Back in the days when John Gotti was in the headlines, he frequented two social clubs that were known hangouts for the Gambino crime family in New York. The Ravenite Social Club was located at 247 Mulberry St. in the Little Italy section of Manhattan. The Ravenite was home to Gotti and the rest of his crew in the late 1970s and '80s. Before that he held court at The Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, another Gambino crime family mob hangout and headquarters that was located at 98-04 101st Avenue in Ozone Park, Queens. Undoubtedly, these clubs were unsavory places where murder and mayhem were planned. FBI wire taps at the clubs allowed the Feds to recruit mob turncoat Sammy (The Bull) Gravano whose testimony contributed to the eventual downfall of Gotti and the rest of his crew.


Because of these clubs being connected to John Gotti, one might be tempted to tag all neighborhood social clubs with the "mob hangout" label. While it can't be denied that some of them shielded criminals and mob activities, the vast majority of them were harmless havens where men could gather, play cards and enjoy a glass of wine free from the intrusions of the outside world. Every Brooklyn neighborhood had a Democrat or Republican Club that not only offered opportunities to socialize, but bases for political operations where candidates could be evaluated, campaigned for, and hopefully, elected. Local politicos courted these organizations and counted on their support to get into office. The clubs represented nothing more than people looking out for themselves by helping to elect representatives who had their interests at heart.


We had at least two such clubs in the neighborhood...one on Fulton Street and another on Pitkin Avenue. Typically they were storefronts with tables and chairs (rescued from the garbage) set up outside for the members to sit at and enjoy their espresso laced with Anisette. Except for the coldest days, the doors were always open and sometimes music, usually Sinatra or opera, could be heard coming from inside. Many of the men lounging around were Italian, reflecting the population of the area. Some looked dapper in double-breasted suits and Boston Blackie pencil moustaches. Others were more casual in worn trousers and "pizza man" undershirts. They all had one thing in common: they looked slightly sinister and were highly suspicious of outsiders.


Despite this unsavory image, Italian men are really highly social and the atmosphere in these clubs was always gregarious. There was usually a game of Brisk (an Italian card game played in deadly earnest) in progress. Overheard snatches of conversations might include references to the Brooklyn Dodgers, the pros and cons of 'Napalitan' vs.Sicilian  pizza, what horse looked good in the third at Belmont, how Angelo caught his wife with the grocery boy, "that bastard Kennedy", and a hundred other topics from the ridiculous to the sublime. Each club had at least one bookie who would take bets on the daily number, horse races, ball games, or even the color of the next car coming down the street.


Kids were usually chased away unless there was an errand to be run. "Hey kid, go get me a slice and an orange soda" or "...go ring my bell and ask my wife if she needs me to pick up anything on the way home." There was usually a nickel or dime in it for us to carry out these assignments, and we did so gladly. We would sometimes go to the club on Sunday mornings with our shoe shine boxes knowing the guys liked to dress up. Polished, "french toe" shoes were a must with pegged pants. On rare occasions we were invited inside for a cold drink or to settle an argument. "Hey kid, tell this moron the capital of New Jersey ain't Newark." The movie "A Bronx Tale" was so compelling because it captured perfectly these strange connections between neighborhood kids and grown men of respect in Italian-American neighborhoods.

The thought of 10-year-old boys going into clubs with grown men would strike terror into the hearts of today's parents. Nobody gave it much thought back then. Your mother would say: "I don't want you hanging around that club. Those men are a bad influence." We would nod 'yes' and head straight for the club; how could they stop us. It's not that we didn't love our mothers and listen to a lot of the advice they gave, it's just that we knew there was no other honest way to make two dollars or more on a Sunday morning. I realized some of these guys were not role models, but they weren't The Sopranos either. I never heard any murders or kidnappings plotted; the worst you might get is yelled at for getting shoe polish on some guy's white sock. I sometimes even heard: "Hey, watch your mouth, there's a kid here."


Let's face it...neighborhood social clubs are the poor man's version of the universally accepted, even admired, private clubs on Wall Street. Although the incomes of the members might vary widely, the aims of these clubs are the same: to have a place where a guy can go to have a drink in peace, kid around with his friends, and work to elect the politicians who will be the most sympathetic to his community's needs.

