I Still Remember Joni James

I have a friend named Jack Bilello who wrote a wonderful book called: "I Still Love Joni James: A Boy Grows in Brooklyn". (Actually, Jack is a few years older than me, and it's his brother Joe I'm closer to.) In addition to being a skilled writer, Jack has the memory of an elephant. In the book, he tells the biographical story of his own upbringing in East New York, Brooklyn in the fifties. For me it was like time traveling back to the places of my childhood and meeting once again the people who Jack breathes back to life. They are all thinly disguised characters in a story based largely on the real residents who really walked the streets. 

Jack writes of the neighborhood in charming detail and with an insider's feeling for its diverse inhabitants: "Get up you son-of-a bitch! You miserable bastard! Get up and get ready for church". Senza Denti, in mid-season form, yelled at Little Philly. I said now, you lagnazuna, and I mean it! If you don't go to church I'll kick you out on your Goddamn ear! The entire neighborhood had given her the nickname. Senza Denti, the toothless. Her two front teeth were missing, leaving a serious gap, lost, rumor has it, when her husband, Philly the Fish, had personally and permanently altered her appearance with a right cross to the jaw. Out of respect, everyone called her Senza Denti behind her back only. To her face she was called Frances or Mrs. Montenova." 

Jack, on the Parade Grounds, a ball field near Prospect Park where the better teams in the borough played: "The Brooklyn Parade Grounds, bordering on Prospect Park, contained twelve baseball fields.  Diamonds two through twelve ranged over the expanse of the Parade Grounds, an enormous stretch of green carved with eleven baseball diamonds colliding with each other. Here the lightweights jousted. On these contiguous fields the outfielders of two different teams would frequently get chummy, gabbing back and forth during lulls in the action. These diamonds had no fences, no dugouts, no stands, no water fountains. Scrubville, U.S.A. Diamond One however, other than that emerald shrine called Ebbets Field, sparkled as the most famous baseball diamond in the fourth largest city in the U.S.A. - the beautiful borough of Brooklyn." 

As the family returned from his father's funeral, the main character, Chris, thought about transitioning from son to father:  "Boy oh boy Dad. We always have to listen to your music. His fifteen-year old son fished around for WBAB, rap and hip-hop. Chris, nettled, in retaliation, reflexively popped the selector back to WHLI and Dean Anthony who played the music of Chris' life. Chris gazed out the car window to hide the tears welling in his eyes. He recalled the exact same radio ruckus he had with his father. He thought no one can be a good son until he's been a father. Words leaped into his mind. Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again. Eugene O'Neill believed you can never leave home. Chris put his money on O'Neill. You can and should go home again, if only to retrieve the priceless memories. He turned to his son. His tears, like the years, had evaporated. OK Jackie, put on your station. But always remember this...I still love Joni James."

This book peeled away the years for me. It reminded me how lucky I am to have been raised in Brooklyn by a loving Italian family in a time when the world was less complicated... a good read for anyone who remembers Joni James.

Note: Some quotes from the book are paraphrased. 

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From Jack Bilello's Bio:  

Born, raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York, Jack Bilello, a former Fulbright Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa and Kappa Delta Pi (the National Education Honor Society) lives on Long Island with his family. A former Chairperson of History at Lindenhurst, NY public schools, he is currently a field supervisor at Dowling College, Oakdale, Long Island. In addition to his novel, I Still Love Joni James: A Boy Grows in Brooklyn, Bilello has published two previous novels: Bonds of War, a WW II-Vietnam historical fiction was privileged to have its dedication page chosen by the State of Florida’s Veterans Association to honor the American fallen. American Patrol, currently in its second printing, is a suspense action thriller and was a publisher’s nomination for the National Book Award. Both novels are being considered for major motion pictures Three short stories, A Last Chance to be a Boy Again, A Piece of the Heart and Brother’s Keeper are slated for future publication.

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“SPALDEEN DREAMS” POSTS.

ALSO, READ MY OTHER BLOG, BRAINDROPS:  http://jpantaleno.blogspot.com/

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Street Rules

We live in an age where kids no longer get to be kids. Everything they do seems to be scheduled and monitored by hovering parents. They don't get to go outside and play much, and that lack of spontaneous unsupervised interaction with others causes them to lose out on developing one of life's most valuable skills: the art of negotiation. Things were much different growing up in the fifties. Children were on their own pretty much all the time. Our mothers gladly sent us out of the house and the only proviso was to be home by dinner. That is not to say there were no rules on the street to govern our play; there were, but they were rules made up and enforced by kids.

For example, in today's parent-dominated world, every kid who wants to play baseball makes the Little League team. Not only that, but coaches, by league regulation, are mandated to play every kid for at least part of every game. Fifties kids chose up sides, and since the object of playing the game was to win, the best players were always chosen first working down to the less talented kids. Sometimes when the teams reached the player limit, the worst kids got left out. You might think our way was cruel and insensitive, but in a way, it spurred the weaker kids to get better if they wanted to get in the game. This business of everybody plays and winning isn't everything just never occurred to us.

Not all our games relied on brawn. A big pastime for us, especially on cold or rainy days, was flipping baseball cards. We'd go into the hallway of an apartment building and flip cards. The point of the game was to have someone flip say 50 cards and then count up the number of heads and tails. The opponent would then have to match exactly the number of heads and tails flipped to win all the cards. This game required skill, but not muscle. We practiced flipping cards at home, and some kids were so good they could flip 100 straight heads or tails on demand. Side bets of say another 100 cards were often placed over and above the cards being flipped. If there was a tie, each player would toss one card high in the air and leave the outcome to pure chance as it fluttered to the ground.

Other street games required rules. In marbles, when your turn came, the object was to shoot your marble at the marbles of opponents and knock them out of a circle. Those you knocked out you kept. If there was anything in your path between your marble and the one you were shooting at, you were allowed to take a "roundsies". This meant you were allowed to move your marble in an arc around the obstacle (no closer to your target) so that you would have an unobstructed shot. Marbles also had to be standard size; none too big so that it gave the shooter an advantage, and none too small so that they were harder to hit. We played at everything to win, but there was a certain sense of fairness in our street game code.

Squealing was a no-no. Maybe it came from watching too many Cagney movies, but nobody liked a rat. You just didn't squeal on your friends. Teachers would sometimes try to break this vow of Omerta. They'd say: "Okay, if the boy who threw that eraser across the room doesn't come forward, everyone will have to write: "I will not horse around in class 500 times in their notebooks". Silence. If the offender didn't do the honorable thing and step forward, everyone accepted the punishment rather than squeal. That's not to say that later on in the schoolyard we didn't beat the crap out of the kid who caused us all that grief. Strangely the code did not apply to ratting out siblings to our parents. We would throw them under the bus in a heartbeat.

Kids inherently understood that even street games needed rules, and that all had to abide by them if anarchy was to be avoided. Negotiating these rules and their enforcement is what kids miss out on today when every little decision in their lives gets handed down by an adult. 

CLICK ON DATES AT TOP RIGHT TO SEE OTHER 

“SPALDEEN DREAMS” POSTS.

ALSO, READ MY OTHER BLOG, BRAINDROPS:  http://jpantaleno.blogspot.com/

LOOKING FOR A WORTHY CHARITY? TRY THESE FOLKS: 

Children's Craniofacial Association   http://www.ccakids.com/