July 4th, Brooklyn Style

As the Fourth of July approaches, people prepare to attend spectacular fireworks displays sponsored by such business giants as Macy's or the local town government. These shows are carried out by professional pyrotechnists like the Grucci family of New York, a five-generation, family-owned and operated company on Long Island New York who give 300 elaborately programmed, computer-aided fireworks performances annually all around the world. It wasn't always so. Back in 1950s Brooklyn, fireworks for the Fourth were more of a hands-on affair or, if you'll forgive the pun, hands off if you were careless.

The excitement started mounting maybe in mid-June when that first cherry bomb detonation on the block signalled the arrival of a new illegal fireworks season. I was never quite sure where the fireworks came from, but there were "guys" who, year in and year out could be relied upon to sell fireworks out of their hallway or car trunk. All we knew was that they drove "down south" where fireworks were (and still are) legal, bought a supply of the most popular stuff, and then resold it at a profit in the neighborhood. This was Capitalism pure and simple. The transactions were very clandestine, although back then the cops were a lot more tolerant than today, after all, they were kids once too.

My friends and I would take the wrinkled dollar bills we had saved up and search out the shady characters who peddled this stuff. Once you told them who sent you, like in the old speakeasy days, you were accepted. No thought was given by these bums about the dangers of selling explosives to underage customers. If you had the cash, out came the stash. Cherry bombs, ash cans or M-80s, Roman candles, bottle rockets, pinwheels, firecrackers in packs of twenty and, for the feint of heart, ladyfingers and sparklers. When the big day came, we usually waited until dark to set off our explosions. We didn't just blow them up at random either; they were too expensive to squander. No, we staged elaborate scenes for maximum effect.
Maybe an ashcan (equivalent to about one-quarter stick of dynamite) would be inserted into a ripe watermelon stolen off Steve's horse-drawn cart. (Steve was a junk man in winter and changed hats to sell day-old produce at bargain prices in summer. I doubt he ever hosed out the wagon between career changes.) Sometimes we would roll cherry bombs under cars and run like hell when the owners gave chase. Every year one of us, with no hope of ever becoming a Mensa member, would man-up and hold something dangerous in his hand until the fuse had almost burned down to the powder, just like this kid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy4juRddaJw  Amazingly, no one was ever seriously hurt, although once, during a Roman Candle fight, "Fankie"s hair caught on fire. We called him Fankie because although his name was Frankie, he couldn't pronounce his Rs. One instant nickname, coming up.

Fireworks were a common way to celebrate Independence Day in most New York City neighborhoods. The cops had murderers to catch and weren't very interested in busting kids for illegal fireworks, as long as you kept it sane. At some point that last proviso was forgotten, but it wasn't us kids who screwed it up, but Neanderthal adults. They would light a fire in a big, cast iron garbage pail out in the street and just sit there lobbing in all sorts of fireworks, hour after hour. Some of these would be blown out of the pail and explode on someone's stoop or front yard. The poster boy for dangerous, over-the-top fireworks displays was John Gotti. Every year the Teflon Don would sponsor such an event in the Howard Beach community. At first the cops left it alone, but as Gotti became more notorious, they shut him down on Mayor Rudy Giuliani's orders.


For me fireworks on the Fourth of July were a part of growing up . They are less commonly seen in New York City neighborhoods these days because of a zero-tolerance crackdown by police. I guess that makes some sense, but I'm glad for the thrills we got from setting off fireworks as kids. To us it was mostly harmless fun (Brooklyn style) and I'm happy to report all fingers and toes are intact.

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Thanks Brooklyn

In writing this little blog, it’s been a challenge trying to convey what growing up in 1950s Brooklyn was like for those who didn’t live it. It must have been the same for my parents trying to get me to understand what it was like going through the Great Depression of the 1930s; there’s no frame of reference. Every decade has its own feeling I guess. For me, I wouldn’t choose any other time or place to spend my childhood. After WWII and the Korean War, America was poised for one of the greatest periods of technological and economic prosperity ever seen in the world.

Of course none of this mattered to a ten-year old on the streets of Brooklyn. For me the world was bounded by Bushwick Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, Pitkin Avenue and Howard Avenue. This small section of Brooklyn called East New York contained everything I needed to be happy. Along with a group of friends whose sense of adventure and curiosity matched my own, we tackled life head-on, making mistakes and learning as we went. Between 1948 and 1958, I was never bored. We had our seasonal activities that came and went as regularly as the seasons themselves.