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A Quarter and a Dream

I sometimes wonder what it would take for a person to stoop down and pick up a coin these days. I know pennies don't stand a chance. Nickels might still have a shot, but only if nobody's looking. Dimes are small and harder to see. It's embarrassing to stoop down for what you think is a dime and then, have to pretend to be tying your shoe when you realize it's only a piece of foil. I guess I'd have to say that quarters offer the best odds of getting picked up by just about everyone. It wasn't always so.


In the Fiftieis even pennies had value. In Sam's Candy Store stood a case with sliding glass doors, where penny candies were displayed... marshmallow peanuts, wax lips, licorice pipes, Mary Janes, candy cigarettes, wax bottles filled with sweet liquid, Bazooka Bubble Gum, those long paper strips with rows of colored candy dots and so many others. We would stand there trying to decide how to invest our penny, while Sam watched us like a hawk. Gum ball and peanut vending machines also took pennies, and they looked very cool in "penny loafers" if you were lucky enough to own a pair.


A nickel was more of a middle-class investment. It would buy any one of fifty candy bars like Three Musketeers, Clark Bar, Baby Ruth, or Mounds...all about twice the size they are today. Five cents got you a whole pack of baseball cards that smelled like the bubble gum they were packed with. You could spring for a fountain Coke or a Lime Rickey, a Dixie Cup Ice Cream with pictures of celebrities on the inside lid. Down in the subway, before they had to be removed due to vandalism, were soda vending machines that dispensed five flavors at the push of a button. If you were lucky, the cup would drop down before the seltzer and flavored syrup came out.


John D. Rockefeller used to give shiny new dimes to kids because he knew their value in "boy currency". For a dime you got any of the dozens of colorful comic books arrayed on Sam’s shelves, the ice cream of your choice from the Bungalow Bar truck, a shoe shine at my grandfather’s store on Rockaway Avenue, a 3-pack of Yankee Doodles, a Mission pineapple soda ice cold from the red ice chest, a ride on the subway, or a phone call in one of those great old wooden phone booths. You could dine on a Sabrett's Hot Dog, one of Mom's Knishes hot off the cart, and for dessert, shaved ices with your choice of flavored syrups.


The most precious coin was the elusive quarter. There was a subway grating outside the Cactus Pool Room on Fulton Street. Sometimes one of the boys would accidentally drop a quarter down the grating where it beckoned from twenty feet below street level. When it was spotted, we swung into action. Somebody would borrow a padlock from home. We would shinny under a car to get a gob of axle grease to coat the bottom of the padlock. Then, after tying a length of string to the top of the padlock, we would go fishing for the quarter in the subway grate. It was hard and dirtywork, but success meant candy bars for everyone. 

Did we feel sorry for ourselves for being so poor that we had to resort to such tactics for a lousy candy bar? Never. We were having too much fun. We knew how to amuse ourselves without bothering an adult to entertain us. God, how I loved being a kid in 1950s Brooklyn. You may disagree, but in my mind, there was no better childhood anywhere. 

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Superman's Dressing Room

In the dark days before cell phones, and when only the birds "tweeted", we had these wonderful structures called phone booths. Younger people may not remember these wondrous little wooden huts where pay phones were housed. Phone booths were commonly found in such lowly places as the corner candy store, and in grander surroundings like the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Most were vertical wooden rectangles that contained a wall phone with a rotary dial, an overhead light that automatically went on when the folding door was closed, and even a fan to keep you cool while you made your call. There were local residential and business phone directories mounted at the side of the booth where you could look up numbers. Some phone booths, far from common,  were elaborate affairs that befitted their surroundings.


Maybe my favorite is the well-known British phone booth familiar to Anglophiles. These red beauties were unique examples of making something utilitarian into something beautiful. The first Red Telephone Box design was introduced in 1924, and by 1968 the Post Office had introduced its eighth design for a National Telephone Kiosk. Over the last eighty years the Telephone Box has become a symbolic piece of street architecture, whether in rural villages or on  urban highways. There is something very permanent and solidly British middle-class about these boxes. Sadly, modern designs and the growth of mobile phones has relegated these wonderful kiosks to the status of "collectibles."


