Storm Memories

I'm sitting here with the wind howling outside my window trying to remember if we had storms like Sandy when I was a kid. We lived in an attached all-brick row house in Brooklyn, so I'm guessing we weren't as vulnerable as people living in the suburbs. I checked the history of hurricanes that hit New York when I was a kid, and although I recognized some of the names like Hurricanes Agnes and Connie, back then most of the information on the storm's progress and aftermath came the next day in the newspaper. Television stations didn't have reporters and cameramen out all hours of the day and night with updates every two minutes. Sometimes I think we were better off not knowing. My recollection is that our electric service wires were underground as they are in some parts of Brooklyn, so we almost never lost power. 

The storms I remember better than hurricanes are the snowstorms. It's probably a combination of my failing memory and my tendency to exaggerate, but it seems to me that winters were a lot harder then. We routinely had  three or four serious snowfalls a year, when the streets were blanketed in white and everything came to a standstill. As much as I absolutely hate snow now, that's how much I loved it as a kid. For one thing they closed the schools, every boy's fondest wish. For another, there were few cars on the streets so we were free to use our sleds without fear of being run over. Every family had a Flexible Flyer sled that had been handed down through the generations. These were not the flimsy plastic numbers around now, but solid, well made chariots of oak and steel. 

Our mothers, happy to have us out of their hair, would layer us up and shove us out the door. The meeting place was the vacant lot across the street from my house. Kids from blocks around would gather there because of the lot's enviable geographic location: it was elevated about fifteen feet above the level of the street, creating a natural hill for staging the poor kids' winter Olympics. We would pile four or five kids on a sled and push them down the hill. Sounds like fun until you realize that their route took them directly into the path of oncoming traffic! Good lookouts were a must. We also built ramps and moguls over which to ride our sleds, finally slamming to a halt in a snowbank trying to laugh with our mouths full of snow.

When we tired of sledding there were other snow-based activities like building anatomically correct snow men and women. Or we constructed snow tunnels that were fifty feet long, or elaborate forts with windows and ledges to hold the dozens of snowballs for the big battle with the fort across the street. The unwritten rule that every kid followed was no rocks packed into the middle of the snowballs. Sometimes, if things were really slow, we'd ring the bells of the old people on the block and offer to shovel their sidewalks. They showed their appreciation when Spring came around and we had to retrieve a ball from their back yards to keep the game going.  

Now, if two inches of snow are in the forecast, the weatherperson/doomsayers with their serious faces fill our television screens warning people to stay indoors until it's safe to go outside. If I had heeded that bad advice, I would have missed some of the best times of my life! 

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Past Meets Present

Sometimes things happen for a reason. We were trying to get to Belmont Racetrack for a little thoroughbred excitement today. Sadly we had to take the Belt Parkway (known locally as that goddamned Belt Parkway. Sure enough, around Sheepshead Bay, everything in the eastbound lanes stopped cold. No warnings, no explanations, no reports of why on the local radio stations, just stopped. With no relief in sight we limped off the parkway at Knapp Street and u-turned into the westbound lanes. With nothing better to do on a beautiful sunny day, we headed for Coney Island. I have written extensively about my childhood connection to this wondrous place, and I could hear it calling to me.

We parked on Surf Avenue, right near the Parachute Jump and a few blocks from the original Nathan's Famous hot dog stand. With the warm sun on our faces we strolled up West 16 street and onto the boardwalk. In an earlier blog I mentioned how the boardwalk has been restored and the old food stands given new fronts. We had seen this wonderful improvement during an earlier visit. I assumed the restoration of the boardwalk was limited to the stretch immediately along the section that housed the amusement rides, but I was wrong. We covered a good part of the 2.5 mile boardwalk length from around the Scream Zone rides in Luna Park and Astroland toward the eastern tip of Brighton Beach, and our favorite swimming spot when we were young. (Bay 3) 

The boardwalk was clean as a whistle and crowded with people of all shapes and sizes. The language we heard most was Russian; probably at least 75% of the strollers were of that ethnic heritage. There was a time when people didn't feel safe going to Coney Island, but I'm happy to say that day is past. As we walked by the handball courts where the sun-bronzed old men were schooling the younger ones in the finer points of the game, the memories came flooding back. There were grand bath houses along the boardwalk where people could rent lockers and shower after leaving the beach. I stopped for a soft ice cream cone,,,vanilla and chocolate swirl. Pistachio and banana, my all time favorite flavors, were no longer to be had. A small cone now goes for $4 bucks, a bit higher than the 15 cents we used to pay.

