Remembering

Today is Memorial Day, a time to reflect on all the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice to keep America free. We wage war somewhat differently today than in wars past. We have unmanned drones that can be used to take out enemy strongholds, we use technology like satellites, computers, night vision goggles, I even read where we have developed a gun that shoots around corners. But in the end, there are soldiers at the end of those guns who must leave their families and risk their lives so that we may be secure in our beds. Our enemy too is different; they fight for no country and under no flag, hiding behind women and children while they inflict their unspeakable evil in the name of their god.

Growing up I watched the young men from our neighborhood go off to war. I actually envied them as they walked down the aisle in church at Sunday mass in their starched uniforms, their bearing proud, serving their country with honor and courage. It never occurred to me that inside those uniforms were young men who had to go to strange places like Korea and Viet Nam to face other young men bent on killing them. They basked in the admiring glances of young girls and old men who had fought in earlier wars, never knowing if they would ever walk down that church aisle again. They must have been frightened, but they did their duty. When I was growing up, very few challenged the idea of not serving one's country if called; not doing so would mark them as cowards in the street culture that saw war as heroic.

I remember a photo from my mother's album of black and white pictures. It showed my handsome godfather, Rocco Crachi, in his combat uniform, sitting atop an army motorcycle on some battlefield in Europe during World War II. Rocco was my father's best friend, and because he was overseas when I was baptized, his brother Gaspar stood in for him as a proxy at the ceremony. My cousin Frank did a hitch in the army that took him to Grassano in southern Italy, the ancestral town of our family. The only other member of our family circle I can remember actively serving in the military was my cousin Peter Caruso, who served in the navy. Pete lived in the apartment above us and I believe was aboard a destroyer in the East China Sea. Thankfully, all came home unscathed, at least physically.

I served 8 years in the army reserve, and the most exotic place I visited was San Antonio, Texas. The only real danger I faced was making it out of the border town bars in Mexico in one piece. I served after Korea and before Viet Nam, so I don't know what it feels like to come under enemy fire. I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to have bombs exploding around you and bullets whizzing over your head. Lately, the word hero has been devalued somewhat in my opinion, but soldiers in wartime who face the possibility of death every day still qualify as heroes under the old definition of the term. Ordinary men display extraordinary courage in the most dangerous circumstances, and their deeds are set down by all who witnessed them. Not surprisingly, these heroes who do make it back are reluctant to speak of their experiences. 

World War I was called the war to end all wars. Sadly, that was a wildly optimistic sentiment. What is really different for all the wars we've fought before and since? Germany, Japan and Korea, once our bitter enemies, are now our trading partners. China, Viet Nam and Russia are now popular American tourist destinations. I'm tired of wars. I'm tired of seeing pictures of mothers and children putting small American flags at their husbands' and fathers' graves. All the billions we spend to wage wars could be better spent to alleviate the hunger and suffering in the world, and yet we persist in trying to kill each other in the name of religion, territorial imperatives and ideological differences. I can only pray that my grandchildren will live in a better world and will hear of war only in history books.

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I Hear That Train a Comin'....

On Saturday we visited Yankee Peddler Day at Staten Island's Richmondtown Restoration Center. It was better than the flea markets they typically run where vendors are selling junk jewelry and used CDs. This event actually featured antiques and memorabilia from the past. Naturally, I remembered all this stuff because I too am an antique. One vendor was selling old electric trains and accessories. The sight of these treasures immediately awakened the twelve-year old buried in me and I made a beeline for his table. I could tell the guy was Old School; dressed in jeans and a black tee shirt with a mane of wavy silver hair, he looked like the lead singer for a Fifties doo-wop group.

He looked bored and I could tell he wanted to talk, so I happily obliged. I told him I was a model railroad buff (whatever a buff is), and we easily slipped into a conversation about Lionel vs. Marx or American Flyer trains, HO vs. Standard scale, and how train collecting has declined as a hobby. When I was a kid, model trains were on every boy's Christmas list. I had the Marx Standard gauge set, but later as an adult, switched to the Lionel HO gauge just to save space. I remember as a kid, we would set the trains up around the tree every Christmas. My father would lay down the track that had to be nailed to a plywood board. Looking back, I think one of the reasons I loved these trains so much is that working on them was one of the few things my Dad and I got to do together. He worked two jobs to pay the mortgage, so I valued any time he had to spend with me.