In our neighborhood, the candy store phone booth became the business office of the local bookie. When the phone rang, it was always for him from someone wanting to play a number or get a bet down on a horse. Phone booths were also a handy place to call home to let the folks know you had arrived safely at your destination when travelling. The trick was to call collect and ask for some mythical person. Your Mom then told the Operator that there was no such person living at that phone number, and that she would not accept a collect call. The "coded" transaction was then complete; Mom knew you had arrived safely and it didn't cost her a dime.


Another memory associated with phone booths is the silly fad that began in the 1950s. College kids with nothing better to do began vying for the world record for how many people they could stuff into a pay phone booth. There was also the famous "Mojave Phone Booth" installed and maintained by Pacific Bell in the middle of the desert 75 miles from anywhere. This lonely communications outpost was used for years by grateful travelers who ran into trouble; sadly it had to be removed due to rampant vandalism. And of course the phone booth was the secret place where meek and mild Clark Kent changed clothes to become the Man of Steel, Superman.


At some point in the 1960s, when there was a general decline in our society of respect for anything; phone booths were turned into public toilets. The phone company fought hard to keep up, but after a while just gave up. They tried these space-age, aluminum kiosks with push button dials, but the Neanderthals burglarized and vandalized them too. The arrival of the cell phone was the death knell for pay phones and the cool booths that housed them. I could never understand why people would destroy things that were useful to all of us. I'm glad I was around to see the phone booth in its heyday, and to use it to call Mom collect to let her know I was OK.

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We Had a Ball

For anyone too young to remember, the "Spaldeen" from this blog's title was a pink, high bouncing ball used for so many street games of the 1950s. They cost around 15 cents; cheaper imitations could be had for a dime but no self-respecting boy would even think of saving the nickel. That's really saying a lot because in those days, a nickel could buy a Coke, an ice pop or a Three Musketeers bar too big to eat in one shot. If we had no money, a quick trip to a neighborhood roof would usually yield some Spaldeens hit up there during  stickball games. (Can you imagine a modern-day child going to such lengths for a weather-beaten rubber ball?) But the Spaldeen was highly prized in our circles. It could turn a slow summer afternoon into one filled with shouts and excitement.


The beauty of Spaldeen-based games is that they could be played by anywhere from one kid to a dozen or more. There might be other equipment like a bat involved, but most games required only the ball. The rules for all games were simple, but our street code of honor demanded they be strictly enforced. A kid unwilling to play by the rules often found himself on the sidelines when we chose up sides for the games. Interestingly, although some kids were more talented players than others, everybody got into the game. As long as the weak players were equally distributed between the two teams, it was no harm, no foul. If another group came along after a game was already in progress, they had the right to challenge winners for the next game. We worked this out for ourselves with no adult supervision. Differences were settled with a quick game of odd or even fingers. "Once, twice, three, shoot!" Problem solved.


Solo Spaldeen games included my favorite, stoop ball, where a ball was thrown against the steps of a stoop and points accumulated based on whether it bounced after hitting the stoop or flew back to you on the fly. If you were in the park, a game of solo handball against the wall was an option. Girls played Jacks or a game where they bounced the ball repeatedly while lifting a leg over the ball and reciting one of the rhymes that accompanied the game. For example: "A my name is Anna and my husband's name is Al. We come from Alabama and we sell apples." The point of the game was to make it as far through the alphabet as possible without stopping or allowing the ball to get away. These were easy, fun games that amused us when, on those rare occasions, there was no one else to play with. 

Group games included the well-known stickball, where parked cars and manhole covers served as bases. There were two common versions of the game, one where the batter bounced the ball himself before hitting it, and another where the ball was pitched in on a bounce. If there were only two players, we used a rectangle painted on a brick wall that represented the strike zone. One kid pitched and another hit. Balls pitched into the painted box that the batter didn't swing at were strikes; others were balls. Rules defined what batted balls were singles, doubles, triples and home runs. After three outs, the pitcher and batter switched places and the game went on. Variations included slap ball, triangle and punch ball...all played without a bat. There was also box ball, Chinese handball (a.k.a. Ace-King-Queen) off the point (don't ask) and a dozen other games.