As we passed the NYC Aquarium and the balconied apartment houses down toward Brighton Beach, we began noticing a series of Russian restaurants and bars built to attract the locals. They lent an exotic holiday air to the surroundings. Old men and women sat on benches gazing out to sea. Maybe in their minds, they were young again and it was the Black Sea in mother Russia they were looking out on. Young couples hand in hand, women pushing strollers, bikers, skateboarders, hairy men with their shirts off to catch some rays, and Jasmine and me. We sat here so many years ago, covered with Coppertone, sitting on a beach blanket and listening to Alan Freed on a tiny transistor radio. The future was off in the distance, and nobody knew what it would bring. I'm happy to say we are back at Brighton Beach nearly fifty years later, wistfully revisiting the past.

I felt good as we walked back to the car. I'm grateful to the Russians for reclaiming Coney Island and restoring it to glory. Knowing that a place I enjoyed so much as a kid is still around and thriving gives me hope that we might grow old together.

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Vincenzo and Gelsomina

Every year we have three group parties to celebrate the birthdays of family members whose birth dates are close together. Usually we hold them in July, September and November. This past Saturday we toasted my nephew Alex, my son-in-law Malcolm and my son Matt. We can't celebrate individual birthdays since it's so hard to gather everyone together. Also, the work that goes into these parties is significant; between the shopping, cooking, cleaning and hosting overnight guests, it can be tiring, but also great fun. I mention this as a lead-in to a discussion of how Italians used to treat Sunday dinners. Back then, most families lived within walking distance of each other so the logistics were simpler. My wife was talking about the Sunday dinners she remembers at Grandma and Grandpa Salamo's house held every single week.

Vincenzo and Gelsomina (Italian for Jasmine, my wife's name) came separately to America from Italy in the great immigration wave of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Vincenzo came from Calabria and traveled to America as a ship's cook. (I'll bet the ship's captain was surprised to find himself one cook short after Vincenzo decided he liked America and jumped ship!) Gelsomina came to America from the town of Gaeta near Naples under someone else's passport at the age of fourteen. She was indentured as a domestic servant to the home of a family acquaintance. Her family's desperation to get her to America, and to what they hoped would be a better life for their daughter is an indication of just how difficult living in Italy had become at the time, especially for those living in the "Mezzogiorno" or southern regions of the country. 

Vincenzo and Gelsomina met, married, and brought eleven children into the world, one of them being Erasmo or Raymond, my wife's father. Vincenzo was very industrious and hard working, and eventually bought a brownstone in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn which is no longer in the family. (Too bad...it would sell for a cool $2 mil, even in today's soft market.) This is the house where my wife's family gathered on Sundays for a typical Italian dinner. In those days, the cooking was done mostly by Grandma and Grandpa, who shared the house with two daughters who never married, and a bachelor son, Michael. Vincenzo and Gelsomina's married children, with their children, would come to the house every week and gather at the big dining room table. I sat in at a couple of these dinners and can give this first person account of the event.

The long table was surrounded by mismatched chairs, and everyone had assigned places. The menu rarely varied: chicken soup to wake up the taste buds followed by antipasto, and pasta with meatballs and other "gravy meat". Then came a roast, usually veal, with some vegetables like escarole, potatoes or stuffed artichokes. After this came a pause during which family discussions took place. These were sometimes loud but never ill-tempered; it's just the way Italians made room for dessert. Coffee and/or espresso would be served in the kitchen accompanied by Italian cookies, a cake from Ebinger's Bakery, or maybe something homemade like chocolate pudding pie. A bottle of anisette would make the rounds, either sipped as a cordial or poured into the tiny espresso cups to liven up the coffee. 

After dinner the ladies would clean up with some assistance from the men. I can see all their faces in my mind's eye...My wife's dad Ray and his stylish wife Belle; Uncle Anthony who was a kind and loving father, and his smartly dressed wife, Chris; Uncle Frank,who served in the Navy, and his quiet wife Mary; Uncle Gregory, the rogue of the group who never met a scheme he didn't like, and his sweet, patient wife Mary; Uncle Mike the bachelor professor and resident intellectual; Aunt Julia, who spent hours and hours playing with our kids at any game they wanted, just like she played with my wife and her sister when they were growing up. She never once displayed any sign of impatience, and the kids adored her for it. Aunt Nancy was a little "Adams Family-ish", and had a set of idiosyncrasies that made her a bit of an oddball. Throw in some scattered kids and Grandma and Grandpa, and the cast was complete.

When Jasmine and I host one of these Italian dinners these days, it's hard to imagine how these wonderful people ate and drank like this every week! It was a time when families lived near one another, making weekly gatherings more feasible. Sometimes, in the midst of such a party, I sit at the head of the table and watch my children and their cousins having five loud conversations simultaneously, and I feel so blessed that the Italian tradition of Sunday dinner is in our DNA. The sense of "family" is paramount in the Italian culture, and these gatherings help me remember and be thankful for my own childhood in the bosom of a nurturing, caring, and yes, sometimes crazy family. I know that even though they are living many miles apart, that somehow my children will find a way to honor their heritage after we are gone, and pass along this beautiful custom to their children. Alla famiglia!

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