Spring ushered in baseball season, pea shooter, carpet gun and water pistol wars, card games on the stoop and building homemade scooters from empty wooden fruit crates and recycled roller skates. Summer meant swimming at local beaches and pools, marbles and stickball games, and on those long summer evenings, playing Ring-a-levio and Johnny-on-the-pony until dark. Fall brought basketball and football in the park, roller hockey using a roll of electrical tape for a puck, and long bike trips far beyond the familiar boundaries of the neighborhood. In winter came sleigh riding, building snow forts, collecting and trading comic books, and of course setting fire to a big pile of discarded Christmas trees.

There was always something going on, and if by chance there wasn’t, all I had to do was ring a couple of doorbells. In the age before telephones or television, it didn’t take much to amuse us. If somebody had a pocket knife, a yo-yo or a spinning top, we were good for hours. We weren’t above mischief either. A cranky neighbor who refused to let us retrieve a ball from his yard might find four flat tires on his car. Maybe one of the group would get hold of a couple of cigarettes, a can of beer, some fireworks or even a girlie magazine and the game was on. We would find a deserted hallway, post a lookout, and plunge into the abyss. We sinned knowing that at the end of the week we could confess to Father Gonzalez, secure in the knowledge that he spoke little English and would always absolve us with the customary three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.

I believe that growing up in the low-tech ‘50s stimulated kids to be active. Everything was hands-on; we explored and experimented rather than sitting back passively waiting to be entertained. This was especially true when school was out for the summer and we had maybe 12 hours to fill. Our mothers didn’t want to see us except for meals, so street games became our Nintendo. We ran wherever we went, so obesity was not a problem. We ate what was put in front of us. I don’t remember a single kid with a peanut allergy. Differences were settled in kid fashion by kid rules, usually without fighting but not always. Parents parented and didn’t overdose hyperactive kids with Ritalin when a smack to the back of the head was a lot cheaper and more effective.

I wonder what kind of a person I would become if I was born today? I am far from perfect, but I can’t help believe that the kind of childhood I was lucky enough to have helped instill in me positive values like hard work, continuous learning, thrift, and appreciation of family. My faults are my own, but my virtues I owe to the streets of 1950s Brooklyn.

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Deja Vu All Over Again

I love the quote from the inimitable Yogi Berra: "It's like deja vu all over again." That's the feeling I had yesterday as we sat at the 9:00 am Spanish-language Mass at St. Rose of Lima church in Meriden, Connecticut. This is a lovely church in a small town in Connecticut filled with Mexican immigrants, but it could have been Our Lady of Loreto church in 1950s Brooklyn filled with Italian immigrants; the similarities were remarkable.

The entrance procession took a while. It was led by a group of middle-aged Mexican ladies, all seemingly under four feet tall, who were members of the St. Rose of Lima women's sodality. Dressed in red and black, they marched up the aisle, the veiled tops of their heads barely visible through the standing crowd, as they proudly carried their sodality's banners and sang the entrance hymn, in Spanish of course. Their lined, sunburned faces spoke of hard lives, but their faith gave them an inner glow as they basked in the attentions of their friends and family. In Our Lady of Loreto church 60 years ago, the scene would have been exactly the same except that the Italian women would have belonged to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel sodality and their uniforms would have been black and brown. My Aunt Anna was a ranking member of the Daughters of Mount Carmel.. Her manner was normally subservient, but when she marched up that aisle at the head of the sodality, she assumed an air of command that completely transformed her.

Father Jack began the mass in what I assume was fluent Spanish. He is a big man with a shaved head who looks more like a Russian hit man than a man of God, but the congregation's affection for him seems clear and vice-versa. Father Jack moves confidently through the liturgy attended by Mexican altar servers, lectors and singers who look like Munchkins alongside his towering presence. At Loreto, our counterpart to Father Jack was Monsignor Baretta, a small but no less imposing figure who presided over the church in its heyday. The Monsignor could be charming when he had to be, but I think it was his nature to be wary and cunning like a Sicilian Mafiosi. Like all Catholic priests, both men did what they had to do to keep their church vibrant...not always easy in poor neighborhoods where families had all they could do to put food on the table.

In both churches, the presence of families worshiping together was a common denominator, not something we see all that much, at least in our regular Staten Island church...people wearing their Sunday best to Mass... women in dresses, men in jackets and ties, and children scrubbed to within an inch of their lives. I was wearing shorts, and I'm sure the phrase "disrespectful gringo" was uttered more than once. The sense of family was reinforced when it came time to exchange a sign of peace. This took about five minutes as people wandered around the church greeting family and friends. The music was fabulous...a cross between Gregorian Chant and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. I half expected a Conga line going up to Communion.