Once the metal tracks were down, we would lightly sandpaper them to ensure the train wheels encountered no friction in their trip around Tiny Town. We then set out the model buildings including the post office, general store, Woolworths and the bank. We had specialty trains like the cattle car that required a trackside platform accessory where the cows could be offloaded using magnets to move them jerkily along. We also had a water tower that loomed over the tracks and was used to simulate filling the black metal locomotive with water. Of course there were Styrofoam tunnels for the locomotive and its trailing freight cars to pass through, and an electric gate that came down automatically to block traffic while the train roared by.


Once the trains and layout were set up, my Dad's job was done and the trains were mine. Just watching them go round and round became boring after 30 seconds, and so I released my imagination to liven things up. I would take some logs from the log car, lay them across the track, and use them to help masked outlaws derail the train so they could rob it. I also like to see how fast the train could go in reverse before it careened off the tracks and took out the post office. Sometimes I would use my little, plastic cowboy and Indian figures to stage epic battles where brave lawmen would jump down onto the moving train from the top of the Styrofoam tunnel to fight the murderous redskins who had boarded the train with mayhem in mind. (I usually waited until Dad was out before doing this stuff or he would have brained me.)


As I spoke with my new Yankee Peddler friend , he lamented how today's kids knew only one thing: computers and electronic games. When the batteries ran down or the computer locked up, they were like lost zombies. He said he was getting too old to keep up with the hobby, especially since the only store on Staten Island that sold model railroad trains and accessories closed a few years ago. He offered me a good deal on the stuff he was selling, but I politely declined explaining that my railroad days were behind me. I used to set the trains up every year for a time, but my own kids seemed more interested in Transformer action figures than model trains. Once in a while I get to a train show in Manhattan, and there is always the great model train display at Northlandz in Flemington, New Jersey that has floors and floors of layouts.

Model railroading was great fun for me, both as a kid and an adult, but most important, it gave me some quality time with my Dad, something I will always cherish.

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Meet the Jetsons

I wonder what my mom could do with the kind of kitchen found in today's modern home? Lots of  space filled with granite counters, cooking islands, wondrous appliances and all the technology builders can cram in. Our kitchen in Brooklyn in the 1950's, was a far more modest affair that also doubled as our dining room thanks to a "kitchenette set" of table and chairs. Appliances consisted of the refrigerator, stove and a toaster with folding-down doors...no dishwasher, coffee maker, microwave, blender, or mixer. Our one and only bathroom was located off the kitchen, a room arrangement that, as you can imagine, was not the most convenient.

The kitchen was at the rear of the house and connected to the back yard through a kind of pantry room that was unheated and therefore freezing cold in the winter. The kitchen was small by today's standards, especially since it served as the main focal point for family gatherings, including meals. When company came, they sat at the kitchen table for coffee and cake. As kids we did our homework at the Formica kitchen table since there was really no place else to do it. The table had a leaf stored under it that could stretch the seating capacity to maybe 8 people. In spite of the shortcomings of this "Little House on the Prairie" kitchen, mom managed to crank out three meals a day and knockout holiday dinners.

The fridge was the old type that had to be painstakingly defrosted. Ice would build up in the tiny freezer that held only ice cube trays. If you ever needed a couple of cubes, it meant running the tray under hot water until the thick arctic ice melted sufficiently to pry them out. Frozen foods were not yet a big deal in the Fifties, so there was very little stored in freezers; most people bought fresh food every few days. Our gas stove was a certifiable antique; four burners that had to be lit with a wooden match, and a small oven with no light or timer. Whatever was cooking in the oven had to be watched lest it incinerate. Our toaster had doors that opened so the bread could be exposed to a heating element. There was no timer or pop-up feature so it too had to be watched or you'd be scraping off the charred toast in the sink.

