Everybody in the Pool

As the heat index goes up, most of us have the good fortune to live in homes with air-conditioning. While temperatures in the 90's are uncomfortable and inconvenient, at least we have the means to escape from the heat, barring power outages of course. Things were very different in the Fifties. Air-conditioning was something you had to buy a movie ticket to enjoy. Most public places including schools, churches, small office buildings and stores, even many restaurants, did not yet enjoy this luxury we now take for granted. To cool off, you had several options: electric fans to blow the hot air around; for apartment dwellers, sleeping on the fire escape; sitting on the stoop waiting for the ice cream truck; and finally, going to the beach. At our summer day camp at PS 73, we also had memorable day trips to New York City's public pools.


Most of the city's five boroughs had public swimming pools where people could cool off for the princely sum of 15 cents. This entitled you to a locker (usually just a wire basket to put your stuff in) and use of the pool and showers. The pool we visited was Betsy Head Pool at the intersection of Livonia and Dumont Avenues. There were other Brooklyn public pools located in Red Hook, Sunset Park and McCarren Park, all poor neighborhoods and racially mixed. They would have been characterized as "not great areas" using the coded language of the day. Translation: there were blacks living there. Most white folks would have avoided these neighborhoods, especially at night, but the overwhelming need to cool off took precedence over race prejudice. The pool was like a DMZ, where people of all colors checked their biases at the gate and just enjoyed the Olympic-sized pool.

From the Betsy Head Pool website, some history: "This park is named for Betsy Head (1851-1907), a British immigrant who became a wealthy widow. Mrs. Head left the City of New York a bequest of $190,000 to build recreational facilities for the purposes of health and recreation. The land for Betsy Head Playground was paid for by the property owners of Brownsville at a cost of $250,000. Architect Henry B. Herts designed the new playground. It was built in 1915 by the Public Recreation Commission and turned over to the Parks Department later that year. The park included a rest pavilion, wading pool, playground, school farm garden, bath building, swimming pool, field house, running track, and tennis courts. It was one of the most complete and popular facilities of its time, embodying all the ideas current in recreation. A model of the playground was displayed at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and, according to the 1915 Parks Department Annual Report, “contributed greatly toward securing first prize for the New York City Parks exhibit.”

The pool itself was magnificent. It had a wading pool for kiddies, a huge swimming area that ranged in depth from 3 feet up to ten feet, and a special diving pool with boards at graduated heights for the more adventurous. They opened the pool early for adults who wanted to swim laps, and then around 10 am for the general public. For inner-city kids, pools like Betsy Head were a godsend. While our local playgrounds had wading pools that sprayed water, they were pretty tame for older kids. We also had the fire hydrants, and although they did cool us off, could hardly compare with the beautiful, chlorinated, aqua-hued water in the pool. We did handstands in the shallow end, dove underwater and pulled down each other's bathing trunks, and cannonballed off the diving boards trying to splash the ladies who sat poolside with their foot-high beehive hairdos. 

 I see that most of these pools are still in use around the city, and that's a good thing. While our beaches are nice, it's unlikely that many city kids have someone to take them, so the idea of grabbing a towel and heading for the neighborhood pool is a chance to make some nice childhood memories.

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Brooklyn's Tom Sawyer

One of my favorite childhood books was Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain received  more critical acclaim for his companion book, Huck Finn, and deservedly so, but there were more serious themes in that story like race and class prejudice. Tom Sawyer was purely a love song to boys. It was especially appealing I think to city kids like me who envied the life young Tom led. Twain had the gift of seeing the world through the eyes of a boy, and the skill as a writer to take us into that world. The tale is based, Twain says, on characters he actually knew growing up in Missouri in the mid-1800s. The adventures that Tom lived were enough to enthrall any boy...cleverly making whitewashing his Aunt Polly's fence sound so appealing that he got other boys to pay him for the privilege of doing the work, running away with Huck and Joe Carter to become pirates, hunting for hidden treasure in a cave, witnessing a murder and testifying against the very scary Injun Joe in court.