At the end of the service, nobody bolted for the door to be first out to the parking lot. Like at Our Lady of Loreto, congregants of St. Rose stayed in their pews until the last bars of the closing hymn. After Mass they mingled, catching up in small groups with goings-on and laughing like they had not a care in the world. Not only Father Jack, but all the ushers, gathered at the rear of the church to greet parishioners and visitors alike. It was interesting watching the mostly Caucasian members of the parish arriving for the next Mass. They seemed to wait inside their cars until all the smiling Mexicans departed, lest they be touched by their joy. African-Americans and Hispanics, in my limited experience, are more joyous in their religious services than up tight white people. My wife and I speak no Spanish, yet we felt like an integral part of that Mass because of the simple faith and celebratory mood of the people.

When you really think about it, twenty-first century Mexican-Americans are not very different from 1950s Italian-Americans. Both groups work hard to make things better for the next generation; education and religion are important parts of their lives; and family trumps everything else. So to the good people of St. Rose, thank you for making us feel welcome and for your reminder that worshiping God does not have to be all gloom and doom. 

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Spin the Bottle

Boys of the Algonquin Indian Tribe of Quebec were brought to a secluded area, often caged, and then given an intoxicating medicine known as wysoccan, an extremely dangerous hallucinogen that is said to be 100 times more powerful than LSD. The intention of the ritual was to force any memories of being a child out of the boy’s mind. Unfortunately some boys also suffer memory loss to the extent that they lose memory of their family, their identity, and even the ability to speak. Some boys who still remembered events from their childhood after returning to the village were then taken back and given a second dose, and forced to attempt to cheat death a second time.  In Brooklyn, we also had our rites of passage, but they were far more civilized.

Maybe the first baby step to manhood was crossing the street alone. As a boy, if you wanted to get to the other side of the street, you tugged on the sleeve of some total stranger and said these words: "Mister, can you cross me?" If your parents were easygoing, they might let an older kid cross you. At some point your parents gave you permission to cross alone, admonishing you to always look both ways. You acted like you were grateful, not having the heart to tell them that you had already been crossing solo for the past two years. Being short of toys, we would play a game to see who could let a passing car get closest to his body. Sometimes we would slap the back fender and fall down as if the driver had struck us. When the poor trembling sap got out of the car, we would tear off howling with laughter. As I said, no toys. 

Another step to manhood involved a feat so dangerous, that in looking back, I shudder to think how stupid we were to try it. The elevated train ran along Fulton Street on its journey out to Jamaica, Queens. I've written before about how we would squeeze through the bars at the unattended end of platform to save the nickel fare. Another way of getting a free ride usually followed a "dare". Accomplishing this feat marked you as fitting material for tribal leadership...if you lived. There was a metal canopy over the stairs leading up to the elevated train station. We would boost ourselves onto this canopy and, like a cat burglar, walk up to where the canopy met the roof of the platform, maybe 40 feet above the street. Scrambling up another level onto the roof, we would carefully lower ourselves down to the platform and wait for the train. As you risked life and limb, your friends would stand down in the street heckling to see if you chickened out. If you made it they called you crazy, an epithet we wore like a badge of honor.

A tougher test had to do with something that we as boys had avoided like the plague up to now...girls. Maybe around fifth or sixth grade, boys come to the realization that those soft, sissy beings that couldn't hit a ball or make a death-defying climb had other things going for them. Suddenly we were acting all goofy around them, desperately wanting their attention and approval for reasons that were as yet unclear to us. Of course this was the first step in the great mating dance between men and women, a dance whose outcome is preordained, but the testosterone raging in our blood prevented us from seeing the end-game. We had feelings and stirrings we didn't understand; we just knew that we wanted these girls to like us, and would violate every rule in the Boys Handbook to get a smile or (rapture) a giggle. 

Having no instruction manual on "Getting to First Base", we would have been helpless had it not been for a game called "Spin the Bottle." The game was played at birthday parties in someone's finished basement that had been decorated with balloons and crepe paper streamers. Boys and girls would gather in a circle, and an empty soda bottle would be spun in the middle of the circle. When the bottle stopped spinning, the boy and girl closest to where the neck and base of the bottle pointed had to go into the next room and kiss. The duration and passion of the kiss usually depended on the girl; the guys were more afraid of this encounter than climbing up to the train platform. "The Kiss" ranged from a chaste peck on the cheek to a gum-swapping grope fest that caused blood to flow to places it had never been before.