My mother, incredibly, always washed clothes by hand and dried them outside in the back yard. When my younger brother was born in 1953 my father broke down and bought a washing machine. Mom was ecstatic, and carefully read the directions for this, her one and only labor-saving device. Tight quarters meant the washing machine had to be located in the kitchen. (With the bathroom, naturally.) I think mom actually had to run hoses from the sink for her water supply. We had no dryer, which was fine with me. I used to bury my head in the laundry basket because clean clothes that dried on the clothesline in the sun had the most wonderful smell. It's hard to imagine a simple convenience like a washing machine making a difference in anyone's life, but it did, giving mom more time for the 50 other things she did for us every day. 

Maybe one day our grandchildren will reminisce about grandma's old microwave and the tacky refrigerator that didn't even have a frozen Margarita dispenser. There will be no grocery stores or the need to cook; meals will be ordered online and teleported to the dinner table on command. I'm glad I won't be around to see it since I am already regressing technologically. My smart phone mocks me to other smart phones behind my back. 

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Milestones

Boys growing up experience certain rites of passage on the road to manhood. Movies such as Diner, Last Picture Show, American Graffiti and Cinema Paradiso are some good examples of this genre. My son Matt's talented friend and former intern, Chris Galleta, wrote a movie about his rites of passage growing up on Staten Island. The film, "Toy's House" made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival this year, and was sold to CBS for distribution in May 2013 under the new title: "Kings of Summer". When I was growing up, the rites were somewhat different than they are for boys today, but afforded the same sense of having passed an important milestone in life.

Smoking was considered cool back in the Fifties. Movie stars, athletes, nearly everyone lit 'em up. There were even cigarette ads with doctors endorsing one brand or other for its healthful, relaxing benefits. It was only natural then that kids would become curious about smoking and want to emulate the adults around them. My Dad smoked Luckies before filtered cigarettes hit the market. I was probably around 10 when I first snuck one out of his pack. We would usually go off to Callahan-Kelly Park for our clandestine puffs, far away from the prying eyes of the "block watchers"...older women who would rat us out to our own parents for any indiscretion. By age 12 we were buying our own. My Dad knew I smoked and would sometimes bum one from me...sadly, they proved to be his undoing, dying of lung cancer at age 72.

For a lot of kids, their first alcoholic drink was a big deal. Usually it was beer since the store owners would sell a kid anything if they had the money. For Italian kids though, drinking alcohol was something we knew from an early age. Teething infants had their gums rubbed with whiskey, and sometimes toothaches in older kids were treated the same way. At family dinners we were given homemade red wine mixed with Coke or cream soda, which encouraged naps so the grownups would have a chance to talk in peace. And most Italian grandfathers had a hidden stash of cherries soaked in moonshine that they fed their grandsons to put hair on their chests. The real step up the ladder came when we were allowed to drink undiluted wine with the men in the family; that was special.

A rite of passage for both boys and girls is that first kiss. Mine came around the seventh grade when we would play games like Spin the Bottle at basement birthday parties with our friends. There was no "date" pressure and no need to worry about the build-up, i.e., will she kiss me back if I dare make a move. It was a simple matter of spinning the bottle and whatever couple the bottle pointed to went off into a darkened corner and commenced smooching. There was no guilt, no phone call the day after, no permanent attachments, just a chance to practice your kissing with no risks. When I think about it, for boys and girls just getting into the game, it was a socially acceptable way of getting to know the opposite sex using training wheels. 

Kids today have somewhat different rites that move them along the line to adulthood like their first cellphone, first experiment with drugs and first visit to their psychoanalyst. It's not easy growing up in any age, but the world is a scarier place to do it in than the one I remember.

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Dropping the Dime

When I tried to locate the origin of the phrase "dropping the dime", I found out that surprisingly, it has many meanings. The definition that most closely corresponds to my understanding of the term was found in the Slang Dictionary: To inform on or betray someone as in “No one can cheat in this class, someone’s bound to drop the dime.” This expression, alluding to the ten cent coin long used in pay phones for making a telephone call, originated as underworld slang for phoning the police to inform on a criminal, and occasionally is used to describe any kind of betrayal. 

In the Brooklyn street culture of the 1950s, snitching on anyone about anything was frowned upon. The code was followed by any kid who wanted to belong...you just didn't drop the dime on a comrade if you wanted to retain their trust. Any kid who betrayed the code and ratted someone out was likely to be shunned by the group and maybe even retaliated against with the administration of a schoolyard beating to remind him of the rules. One possible origin for the rule of silence might be the Sicilian code of "omertà" as described below by Mafia researcher Antonio Cutrera.