As much as I ate up these adventures, it was hard coming by anything comparable in the middle of concrete-covered Brooklyn. We had no caves, no woods, and no streams to fish or raft on. We did have murders...in fact, on Pitkin Avenue, just a short walk from my house, was the headquarters of the notorious gang known as Murder, Incorporated or The Brownsville Boys. Most of the killers were Jewish gangsters from Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York and Ocean Hill. In addition to carrying out crime in New York City, and acting as enforcers for mobster Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, they accepted murder contracts from mob bosses all around the United States. While Tom was brave to testify against Injun Joe, testifying against Murder, Inc. in Brooklyn was a one-way ticket to the landfill.


Speaking of the landfill, it was the scene of one of my Tom Sawyer-like adventures. Along Pennsylvania Avenue down near the Belt Parkway was an enormous landfill that we called simply "the dump". It covered acres and acres, and a lot of it had become wooded and overgrown. I had a pretty good bow and real arrows; I don't remember how I came by them, but they worried my mother very much, and rightly so. One rainy day I became bored and set up a target inside the house. It consisted of a large cardboard box filled with newspapers. I painted a bulls eye on the side of the box and set it on my mother's bed. We lived in what were called "railroad rooms" meaning one room led through a door into another in a straight line, like railroad cars. I positioned myself in the rear bedroom and attempted to shoot an arrow through two doorways and into the cardboard box.


As I watched, the flying arrow skimmed over the box and embedded in my mother's mahogany dresser! Panicked, I pulled the arrow out and used a pencil to color the exposed wood in the foolish hope that Mom wouldn't notice. Fat chance. She was going to destroy the bow that night, but I convinced her to spare it on the condition that I would only use it in the back yard. (And now, back to the dump). One day soon, bored again, I sneaked the bow out of the house and biked down to the dump. Sea gulls were known to congregate there and, like my hero Tom Sawyer, I planned to stalk one and shoot it. I crept up on a flock of feeding gulls, aimed and fired. To my amazement and horror, I hit one. It took off with the arrow still in it, and I was immediately flooded with remorse. I hoped against hope that the poor creature would make it somehow, but I knew I had done a terrible thing.  

Killing animals to feed your family like people did in Tom Sawyer's day is one thing, but to take one of God's beautiful creatures just for sport or to have a trophy for your den wall is wrong. Hunting is hugely popular in America, but I think any interest I may have had died that day at the dump.

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King of the Coasters

Coney Island holds a special place in my heart. Some of my fondest childhood memories stem from the carefree days and nights spent there as a 'yout' as we say in Brooklyn. Steeplechase Park was the fun epicenter of Coney Island as anyone who went there in its heyday will attest. It was the prototype theme park at a time when Disneyworld was just a dream. You paid one price to get in and they punched your round ticket for every ride you went on...some 15 in all. While the rides in the park were great, the best ride of all was outside the park boundaries; that was the terrifying Cyclone roller coaster. A rite of passage  in my circle was to prove your manhood by not only riding the Cyclone, but doing it standing up in the last car, a truly lame brained stunt.


From the 'Brooklyn Tourism' website: "The Coney Island Cyclone is one of the most famous attractions in New York City. The first rides of the historic roller coaster began on June 26, 1927. Over 85 years later, the Cyclone is still thrilling thousands of riders each year. Every roller coaster enthusiast around the world has heard of, has ridden or hopes to ride The Cyclone. This historic roller coaster graces virtually every "top roller coaster" list and publication. Roller coasters may have gotten bigger and faster, but they have not gotten any better than The Cyclone. Time Magazine quoted Charles Lindbergh as saying that a ride on the Cyclone was more thrilling than his historic first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. An official New York City Landmark since July 12, 1988, the Cyclone is the heart and soul of Coney Island, birthplace of the American amusement industry."


The Cyclone was primitive compared to the space age coasters they are constructing these days. Built on a rickety wooden framework, the Cyclone emitted loud groaning sounds as it made its thrilling loop de loops. The ride was bought by the City of New York in 1965; four years later a lack of customers hurt profits and the ride was condemned.  In 1972 the nearby New York Aquarium announced that the coaster would be destroyed to make room for an expansion. A large “Save the Cyclone” campaign ensued and the ride, leased to Astroland Park in 1975 and amazingly refurbished, reopened on July 3, 1975. The coaster made $125,000 its first weekend. The Cyclone benefited from the roller coaster boom of the 1970′s and 80′s. Rides like the Racer and The Great American Scream Machine made the roller coaster an American icon again, and people from all over the country came to ride the Cyclone.