We were really innocent in the 1950s and in some ways grew up very slowly compared to how quickly kids mature today. Guys stumbled and lurched into manhood, guided only by the tales told by the older boys on the block. Schools wouldn't dare talk about things like s-e-x, and our parents certainly had no stomach for that conversation. Somehow we figured it out though, due in no small part to Spin the Bottle, a game invented by an unsung, social networking genius.

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The Pull of Nostalgia

At least once a week I get an e-mail asking me if I remember the “good old days” when gas was 25 cents a gallon and The Platters were at the top of the music charts. I enjoyed these nostalgia fests when I first started receiving them, but after a while they all start looking the same. Why this obsession with looking back? Do we really miss the things these e-mails talk about or is it our youth we miss ? It’s probably the latter. Folks my age re-live their younger days by circulating these little time capsules that take them back to a time when their mornings didn’t start by opening a little pill box with S-M-T-W-T-F-S printed on top to remind them what day it was.

The older we get and the less we can do, the more we long for the days when we could run full speed for blocks, jump those fences in a single bound, and eat like we were going to the electric chair in the morning without gaining a single pound. Life was in front of us instead of in the rear view mirror. There was high school, maybe college, then a job, marriage, kids, and waaaay off in the future, something called old age. The face in the mirror was free of wrinkles and liver spots and covered with a mop of hair. There was a spring in the step and more than enough energy for whatever needed doing. Sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle, waking up after being asleep all those years and finding a world far different from the one I knew.

How did that boy frolicking in the gushing cold spray of the “Johnny pump” become the old geezer who takes 30 minutes just to straighten up in the morning? When did the kid who could hit a pink Spaldeen two sewers and race around the bases in the street turn into the sedentary wreck who drifts from computer to TV room to refrigerator in an endless cycle for 12 hours a day? Where is the carefree lad who could sleep like the dead for 12 hours regardless of what was going on around him? Did he metamorphose into a tossing, turning wretch who dozes fitfully for two hours at a time, always debating about whether to get up to go to the bathroom again?

Age is a funny thing. When we’re young we can’t wait to get older. We get so tired of hearing the words: “No, you’re not old enough.” When can I cross the street alone? When can I light up a cigarette in public? When can I get my license? When will I be old enough?? Well guess what bunky…that’s no longer a problem. Now it’s: What was his name again? What doctor am I seeing today? Can somebody read this menu to me? We get so caught up in life that we don’t always realize how quickly it’s passing by. Suddenly our children are over 40. We can’t eat dinner after 6pm. A day on the golf course is followed by a morning in a hot tub. Now we hear a variation on the words that so frustrated us as kids: “No, you’re too old.” 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to still be here and grateful that modern medicine has progressed so far. Conditions that would have spelled ‘toe tag’ 30 years ago are now treatable, allowing life to be mercifully prolonged. We won’t be twisting the night away like in our Chubby Checker days, but we do get to answer the bell every day and do as much as our creaky frames and feeble brains will allow. I can remember (barely) when my body would do anything I asked of it. At this stage of my life, if the good Lord granted me three wishes they would be: 1) good health for my family; 2) the next six Powerball numbers; and finally, 3) a week back in my 18-year old body. I want to remember what strength and stamina were like. I want to remember life without medications and a good night's sleep. Hell, I’d settle for remembering where I left my car keys!

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A Raisin in the Sun

It's 1958 and I'm heading to the beach. This is not a kiddy trip to the beach with mommy telling you when to eat, when to go in the water, when to get off the rides...no no, this is an unescorted, guys only, maybe-we'll-meet-some-hot-Jewish-girls trip to the beach. I can't wait to smell that first blast of salty ocean air as we step onto the elevated subway platform at Brighton Beach. My preparations have been flawless, like James Bond packing his tux and custom-made silencer for an encounter with Goldfinger. The objective of the trip is to meet girls, and that required equipment, cover stories and of course false papers so you could prove you were 18. The latter also made it easier to prove you were who you said you were when when you lied about being Jewish. It rarely came to this, but a good beach gigolo never takes chances.