"The basic principle of omertà is that it is not "manly" to seek the aid of legal authorities to settle personal grievances. The suspicion of being a “stool pigeon” (an informant), constituted the blackest mark against manhood. Each wronged individual had the obligation of looking out for his own interests by either avenging himself, or finding a patron who will see to it that the job is done." We who grew up under this code were tested often by authorities including police, teachers, military and most frequent of all, parents. Often, refusing to squeal meant suffering consequences one did not deserve.

At school in the classrooms at Our Lady of Lourdes, we were many boys in a confined space, a situation that created serious potential for mischief, and this was in the day when mischief was simply not tolerated. The teachers and Franciscan Brothers ruled with an iron fist and misbehaving boys did not go unpunished. So when a restless student imitated the sound of a fart, or when an blackboard eraser flew across the room, Brother would turn around slowly and ask the guilty party to step forward. Fat chance since the offender knew this meant the ruler across the hands. And so we all had to write 500 times for homework: "I shall not misbehave in class". If the culprit was known to us he was in for a dose of frontier justice in the cloakroom, but nobody ever ratted him out.

When I was in the army, we had what was called a "Day Room" with a TV set, pool table and writing stations for soldiers who wanted to send letters home. They also had coffee, loose cigarettes and candy, all paid for on the honor system by dropping change in a jar. One day our Sargeant announced that the contents of the jar had been stolen. We had our suspicions, but nobody shared them. Furious, Sargeant Brown had us all dress in full field uniforms including rifles and backpacks, and stand at attention in the hot afternoon sun until the culprit came forward. After someone fainted, our Lieutenant called off the inquisition. He later remarked that he secretly admired our loyalty to one another, which he thought not a bad quality in a soldier.

At my old firm, they had a policy that required any employee who knew about wrongdoing by another to report it under penalty of suspension or termination. The policy was pretty much ignored; like good soldiers and mobsters everywhere, nobody wanted to drop the dime.

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Boy Meets Girl

It's a miracle that men and women ever get together. When interest in the opposite sex first begins during our pre-teens, there are so many obstacles to that first "date" to say nothing of a lasting relationship and eventually, marriage. Things have changed a lot since I first noticed girls. On the surface Kids seem to be way more sophisticated and confident around the opposite sex, but if you look carefully, there is that same angst experienced by every generation since the Romans. Sadly, there is no real instruction in the process. While it's true that sex education is taught in the classroom, there are no classes for social interactions between boys and girls; it's pretty much trial and error.

Typically, it is the female of the species that lights the fuse. Girls are more mature than boys in those awkward pre-teen years, and they usually lead the way with shier and socially clueless boys. When I was in seventh grade, it started. "You know, Maria likes you" one of Maria's friends would whisper to some unsuspecting boy in the schoolyard. "Huh" would come the sophisticated reply. (Seventh grade guys are more interested in sports than girls, and a little slow on the uptake.) "She likes you" whispers Maria's friend a bit more urgently, usually accompanied by a punch in the arm to shake Mr. Right out of his lethargy. What Maria's friend doesn't know is that Mr. Right has no understanding what the term "likes" means in this context, and even if he did, wouldn't have any idea what to do about it.

In the 1950s, nobody talked about sex. You never even heard the word mentioned. Adolescent boys would notice their bodies changing and certain stirrings coming over them, but nobody was there to explain how normal this was. In our Catholic school the Franciscan Brothers who taught us were not the most reliable guides in this wilderness. They might obliquely refer to these feelings as temptations of the devil to be vigorously resisted by doing endless push-ups. And so each boy struggled alone, not realizing that all his classmates were navigating the same uncharted waters. It was an uncomfortable time, full of uncertainty. Through it all, girls were those mysterious creatures that inhabited the classrooms in the other half of the school building.

My earliest memories of any social contact with girls are the party games like Spin the Bottle and Post Office that were played in someone's basement. Of course the girls (like Eve at the dawning of time) took the lead in organizing these recreations. There was always another room to which the boy and girl singled out to kiss would adjourn, accompanied by the hoots and jeers of their friends. At first the guys were mortified by these activities, but soon learned to happily join in. Suddenly, Moms were finding lipstick on collars, and the race was on. Guys and gals began pairing off and spending time together. Hand-holding in public (never within a mile of school), going to movies, and sharing an ice cream soda at the neighborhood were typical behaviors.