When we went to Coney Island, the Cyclone and Nathan's Hot Dog stand were mandatory stops, preferably in that order. Chowing down at Nathan's first and then riding the Cyclone is not recommended. It was great fun when we went in a group to "initiate" a new member into the Cyclone tradition. They could not pass muster unless we witnessed them standing up in the last car with hands in the air. The bravado they felt before their ride was gone as they exited, green-faced, after the Cyclone had its way with them. The Cyclone may be old, but it is world renowned. It is not uncommon to go there today and hear ten different languages spoken by the people waiting in line. It has withstood the test of time and the roller coaster fortunes (pun intended) of Coney Island itself. 


When I see film and read about some of the coasters being built today, I cringe. I know I wouldn't have the nerve to go on for fear of my life. I used up all my roller coaster courage 55 years ago while standing up, hands in the air, in the last car of the greatest roller coaster of the all, The Cyclone.

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The Making of a Soldier

I found out the hard way that the Army knows what it's doing. When I joined the US Army Reserves at age 18, it was mainly to avoid being drafted and sent to Viet Nam. I was a reluctant warrior looking to avoid having people shoot at me, so I enlisted in a reserve unit that had little chance of being called up to active duty. When I began my eight-week boot camp at Fort Dix, NJ, my attitude was just keep your head down, never volunteer for anything, and get through this somehow. I was the least "Gung-Ho" soldier who ever put on a uniform. I was fit and could take whatever they were dishing out physically, but I thought they will never own my mind or my heart. They will never make a soldier out of me. I was wrong on both counts.


The Army's modus operandi is a simple one, a lot like the team-building exercises to which businesses send management people. They throw you in with a bunch of disparate guys from all over the country and begin to brainwash you into believing that if you fail in your assigned task, you are not only letting your fellow soldiers down, but in a combat situation, could actually get them killed. They saddle you with impossible tasks and get the best out of you because you don't want to be the one that lets the team down. They instill "Esprit de Corps" in a way that makes you push yourself to do for others what you would not do for yourself. I remember 20 mile forced marches in the rain with full backpacks. The guys were miserable, and then someone in the rear ranks would strike up a marching song:  


They say that in the Army the coffee's mighty fine
It looks like muddy water and tastes like turpentine
Chorus:
Oh I don't want no more of Army life,
Oh Lord, I wanna go
But they won't let me go
Oh Lord, I wanna go home


The weary troops would pick up the song and, like automatons, march through the pouring rain, the driving cadence of the song's rhythm forcing them to somehow lift one foot and put in front of the other again and again as the miles passed. Sometimes the drill sergeants would stop the column of march and make every weary soldier disassemble and reassemble their rifles in the dark. You were so tired you wanted to cry, but as each man looked at the other and saw them doing what was asked, you found the strength to do it too. The sergeants were not monsters but were following the Army's age-old procedure for building a fighting force that would never question a superior's orders but obey them instantly. That tactic works most of the time, but can backfire as we found out at the massacre of Mi Lai in Viet Nam under Lieutenant William Calley.


Oh the donuts in the Army, they say they're mighty fine,
One fell off the table, and killed a friend of mine.
Chorus:
Oh I don't want no more of Army life,
Oh Lord, I wanna go
But they won't let me go
Oh Lord, I wanna go home

Though a number of US soldiers were charged in the aftermath of Mi Lai, all with the exception of Lieutenant William Calley, were acquitted. Calley was sentenced to life in prison with hard labor. He served three years before he was released. However, Calley had his supporters and many believed that he was simply following orders. All of America was horrified at the killing of women and children at Mi Lai; it was an act that seemed to belie everything we wanted to believe about our country. Nazis committed atrocities in war time, not American boys. The country was in turmoil; the media were in a frenzy; judgments flew fast and furious, and in the middle of the storm stood a group of young soldiers about to take the heat for the Generals.