We never carried a bag of any kind since, for some reason known only to testosterone-charged teen-aged boys, this was considered "faggy." Everything we needed would be carried in a manly, rolled-up beach towel. Bathing suit (check); long, tapered comb (check); bottle of Wildroot Creme Oil to slick back my D.A. hairstyle after coming out of the water (check); Coppertone suntan lotion (check); tiny transistor radio that, if you were lucky, got one station under ideal weather conditions (check); and if you were feeling extra lucky, a pack of Juicy Fruit gum to take care of that salami breath. Lunch was a problem. We hated carrying bag lunches onto the beach because it just didn't look cool. Would James Dean whip a pepper and egg sandwich out of an oil-stained brown paper bag? But neither did we have the money to buy lunch on the boardwalk, so the compromise was to take lunch from home and eat it on the subway.

Once at our destination (Brighton Beach, Bay 5 where the hot Jewish girls hung out) we rolled out out the beach towel, stepped out of out clothes, and revealed our rippling muscles to the world. OK, maybe they didn't ripple but they did twitch a little. After fiddling with the radio dial until we got something that wasn't static, we then covered ourselves in suntan oil and lay out on that towel like a Cajun Crusted Tilapia until we were done on one side. Burn, flip over and repeat...you could literally smell your skin cooking in that broiling sun. This insane activity was deemed "healthful" in the horribly misinformed 50s, and today I have to listen to my dermatologist lecture me every time I visit. You were happy to hear the approach of the Good Humor man so you could buy a fifteen- cent Humorette (orange or lime creamsicle) to cool off.

At some point we would go on scouting trips to visit the blankets in our search area for young ladies who might be interested in having some company. The search area was the distance you could walk on the burning hot sand without squealing like a girl for relief. A highly prized skill that might expand your search zone was the ability to step on the corners of people's beach blankets as you threaded your way through the minefield of people eating sandy baloney sandwiches washed down with jugs of Kool-Aid. We would use our cheesy but battle-tested pick-up lines like: "Hey Johnny, I think I'm in love" or,  “I’m having a terrible day, and it always makes me happy to see a beautiful girl smile." Nobody was more surprised than us when one of these terrible lines actually worked.

For the record, those rumors about hot Jewish girls proved to be totally unfounded. They were no hotter than the average Christian girl, but that urban myth spread around the high school locker room like wild fire, unfairly elevating our pathetic hopes. We spent many fruitless days searching for girls who "looked Jewish." I've since learned that there is a sure-fire way to tell, but I found out too late to improve our scoring odds. You ask them what they plan to make for dinner and if the answer is "reservations", bingo, hello Shiela. I once took a Jewish girl home to meet my mother. Mom was  Italian and a firm believer in the sentiment expressed in that song from West Side Story, "Stick to Your Own Kind". She was polite to my date, but she looked threateningly at me with Luca Brasi eyes.

  

Now, thanks to all my reckless sunbathing on the beaches of Brooklyn, I had to have some sun damage spots removed from the top of my bald head. If it was up to my doctor, with her SPF85 sunblock and wide brimmed hats, I'd go out on the golf course looking like Miss Marple. I never did find that hot Jewish girl, but I did manage to trick a pretty special Italian girl into marrying me. Mom was so proud.

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My Many Mothers

Mother's Day is coming up, and it got me thinking of my own Mom of course, but also of the other "Moms" who were part of my childhood. In 1950's Brooklyn, the neighborhood was a collection of melting pot families with different ethnicities, races and religions. The one thing many of those families had in common was a strong, loving mother who held the whole shebang together. These remarkable women were the glue of our society. They quietly ruled the house, but usually allowed their husbands to believe they were in charge. The men were grateful for this concession, but deep down knew to whom they reported. Not content to raise only their own children, these women extended their motherly influence to any child who happened to cross their threshold. I was fortunate enough to have regular guidance from a number of auxiliary neighborhood moms.

Tommy Dowd was a good friend and playmate, even though he was about five years older than me. He was a diabetic and small for his size, and that may have explained how he became part of our crowd. Tom's mom Lillian was a lady in the best sense of that word. Her husband worked as a banker and enjoyed a few beers in the evening at Grimm's Bar. I think Lillian just got lonesome sometimes, and would invite the unwashed urchins lounging on her stoop to come in for tea, that's right, tea!  Being English, tea was a familiar ritual to her, and we would sit around her dining room table drinking tea from China cups and eating cinnamon toast or Lorna Doone cookies. Lillian made conversation by asking about our families and how things were going in school. It was an incongruous scene to be sure, but seemed perfectly natural at the time. I'm sure any bit of polish I may have acquired in childhood rubbed off from the genteel Lillian.