The next step in this drama was called "going steady". Sometimes this new phase of the relationship was cemented with an inexpensive ring or school sweater, but more often than not, it just became understood. Going steady meant you couldn't date other people and that you were off the market for all intents and purposes. Games of Spin the Bottle were rigged so that couples who were going steady always got each other as partners. Some of these tween romances lasted right up to the altar, but usually the road to finding a  life partner was littered with a few broken hearts. The increasingly high divorce rate speaks to the fact that lasting compatibility between women and men is elusive...a minefield filled with hazards that can tank any romance.

As a society we need to do more to help boys and girls ease into social relationships. Despite the odds, some of us are lucky enough to find that person who completes us; for this we are most grateful. 

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Pennies from Heaven

Before I get too far, I need to acknowledge that the inspiration for this blog came from my wife, Jasmine, as we drove into Manhattan this morning. We were talking about how frugal my granddaughter is about saving her money and not buying things she feels are too expensive...truly a rare quality in a child of the new millennium. She is not demanding every second that her parents buy her this or that; she truly appreciates what she already has. For example,my daughter was recently looking at new winter jackets for Ava, but Ava nixed them as too expensive. She was perfectly happy to wear a hand-me-down from a friend with an older daughter who has given Ava so many nice clothes in the past. This is a kid after my own heart.

On this theme Jasmine began remembering what it was like for us growing up and how aware we were of the fact that our parents struggled to make ends meet. They didn't moan about it but we knew there were times when money was tight. She recalled going to the movies with her Mom, a treat in itself, and how they would buy a ten cent candy bar each, but they paid separately because making a 20 cent purchase would incur a one cent sales tax as opposed to separate ten cent purchases. Let that sink in for a minute...a purchase strategy calculated to avoid paying one penny more! In the 1950s, pennies still had value. Today they have become so worthless as to be on the endangered coin list.

I recall when our local theater, the Colonial on Broadway in Brooklyn, raised the price of counter candy from five to six cents. Foolishly, they also provided a vending machine that still charged five cents for candy: savings, one cent. Of course the candy in the machine was changed only with every Presidential election, but that didn't matter; we had an extra penny in our pockets for a piece of licorice or those red wax lips behind the sliding glass counter in Louie's Candy Store. We really believed in the old adage: "A penny saved is a penny earned." (Incidentally, a small bag of movie popcorn then was fifteen cents; last week I paid six dollars! 

Then there were the five cent soda machines that were marvels of automated vending. You put in your nickel and pushed a button for the desired flavor...cola, orange, grape, lemon-lime or root beer. At this point, theoretically anyhow, the machine would dispense an empty paper cup and  fill it with a mixture of flavored syrup and plain seltzer. I say theoretically because one rarely got all three in the correct sequence. Sometimes the cup would fail to drop and you watched horrified as your syrup and seltzer flowed down the drain. At other times the cup would drop but the syrup dispenser malfunctioned and you got a cup of plain seltzer for your nickel. Getting all three elements to work together was like hitting a slots jackpot at Atlantic City.

There were penny gum and Spanish peanut machines, drugstore scales where you got your weight and fortune for a penny, penny candies by the dozen, newspapers and cherry Cokes were three cents, and there were penny parking meters and penny arcades where a bankroll of fifty cents provided a couple of hours entertainment. Back in the day no self-respecting kid would fail to stoop to pick up a penny in the street. By habit, people would check the coin return slots of pay phones for that five cent windfall. We didn't have to recycle bottles; kids roamed the streets looking for empty bottles to joyfully redeem them for the two or five cent deposit.

I don't think I saw a twenty-dollar bill until by first job. People gave kids two dollars in an envelope for Communion or Confirmation and you were overawed to see that much money in one place. People actually carried change around in their purses or pockets and used it to make purchases. My Dad carried three pounds worth of loose change in his suit jacket pocket. In tough times I would sneak a dime to supplement my allowance. Luxuries were rare for us but not unknown. Jasmine remembers getting a new bike for Christmas, and one year when my baseball career still showed promise, my parents bought me a Rawlings baseball glove that cost $60 at the sporting goods store on Pitkin Avenue. I was thrilled of course, but looking back, I now realize it probably represented a week's pay for my Dad.