They say that in the Army the pay is mighty fine
Your pay's a hundred dollars, but they take back ninety-nine
Chorus:
Oh I don't want no more of Army life,
Oh Lord, I wanna go
But they won't let me go
Oh Lord, I wanna go home 

Why did the soldiers in My Lai react as they did? After three years in Vietnam, the US Army knew that anyone could be an enemy fighter or sympathizer regardless of age or gender. Invariably everyone in the villages of South Vietnam wore the same style clothing, so no one could be sure who was who in terms of the enemy. All US soldiers knew that any patrol they were sent on could be their last or that they might suffer horrendous injuries as a result of the National Liberation Front booby traps that littered South Vietnam. The stress of simply doing what they had to do may well have become too much for the troops who were in Mi Lai on March 16^th 1968. 


I remember in boot camp blindly slogging through that mud just because the sergeant demanded we do it and because everyone else was doing it. I tried to imagine me in that jungle village, every nerve on edge and wondering if I would ever see my next birthday. I like to think that I would not have followed Lieutenant Calley's order to fire on those villagers, but I can't be sure. I feel sorry for those who were killed, but I also feel for the soldiers who were treated like criminals for doing what they were ruthlessly trained to do. War sucks. 

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Friendship

The other day I was glancing through my grammar school graduation album, the one with the multi-colored pages that your friends wrote witty sayings in like "2 good 2 be 4 gotten" and "Remember A, Remember B, but most of all, remember me". A mixture of fun and melancholy came over me as I flipped through the pages. I smiled at the silly things my buddies wrote, and despite the slippage in my memory for things current, the faces of each boy immediately came into clear focus as I read what they wrote; I can picture them exactly as they looked some 56 years ago. Well-wishes from my parents and family members, including a page of squiggly lines from my two-year old brother, flood my brain with memories. I read touching notes from teachers, whose impact on my life I would never realize until years later. 


At the time, I was close to a lot of my classmates, having spent eight years with them at Our Lady of Lourdes. We also played on the same school teams and many of them lived in my neighborhood. As I read their names and look at their faces, I realize that virtually all of them, with few exceptions, are no longer in my life. The Fifties was kind of the beginning of the great migration out of the old neighborhoods and into the suburbs. Up until then people were much more inclined to live out their lives not far from where their parents grew up. Growing up back then, you were far more likely to run into those with whom you went to school...whether at church, in the supermarket, or on the subway platform. As people moved away from their childhood residences, all that changed. People you thought were friends no longer kept in touch; the few you took the trouble to remain close to, despite being physically apart, were your real friends.   


If we're lucky, we make a few close friends in our lifetime. There are many impediments to continuing relationships begun in childhood. Besides moving away from the neighborhood, there is the spouse issue. Sometimes friends drift apart when their spouses can't get along. People whose views in adulthood about politics or religion are markedly different find it hard to see past these differences and gradually lose contact. Sometimes gender gets in the way. Men tend to be good friends with other men and women with women. There is no earthly reason that should be the case, but there it is. I certainly count my wife as my best friend because although she knows my faults better than anyone, she still chooses to be my friend, and that means the world to me.


My two other closest friends, Rich and Phil, I have known since first grade. Considering we are all reaching the 70 and over club, that is a long time. I can't remember my life without these two special people in it. Our families were close growing up and we all hung out together. Phil became a Franciscan Brother as a young man, and then left the order to marry and have a family. Rich introduced me to my wife and we were best men at each other's weddings; Godfathers to each other's children. In our adult years we have lived in different places, Rich in Connecticut/Florida, Phil in Arizona and me in New York, but there has been unbroken communication by phone and e-mail all those years in addition to periodic get-togethers. When we talk, it is as if we spoke yesterday. I think of these guys as brothers who would do anything for me if I asked.


Friendship should not be confused with acquaintance. I have made many friends over the years at work and in my social life. I have genuine affection for these people and I hope they have for me, but it is not the same. I am basically a gregarious person who enjoys meeting new people. Sometimes when you meet someone, there is an immediate connection. On the Internet a few years ago I met Joe, a guy who grew up around the corner from me in my old neighborhood, and went to the same school. Joe moved with his family in the exodus to the suburbs so we never actually met as kids, but because of his East New York - Brooklyn DNA, and the fact that he grew up in similar circumstances as me, I feel as though I have known Joe all my life and consider him a friend. 