Angie Bilello was another surrogate mom who lived across the street from my grandparents on Hull Street. She was the mother of my friend Rich...all sweetness and light unless she thought you were up to something, at which point she would turn into Sgt. Joe Friday and start firing questions designed to break through your pathetic tissue of lies. Angie was a selfless Italian wife and mother who cared not only for her family, but also for a blind brother who lived with them; she did this without complaint. I felt at home in her kitchen because there was always something good to eat. I know my memory can't be right on this, but it seems to me that Angie was always frying veal cutlets! Ah, the smell. This was in the day when you could buy veal cutlets without needing a co-signer for a loan. We ate this Italian heroin like snacks before dinner, sitting at the formica kitchen table with Angie smilingly looking on.

Agnes Bordenga was the Myrna Loy of Somers Street. While the less glamorous mothers wore the mandatory flowered house dress, Agnes dressed up. She was a very attractive woman married to Sal, the coolest guy on the block. I would look for excuses to run errands for Agnes just to be around her. She smoked (something every other mother on the block frowned upon) had a wonderful sense of gaiety just like Myrna Loy. Agnes always treated me kindly despite the really obvious crush I had on her. When their daughter Phyllis (my sister's friend) got older, Agnes and Sal hosted annual New Year's Eve parties, probably just to keep Phyllis home where they could keep an eye on her. They invited the teenage boys from the neighborhood, and allowed us to smoke and even have a glass of beer. This might sound terrible, but we never abused their hospitality; it made us feel so grown up.

There was no escaping the mother's network in 1950's Brooklyn. Each of the women who took it upon themselves to watch over the neighborhood children not only helped them stay out of trouble, but in their own way added to the development of their character. Things are a bit different now. Neighborhoods are different and people look at the world through lenses of fear and suspicion, sadly, not without cause. Lillian's invitations to tea would be reported to Child Welfare; Angie's steady diet of fried veal cutlets would be condemned as unhealthy; and Agnes would be hauled off to jail for permitting teens to smoke and drink in her home. My mother was one of a kind and irreplaceable to me, but in raising me she had some help from the great ladies I mentioned and others I didn't. Happy Mother's Day, Frances.

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The Kennedy Years

We've been watching "The Kennedys" on Reelz TV. The series was originally produced for the History Channel, but they declined to air it since they felt the producer was too harsh on the family, especially poppa Joe. They paint him as a controlling, micro-managing fanatic who would stop at nothing to get one of his sons elected President of the United States. It is rumored that, partly because she has a new book coming out on her family, Caroline Kennedy and the rest of the clan exerted pressure on A&E, the parent company of the History Channel, to yank the series because it portrayed her family as manipulating schemers. I found it ironic that in pulling the rug out from under this fine series, the Kennedys acted in exactly the way the producers characterized them in the show.

But I'm not out to bash the Kennedys; they have suffered enough. I really wanted to write about the crises I lived through during the Kennedy administration. I never really thought about it because it just seemed like part of growing up, but President John Kennedy faced some big time challenges in his short time in office. There were many issues facing the country, and it seemed unfair somehow that all would come to a head on JFK's watch. It was the height of the Cold War, with Russia and the United States circling like two Summo wrestlers over who would be the 800 pound gorilla in the world. Racial tensions were tearing the country apart, and the newly liberated island of Cuba, just 90 miles off our coast, was cozying up to the Russians. It seemed as if real life was playing out like in the movies Dr. Strangelove and Seven Days in May.

First. there was the crisis in Berlin. In November 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev issued an ultimatum giving the Western powers six months to agree to withdraw from Berlin and make it a free, demilitarized city. Kruschev and Eisenhower talked but no agreement was reached. In 1961, alarmed by the steady flow of citizens from to East to West Berlin, the border to West Berlin was closed and the Berlin Wall erected. President Kennedy responded by calling up nearly 150,000 National Guardsmen. My Army reserve was on alert but never activated. My pal Lefty from Hull Street was called up with his reserve unit and spent a year in North Carolina making Raleigh safe for Democracy. The Berlin Wall stood until the great Ronald Wilson Reagan made his famous: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech in 1987.

Most southern states had "separate but equal" rules for whites and blacks in the early sixties for schools and other public facilities. A black student named James Meredith, who had attended an all black junior college for two years, applied in 1960 to get a degree at the University of Mississippi. He was denied entry twice, with the leading opponent being the state governor, Ross Barnett. After winning a case brought on his behalf by the NAACP, Meredith thought the matter had been settled. But Governor Barnett, despite telling President Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy that he would stand aside, broke his word and incited the locals to riot, resulting in injuries and death. The Kennedys, infuriated at the betrayal, called in the National Guard who led Meredith through the university's door. This was a shameful incident in American history, and JFK, despite knowing he would lose Southern reelection votes, ultimately did the right thing.