Thrift has become a scarce virtue in the modern era. Few people bother to save up for a significant purchase; they just whip out a credit card that isn't yet maxed out and, like Scarlett O'Hara, worry about the consequences tomorrow. So my dear Ava, your practical and sensible approach to spending money gives Grandpa hope that your generation will somehow avoid bankrupting the country before my Social Security runs out. Thank you sweetheart.

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Walk Me to the Store

I love living on Staten Island. It offers the quiet of suburban life with all the conveniences of living in a big city. It is, however, very different from growing up in Brooklyn in the Fifties. One aspect of this difference is the lack of neighborhood stores. Don't get me wrong; Staten Island has just about any kind of store you might want, but it means using  your car to get there. We have a large mall and a series of smaller malls with clusters of stores. We also have many supermarkets, movie complexes and all the "big box" stores except Wal-Mart. The older areas of the Island tend to have more local businesses within walking distance, and that's what I remember so well about shopping in Brooklyn.

Even back then we had popular shopping zones that people had to travel to like Downtown Brooklyn, and Jamaica and Pitkin Avenues, but the stores I think most fondly of are the ones we walked to nearly every day. Many of these were located on larger streets like Rockaway Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Broadway, Fulton Street, Stone Avenue and Eastern Parkway. Like the old TV bar "Cheers", these were places where "everybody knows your name". They were mostly storefronts owned by individual proprietors; some stores had been there for generations. I have written in the past about Benny the Barber, Spinners Market, Louie's Candy Store, Ariola Pastry and Herbert's Photography Studios. Some others are worthy of mention.

The first is a dry cleaning store run by a distinguished African-American gentleman named Mr. Banks. He was a dead ringer for ex-NYC mayor David Dinkins. The store was on Rockaway Avenue sandwiched between Bilello's Bakery and Mike's Meat Market. I remember a big sign advertising "One Hour Martinizing" (whatever that is) and an interior that looked like every other dry cleaning store. Mr. Banks, a tape measure draped around his neck, would be stationed behind the small, cluttered  counter with a perpetual smile on his face and a great sense of pride as he operated the overhead merry-go-round apparatus hung with cleaned clothes ready to be picked up. At some point he passed away and the store was never quite the same.

Then there was Schmeerman's Bakery on Broadway under the elevated train line. Oddly enough, my family didn't buy cake here but at Roma Bakery on Fulton street. My exposure to this wonderful place was as a result of walking my next door neighbor Phil there to buy cake for his Mom. She was a Schmeerman's addict who loved their crumb cake, jelly doughnuts, apple turnovers and all the other good things we enjoyed until health freaks stole them from us. The smell of baking cakes and powdered sugar would hit you as soon as you opened the screen door. There was usually a line but people were civilized enough to wait their turn without needing a number. The German ladies in their hairnets waited on you, and expertly tied up with string  those white cardboard boxes full of wondrous things.

On Eastern Parkway near Atlantic Avenue was Carlucci's Restaurant (Parties Accommodated). This place derived a lot of its business from the funeral home across the street. Mourning hours were 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm, so families would pop in between 4 and 7 for a bite to eat, and also for a family meal after the deceased had been buried. (Italians can grieve and eat at the same time.) Carlucci's also got a lot of Communion and Confirmation parties from Our Lady of Loretto church on nearby Sackman Street. The owner was straight out of central casting, complete with oily moustache and pencil behind his ear. The tables were covered in the standard red and white checked tablecloths, and of course the front window showcased the iconic statue of the Italian Pizza Guy.

These stores were part of the landscape of my youth. As they swept the sidewalks in front of their stores, the owners would cheerfully wave to you as you walked by, or maybe threaten to "tell your parents if they ever saw you again with that cigarette hanging from your mouth". If there can be such a thing as a small town feel in the middle of sprawling Brooklyn, it was East New York in the mid-Fifties. I loved every minute growing up there.