Friendship is hard to define. It's not about how long you know someone, but more I think about how you both see the world. While it might be possible to form lasting friendships with those whose ideas are diametrically opposed to yours, I think too much work would be required to sustain such a relationship. I found a quote by author Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) that sums up friendship well enough for me:  

“Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.” 

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Fun for 15 Cents

I'm probably repeating myself with this blog, but I'm too lazy to look at past blogs for confirmation. If this copy sounds familiar, just chalk it up to creeping senility and cut me a little slack. When I look at how much it costs to entertain a kid these days I can only marvel at how 1950s kids engaged in pastimes that cost virtually nothing. I share these memories of those games just to try to keep alive the idea that fun never had to be expensive. My generation was so much closer to my father's than to my son's. We grew up playing pretty much the same games as our fathers...no video, no electronics, no computers...just the simplest games that had probably been amusing kids for a century. They were cheap to buy, durable enough to be handed down, and most important, could keep a kid entertained day in and day out.


"People have been playing marble games for thousands of years.  Clay balls have been found in the tombs of Egypt, in Native American burial grounds and ancient Aztec pyramids. In 1815 the earliest book on marbles and rules for playing marbles games was written in England."  Marble History http://library.thinkquest.org/5236            /Marble%20History.html )  We played in the street where we would carve a "shimmy" out of the asphalt near the curb. Each player would then, from a distance of about ten feet (and while avoiding cars speeding by), try to roll his marble into the shimmy. Whoever rolled his marble into the shimmy or was closest to doing so, would go first. The object was to shoot your marble at the others and try to hit them. Those you hit you won. If you missed the next kid would have a go. Time playing marbles entertained us in an average day: 4 hours; cost: about 5 cents. 


"Spinning tops have been around so long that no one knows who spun the first one. It is likely that the first spinning top was a nut or acorn spun by a curious child. The Chinese have spun tsa lin (tops) and the ko-en-gen (diabolo) for centuries. The peg top is spun by winding a string around the top and throwing the top to unwind the string and make the top spin." History of the Spinning Top http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081205070828AAqWvpb   We were masters of the spinning top. The simplest throw was underhand while snapping the wrist to impart the force needed to get the top to spin. Then came the overhand throw which could be delivered with more force, hence a longer spinning time. Pros could pick up the spinning top and have it spin in the palm of their hand, or suspend it from a tautly held string while it continued to spin.  Time spinning tops entertained us in an average day: 3 hours; cost: about 15 cents. 


"D.F. Duncan was not the inventor of the yo-yo; they have been around for over twenty-five hundred years. In fact the yo-yo is considered the second oldest toy in history, the oldest being the doll. In ancient Greece, they decorated the two halves of the yo-yo with pictures of their gods. Duncan's contribution to yo-yo technology was the slip string, consisting of a sliding loop around the axle instead of a knot, allowing the yo-yo to 'sleep' without coming back to the thrower's hand. This property facilitated many of the tricks that could be done with the yo-yo."   With our wooden Duncan or Cheerio Yo-Yos, we executed such tricks as Walk the Dog, Rock the Cradle, and Around the World. The Duncan Company would periodically send yo-yo champs into the neighborhoods to perform and promote interest in their product. History of the Yo-Yo,  http://inventors.about.com/od/xyzstartinventions/a/yoyo.htm  
Time throwing yo-yos entertained us in an average day: 6 hours; cost: about 15 cents.

Of course I have written often about the magical Spaldeen ball that was perhaps the most versatile 15 cent toy of them all. The 1950s child was adept at finding fun games that could be played for the price of redeeming the deposit on two large soda bottles. I fear that gift of imagination is fading with each succeeding generation.

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The Lady in Red

Adolescent boys are by nature like happy puppies. They are in the full bloom of youth with none of the responsibilities that come with adulthood. Life is all ball games, candy bars, and sneaking cigarettes lifted from their father's pack. They have boundless energy, unbridled curiosity and short memories. Grudges are forgotten long before they can darken the soul, and every new day is bursting with promise. They travel in groups seeking new adventures and knowledge. Everything is shared including wildly incorrect information about life and love. Then one day, that testosterone that has been simmering below the surface bubbles over, and the brain, up until now the organ in charge of decision-making, now takes a back seat to the all-powerful Captain Johnson. Boys' behavior from then on is no longer in their control. Thoughts of women rule their every waking moment. 