One I remember fondly was simplicity itself; a game called "hit the stick". Two players would face each other with a wooden ice cream stick placed between them at a distance of maybe five feet. Each player took a turn trying to hit the stick with a bounced Spaldeen, and points would determine the winner. Sometimes for a challenge, we would use a penny, a much smaller target making for a more difficult game. This game sticks in my memory because it was one of the few games my father ever played with me. He wasn't the athletic type, but often on Sunday mornings after church, we'd have a game in front of the house until dinner was ready. My Dad always wore a suit and tie, and we made an odd couple playing ball on the sidewalk. He would encourage me and praise my skill, usually allowing me to beat him. Those were nice times.


I can't imagine my childhood without the Spaldeen and the joy it brought. My daughter bought me one recently, and the first thing I did was smell it. It had the same wonderful rubbery smell and was coated with a fine pink powder...both earmarks of the genuine article. It sits on my shelf now, a reminder of the days when I could run and jump with the best of them. These are the memories that fuel my Spaldeen Dreams.

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Nunsense

New York City schools are run by liberal idiots. Test scores and graduation rates are in the toilet, but what do they worry about? They have released a list of 50 words that are not to appear on standardized tests for fear they will upset the children.
  http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/nyc_schools_50_banned_words_li.html 


Halloween made the list because it is linked to paganism; Birthday because Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate them; Dinosaur because some people don't believe in evolution. (I love someone's suggestion that kids be challenged to write a story containing all 50 words.) High school kids can't write a lucid sentence or make change for a five dollar bill, but the mindless bureaucrats are fretting over them hearing words like "homes with swimming pools". I keep saying it but no one will listen: take just half the money we are spending on education, create a school system run by Catholic nuns, and watch test scores and graduation rates double. And here's a bonus: the kids will not only get smarter, but become more courteous and respectful as well.


We need just two simple rules to make the new system work. First rule, bring some discipline back to the classroom. I'm not talking physical discipline, (although from what I've seen some of these kids could benefit from a whack upside the head), but consequences for bad behavior. There are none now except for the teachers who are put through Hell for looking crooked at a kid. Second rule, parents are not to come to school unless invited. They don't get to design the curriculum, hire the teachers, hound the administration or any of the other things for which they have no training or qualifications. Every kid gets two strikes; on the third strike they are sent to special schools administered by Catholic brothers. The chronic behavior problems will disappear in six months. Once they are rehabilitated (and they will be) they may return to the more benevolent nuns.


When I went to grade school, the focus was on learning, and lo and behold, learning actually took place, year in and year out. The nuns and brothers of Our Lady of Lourdes created an atmosphere where no distractions from bad behavior were tolerated. They used friendly persuasion to discourage such behavior and were by and large very successful. This is not to say there weren't occasional outbursts, but we knew the consequences and suffered them in silence. We didn't lawyer up and bring our mommies to school to fight with the teachers. We knew that letting our parents know we had misbehaved in school would not bring sympathy, but the opposite. By the way, these realities held true for most public schools too, before they gave up entirely the right to discipline children, and caved in completely to meddling parents.


The quality of education provided under such simple rules got results. I'm not saying that every kid that came out of 1950's classrooms was a genius, but they knew enough English, math, history and how to get along with others to get jobs and become contributing citizens of our society. The methods that delivered that education and produced those results would be considered harsh by today's ridiculous liberal standards. That is wrongheaded thinking. Children need boundaries and an understanding that in the classroom, the greater good of the group takes precedence over some brat's desire to pitch a hissy fit. Allowing teachers to deal firmly with such children without constant parental excuse-making and intervention is the price to be paid for a well-educated, well behaved child ready to make his or her way in the world.


Bottom line: stop over-protecting our kids and let them know there are rules to be followed when they pass through that school door. Worry less that they might hear a banned word like "poverty" and more about them having to spend the rest of their lives in poverty if they come out of school knowing absolutely nothing.

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