With hardly time to catch his breath, Kennedy was up at bat again. In September 1962, after some unsuccessful operations by the U.S. to overthrow the Cuban regime (Bay of Pigs) the Cuban and Soviet governments began to surreptitiously build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles with the ability to strike most of the continental United States. On October 14, 1962, a United States Air Force U-2 plane on a photoreconnaissance mission captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba. The U.S. announced that it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanded that the Soviets dismantle the missile bases already under construction or completed in Cuba and remove all offensive weapons. Cuba and the Soviets backed down after the United States agreed never to invade Cuba.

I voted for JFK when I was young and foolish, and a registered Democrat. I was greatly saddned when he was killed in 1963. Although history may have taken some of the bloom off the Camelot legend by revealing JFK's human frailties, I think he did a credible job in dealing with all the world-shaking crises he faced in so short a time. I have also gained a measure of respect for his brother Bobby. It was his job to play bad cop to JFK's good cop. Bobby was the hammer in JFK's velvet glove. Together they bullied and cajoled the Congress and the Cabinet, with able assistance from one of the world's greatest political persuaders, Lyndon Baines Johnson. I don't know how anyone stands up to the pressure of being the leader of the free world. I don't envy them their job of running this country, and though I often violently disagree with their policies, I applaud them for having the courage to try.

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Brooklyn's Champs-Élysées

A while back I wrote about Atlantic Avenue, one of the neighborhood streets that holds a lot of memories for me. Another is the majestic Eastern Parkway, a broad, tree-lined boulevard that starts around Bushwick Avenue and winds its way through a tangle of ethnic neighborhoods before ending at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park. When I was growing up in the Fifties, a drive along Eastern Parkway was our answer to a stroll along the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The multi-laned street carried traffic from downtown Brooklyn to the Interboro (now called Jackie Robinson) Parkway, and along Atlantic Avenue onto the Belt and Southern State Parkways to the promised land, Long Island.

Eastern Parkway was the world's first six-lane highway, completed in 1874. It had divider islands that separated the main traffic lanes from the local streets. These were planted with beautiful trees and paved with grey stones, and we stood on them waiting for the light to change. For a kid, crossing Eastern Parkway was a big deal, and our parents would have had fits if they knew we were so bold as to try. Brownstone houses, apartment buildings, retail shops and storefront churches lined both sides of the street. In my time, Jews were the primary residents of the area with a scattering of Blacks. A few Orthodox Jews still stubbornly hang on in the Crown Heights section, and an uneasy peace exists between them and the Blacks, who are now the dominant culture.

I spent a good part of my 'yout' just off Eastern Parkway in Callahan and Kelly Park on Truxton Street. We walked from home and sometimes stopped off at the candy store to pick up a new Spaldeen ball, or maybe a bat from the broom factory where they sold thick, red or blue broom handles for fifteen cents. These made perfect stickball bats. We played at the handball courts, where an outline of home plate was painted the height of the strike zone. This was a good variation on street stickball because it only required two kids, a pitcher and a hitter. The area was enclosed by a chain-link fence, and depending where the batted ball hit the fence, it would be a single, double, triple or home run.

Heading along Eastern Parkway toward downtown Brooklyn, we'd pass the live chicken market. I always held my breath to avoid a choking smell that still lingers in my nightmares. There was a junk yard fronted by a run-down store window decorated with hub caps. They sold used car parts...remember this was in the day when people actually repaired their own cars. If you zigged off Eastern Parkway near Carlucci's restaurant where we ate after attending funerals, you could visit Our Lady of Loreto Church on Pacific and Sackman Streets, where I was baptized. There was Miranda's Beer Distributor where my father bought cases of Rhiengold and Piels beer for family celebrations. Farther down was the Eastern Parkway Arena where prize fights were held on Friday nights, and at other times it was used as a roller skating rink.

There were a number of nightclubs along Eastern Parkway, including one whose name escapes me, across from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. This club was patronized mostly by Blacks, and featured top-name entertainment. I went there a couple of times and, while I felt nervous being one of the few white guys at the bar, it was worth it to see acts like the Platters on stage. There was also a small Cabaret whose claim to fame was a real piano mounted on the roof above the doorway. This fascinated me and I went out of my way to look for it every time we drove by. Eastern Parkway ended at the Grand Army Plaza circle near the Brooklyn Museum and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. We just visited a Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Museum last week. Going back there is like time-traveling and somehow makes me feel young again.