The icky girls, who heretofore were to be teased, ridiculed and scorned, were suddenly persons of interest. Developmentally and socially, girls are well ahead of boys at this age, so we never had a chance. They already knew the power they held over us and we were doomed. We began "allowing" them to hang around on the stoop with us. Being social dinosaurs we didn't know exactly how to interact with them. A punch in the arm might be the closest we could come to a display of affection. Nobody ever really got to first base much less second despite the wildly exaggerated stories of romantic conquests. Usually we just struck out with the bats on our shoulders. Since the local girls were yielding nothing on the s-e-x front, we turned our imaginations elsewhere.

There was a strikingly good looking older woman who lived on the block that caught our interest. Most of the young women in our neighborhood were married early unless they just could not attract a mate. That was certainly not the problem for this gorgeous woman who went by the absurdly unsexy name of Tillie. She was probably in her early thirties with raven hair and green eyes. She was a working woman who dressed well, but not so well as to hide the kind of figure that men stopped to admire...kind of like Joan on "Mad Men". Every afternoon Tillie came up from the subway stop at Rockaway Avenue and walked down Somers Street to her house. We would wait on Tommy Dowd's stoop on the corner for her to walk by. After a while she began to smile and wave at us. I'm sure she considered this just a friendly gesture, but every guy on that stoop imagined that wave was an invitation meant just for him.

Tillie had a parade of beaus who called on her with regularity. Most looked like they had just returned from auditioning for the role of Boston Blackie, a popular private detective of the time who sported a pencil-thin mustache. They wore pleated slacks and silk sport shirts and drove nice cars. We hated them of course because of what we imagined they were doing with Tillie behind closed doors. Sometimes as we walked past her house at night, we would look up at the lighted window hoping to see anything, even a silhouette on the shade, but to no avail. We had to be content with our regular afternoon sightings and the fantasies they spawned.  

Summer was optimal Tillie viewing weather. She would wear these backless sun dresses that got our hormones trembling. Once a week she wore a devil-red number with matching red high heels and a red and white sun hat. If any of us spotted her coming up the subway steps in that outfit, the word got spread in a hurry, and attendance on the stoop rose accordingly. If she had been shopping and was carrying packages, we would trip over each other with offers of help while less attractive neighborhood women struggled with their bundles. One of our lovelorn number (Vinnie) claimed Tillie invited him in one day for a glass of lemonade. Whether true or not, this brush with intimacy gave us hope. Every so often someone would say: "Tell us the lemonade story" and Vinnie would begin to recite the tale like an old man surrounded by his grandchildren.

One day Tillie just stopped showing up. Nobody knows if she got married and moved away or left for another reason. We missed her but life went on. I wonder if it would please her to know she was the last thing a lot of young boys thought about before dropping off to sleep. Probably not.

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There Goes the Neighborhood

Many Brooklyn neighborhoods have come full circle. During the Fifties they were alive with either family residences or thriving factories. Then in the Sixties came the exodus. Far-away places like Long Island, New Jersey, and even underdeveloped NYC Boroughs like Staten Island and Queens became the new destinations for Brooklynites. Neighborhoods like Red Hook, East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Flatbush and Brownsville became places where you rolled up the car windows and locked the doors before driving through. Poor minorities looking for cheap housing moved in with the assistance of greedy real-estate developers who engaged in a practice called "block-busting." As Blacks and Hispanics moved in, Whites panicked and tried to sell their houses in a down market where prices were dropping daily. Businesses relocated as the supply of skilled workers fled to the suburbs. Soon, neighborhoods that once thrived were graffiti-covered, burned out slums. 


During this period, Manhattan also boomed to the point when living or doing business there soon became unaffordable. People began to look for places to live where rents were reasonable, and suddenly the old, run down neighborhoods began to show signs of life again. Their proximity to Manhattan facilitated by a viable public transportation system made them attractive to younger tenants. Make no mistake, it took courage to be the first to consider living in these areas. The houses needed maintenance, crime rates were high, and a lot of supporting infrastructure like schools and shopping were poor. But if you were willing to live with these conditions for a while, some great bargains were to be had. Landlords with little hope of selling or renting property were more than willing to let them go cheaply just to get out.