I came across a website NewYork/BrooklynOld.htm that contains so many pictures of places in Brooklyn  that, unlike the Brooklyn Museum, are long gone. It gave me such pleasure to look at them because it's who I am. One of the nicest associations I have of the area is from a street that begins where Eastern Parkway ends...Union Street. It was there that a special girl with a small gap in her front teeth grew up at 909 Union Street. Before we were married I 'd drive along Eastern Parkway to pick her up for our dates. When we returned, her father was waiting at the second story window to be sure we didn't linger too long over our goodnights. Thank you Eastern Parkway for Callahan-Kelly Park, the skating rink, the piano on the roof, and for the best friend I have in the world.

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The Rear View Mirror

In the car today on the oldies station I heard Elvis Presley singing Hard Headed Woman. Suddenly I saw in my mind those wavy black and white lines they always used on old television shows to signal that a flashback was coming.

I'm playing a short center field the way I always did, daring opposing batters to hit it over my head. I'm twelve years old and, in my mind at least, there is no fly ball I can't run down. At the crack of the bat I instinctively take off in the direction I know the ball will be traveling. After a few long strides, without slowing down, I sneak a look over my shoulder to try to pick up the ball's flight. There it is, soaring toward the fence. I adjust my direction slightly and stick up my glove. I hear the thwack as it hits the webbing. I spin and throw hard on a line to third base. The runner who was going to tag up at second goes half-way to third and goes back. He gives me a grudging 'nice catch' nod as I trot back to my position. I'm good. My body is strong, my reflexes are quick, and I have that unshakable confidence unique to the young.

"Well a hard headed woman, a soft hearted man, been the cause of trouble ever since the world began, oh yeah...." is blaring out of the radio of my 1961 Chevy Impala. Heads turn because the car windows are rolled all the way down as I cruise along Cross Bay Boulevard past the Big Bow Wow Drive-In. I can smell the burgers and hot dogs on the summer breeze as I pull into the lot. I look good in my French-toe shoes, black chinos with the belt in back, and my pink and black shirt that laces-up the front. I take an admiring glance at myself in the gleaming finish of the black car before strolling to the miniature golf course to see if any of the guys are there. I wonder how any of the giggling girls, with their hair in giant rollers under bright aqua scarfs can resist me. I have that unshakable confidence unique to the young.

"Now Adam told Eve, listen here to me, don't you let me catch you messin' round that apple tree, oh yeah..." I couldn't wait to get out of high school; college was definitely not for me. I'm in a dead-end job working as a bank clerk and thinking I have the world on a string. I'm pulling in a sweet $52 a week and spending twice that. The free checking account that the bank gives to every employee is my ticket to living beyond my means. Some of the bad checks I wrote are still out there bouncing. I soon discover credit cards and my finances worsen. As Tennessee Ernie said: Another day older and deeper in debt. My prospects are poor, but I'm having too much fun to realize it. I have that unshakable confidence unique to young.

"Now Samson told Delilah loud and clear, Keep your cotton pickin' fingers out my curly hair, oh yeah..." My best friend Rich has a girl he wants me to meet. She's a friend of his girlfriend JoAnn. Her name is Jasmine, she and JoAnn are classmates at Bishop McDonnell High School on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. We meet at JoAnn's house in Richmond Hill. Jasmine seems nice enough and we hit it off pretty well. I am especially impressed with her sense of humor; she laughs at all my jokes. I think we went to a movie and after that had a few dates, but we went our separate ways. Hey, why rush into anything, there are plenty of girls out there and most of them would be happy to date a guy like me. I have that unshakable confidence unique to the young.

"I got a woman, a head like a rock. If she ever went away I'd cry around the clock, oh yeah..." As the light changes and the guy behind me honks, I drift back to reality. I reflect on the ending to my story. It must have been divine intervention that brought me to my senses, and sent me back to the lovely Jasmine. Luckily she saw something in me that even I didn't know was there. She married me, and began the process of turning me into a better man. She sacrificed so that I could finish college at night, get a better job, and make a life for our family. I wanted so much to justify her faith in me.

Whatever I've accomplished in life, I owe to her. Even when I make mistakes she is always there to help me. The only way I can think of to repay her is by trying harder to be the kind of husband she deserves.

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