Some interesting groups led the movement to revitalize these Brooklyn neighborhoods. Artists were among the first, attracted by high-ceilinged lofts with great light. Restaurateurs too were often willing to take a chance. For a fraction of what it would cost to open in Manhattan, they took a risk and their faith was soon rewarded with paying customers. As people flocked to the restaurants they began to see the possibilities in the old brownstone buildings and the momentum built. Another early group to put down roots were gays. They wanted enclaves where they could live together without homophobes hassling them. Many had money and soon major renovations were underway. Neighborhoods like Park Slope and Sunset Park owe their resurgence to the gay community.

You might think that reclaiming and repopulating dilapidated neighborhoods would be a good thing, but there was opposition. Established residents complained about gentrification...that Yuppies were pushing them out. I suppose there is something to this phenomenon when viewed from their perspective. In the end though, when you look at what these once viable areas had become and the prospect that they would only get worse, I think the movement to rehabilitate them made good sense for the City before we turned into another Detroit. New York is heavily weighed down with welfare programs and citizens who not only contribute nothing to the society, but only take from it. The resources to pay for public welfare programs comes mainly from taxes, and what better way to increase tax revenue than to collect property tax revenue where none was collected before.


There may be some consequences to gentrification, but on balance I think it brings far more positives than negatives. If you feel the neighborhood is getting too expensive for you, here's a thought...get an education, get a job, and join the parade.

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No Shoes, No Shorts, No Service

The other day a friend of mine posted on Facebook, chastising people who come to church dressed like they were going to a picnic. She's right of course. The standard for acceptable dress in church has slipped a long way. As boys at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Brooklyn, we were required to attend 9 o'clock Sunday Mass as a group with our classmates. Attendance was not optional. We sat together all dressed in our school uniform of white shirts and blue ties. We were also subject to surprise inspections by nuns on the lookout for dirty fingernails and shined shoes. We stood, knelt and sat in the church pews like a platoon of soldiers doing close-order drill, all in instinctive response to the little "froggie-clicker" wielded by the nuns. If you missed Mass and didn't bring a note explaining why on Monday, the Inquisition would begin. Few of us were crazy enough to take the risk.


For me, one thing that set Sundays aside from other days was going to church. We lived in a working class neighborhood where many men did physical labor to feed their families. We usually saw them in their scruffy overalls carrying brown bag lunches to the Rockaway Avenue subway station. Women wore drab housewife's smocks with most of the color bleached out of them from hanging on clotheslines in the sun. Kids ran around in patched corduroy pants or dungarees and hand-me-down coats and shoes. These were our weekday clothes and they served their purpose. All that changed on Sunday. Even the poorest families had "Sunday clothes". They may not have been the latest style, but they were clean and neat and worn only on Sundays.


Some days I wake up trying to figure what day of the week it is; retirement removes the weekday-weekend distinctions we make while we are working. Sundays don't have the same feel for me as they used to. Back then, it was different. The church was maybe a 15 minute walk from our house. Along the way we would run into neighbors all decked out in their Sunday best on the way to Mass. They seemed friendlier, as if by donning their church clothes, they somehow changed their personalities as well. Even the grouchy old men who chased you out of their yards from Monday to Saturday might favor you with a forced smile. It was like an ant hill come to life...people you saw every day going about their business were now united in a single purpose...dressed up and marching to church to spend an hour with God. 


It wasn't always easy to recognize them. Mrs. Marino's faded, flowered house dress was gone and in its place a smart silk suit with a fur-trimmed collar. She wore make-up and high heels and walked with a slightly grander air than usual. Mr. Marino was recognizable only by his wrinkled, mahogany face burned brown from years of laboring in construction. Although no longer young, his strength showed through the dark blue suit he wore without favoritism to weddings and funerals alike. Around his starched white collar, held in place by a Holy Name Society tie pin, hung a brown and cream colored tie that clashed horribly with his suit. Well-worn but polished brown shoes and unfashionable white socks completed the ensemble. 


All the people in church dressed this way. The ushers (all in suits) were stationed at the door to head off violations of the dress code, and did not hesitate to enforce them. Women were reminded to cover their heads, and if their dresses were a bit too low cut, were handed modesty scarfs to pin over their cleavage. Anyone stupid enough to show up in shorts or tank tops was politely told to go home and change. If somehow a woman got by the ushers, she could count on getting a lecture about proper dress from the priest along with her Communion. Sandals and sneakers might not make the cut either. As harsh and old-fashioned as these regulations might sound, having a respectfully dressed congregation somehow lent dignity to the service...it reminded people that they were in a special place and privileged to worship in freedom.


My friend clearly remembers these days too, and, like me, is offended to see how much things have changed for the worse. It's not just in church where decorum is ignored. People show up in public places wearing pajama bottoms, flip flops, embarrassingly short shorts, and my favorite, the guys with their pants lowered to show their underwear. Mr. and Mrs. Marino would be aghast.

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Do Not Pass Go

On a rainy day, when playing outside is not an option, kids today hardly notice because even on sunny days, they rarely play outside. They have TV, computers, video games, Kindles, i-Pods, Wii and a dozen other electronic marvels to occupy them. When I was growing up in the Pony Express days, we raced into the house after school, pausing just long enough to change out of our white shirt and blue tie school uniforms, before we hit the streets. Our parents were glad to be rid of us as it gave them a few more hours of quiet. Not much kept us indoors; our play time was spent in the great outdoors. There were days though when maybe a pounding rain would keep us in the house, and that's when our poor mothers racked their brains for something to keep us busy. There was no electronic smorgasbord of entertainment delights, all we had were board games.

Even the poorest homes in our neighborhood could scare up a Checkerboard. Our red and black Checker 'men' were kept in an old Chock-Full-O-Nuts coffee can in the back of a kitchen cabinet. One of my dearest memories of childhood is playing Checkers with my mother, and when he was not working one of his two jobs, my Dad. We didn't have much one-on-one quiet time with our parents, so these games were kind of nice. I think when I was younger and just learning the finer points of the game, Mom would take an occasional dive so I could win. Then, like all mothers since the beginning of time, she would praise my skill and fuss over how smart I was becoming. My Dad, however, played for keeps. When I finally got good enough to beat him on the up and up, I think he was genuinely proud. Maybe for the first time he saw a future for me that did not involve wearing a paper hat.


Another indoor favorite was Monopoly. I was lucky enough to have my cousins living just down the street, and I can recall spending many hours in marathon Monopoly sessions. I never bothered to look it up, but I'm willing to bet that the game of Monopoly was invented by someone with a house full of screaming kids. There was something about that game that kept kids mesmerized for hours on end. We all had our favorite playing pieces; I liked the race car or the top hat. Although they didn't make a big deal of it then like today's learning-obsessed parents, the game helped kids learn how to count by moving their game piece around the board the required number of spaces indicated by the dice; we learned about money and making change; discovered the value of developed real estate in rental income; we practiced our reading on the Community Chest and Chance game cards; and felt the Capitalist's thrill of victory when an opponent went bankrupt or got sent to jail.


If there were enough players around, Bingo was always an option. We had the dog-eared game cards and the little wooden discs with the calling numbers from B1 to O79 stamped on them in red. We took turns being the "caller", clearly a position of honor. We used pennies to cover the called numbers that were on card. There is no greater sense of anticipation and excitement in today's video games that matched the feeling we had when our card was nearly covered with pennies and we were waiting for them to call N35 so we could jump up and yell Bingo. The game originated in Europe and reached North America in 1929,where it became known as "Beano". It was first played at a carnival near Atlanta, Georgia. New York toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe renamed it "Bingo" after he overheard someone accidentally yell "Bingo" instead of "Beano". A Catholic priest from Pennsylvania approached Lowe about using bingo as a means of raising church funds. The rest is ecclesiastical history.


Too many of today's forms of play are solitary and do not help children develop social skills and family togetherness the way group games like Monopoly did. I mean how are kids going to learn life's most valuable lesson: whoever ends up with all the money wins.

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