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Baby It's Cold Outside

I've been playing golf right up to two weeks ago since the temperature has hovered around a pleasant mid-forties before now. It is finally frigid outside. We haven't had sustained low temperatures like this since the mid-1990s, but I remember as a kid that cold winters were par for the course. We wore ridiculous clothes and were swaddled in sweaters, scarves and hats; Mom pinned our mittens to our sleeves so they wouldn't get lost. Bitter cold was no reason to keep us inside though. Playing in the street and school yard  with your friends took precedence over all else, so out we went. Today's little pumpkins stay indoors and watch movies in the Auditorium if the temp drops too low.

In my old house on Somers Street in Brooklyn we had an unheated pantry attached to the rear of the house that led to the back yard. It was so cold that Mom used it like a second refrigerator. She would store things like milk, juice and soda back there and they were always ice cold. It was also Mom's hiding place for things she didn't want me to find like chocolates and snacks she kept in case company dropped by. One day I found what I thought was a bottle of Dad's Fleishman's Rye. Having never tasted whiskey and being naturally curious, I took a big swig. Turned out to be turpentine (which I later found out didn't taste much different from Fleishman's). When I told my mother what I had done, she tried to stuff bread down my throat and beat me with a wooden spoon all at the same time. Quite a feat.

In school during the winter we had radiators that brought steam heat into the classrooms. There were two temperatures possible to achieve with this system, very cold and very hot. In sixth grade we had a Franciscan teacher named Brother Mathias. He hated a warm classroom because he thought it put the students to sleep. (It was him.) Even on the coldest days he would have one of the boys open the windows a crack using the long pole that hooked into a latch at the top of the sash. One day he asked me to do this, an enviable task by the way for a twelve-year old. It was so cold that the window had frozen in place and I couldn't lower it. Giving me his best "you incompetent idiot" look, Brother tried the pole himself. He used too much force and the tip of the pole slipped out of the latch and smashed right through the window. He reddened to the joyful sound of 45 boys suppressing muffled laughter.

On cold days that were also snowy, our daily game of triangle baseball played with the Brothers in the school yard was threatened. The school custodian, a wily Irishman whose name escapes me, would recruit the bigger boys to shovel the snow from the playing area knowing full well how badly we wanted our game. He sat on the sidelines smoking and directing his all-too-willing pack of slave laborers. We knew he was using us but the important thing was clearing a place to play. Running the bases was treacherous on the ice, but the game went on. I can still see Brother Francis in his steel-rimmed glasses lobbing the pink Spaldeen on one bounce up to the plate where the hitter would try to slap it for a base hit.

Sometimes I think we coddle today's kids too much. Everything is planned, supervised and controlled by their parents. They are rarely on their own to learn life's lessons by living. They have so many advantages we never had, but in some respects, I really believe they get cheated.

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Tune in Next Week....

One of the joys of my childhood was the hours spent in front of the silver screen at the Colonial Theater under the el on Broadway in Brooklyn. I have written about how, for fourteen cents, we would get to spend maybe six hours in the dark eating our sandwiches brought from home and watching two feature films, 21 color cartoons, and maybe my favorite of all, the weekly installment of whatever adventure serial they were running that week. Serials were like soap operas for kids; each episode lasted maybe 15-20 minutes and didn't advance the story a whole lot, but it was packed with thrills and of course, a cliffhanger ending that would always bring you back for more.

The budgets on these serials were small and the production values shabby, but they knew how to hook the young boys who were addicted to them. Cowboys were in vogue then, so any serial featuring a cowboy was an automatic hit. The idea of UFOs and space travel was also catching on and was the fodder for a few rocket ship adventure stories. Crime fighters was another popular theme, especially those featuring G-men fighting foreign spies. Most of the actors in these serials were B-list, but some are very recognizable. Clayton Moore, who is best known for playing the Lone Ranger, also starred in Ghost of Zorro, Jesse James Rides Again, Jungle Drums of Africa and many more. Other "names" include Bela Lugosi, Buster Crabbe, Milburne Stone (who later played Doc in Gunsmoke) Jock Mahoney, Victor Jory and George Reeves who starred as Superman on TV.

My favorite cowboy serial was The Phantom Empire starring Gene Autry as a singing cowboy who runs Radio Ranch, a dude ranch from which he makes a daily live radio broadcast. Gene has two young sidekicks, Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross. Betsy, Frankie and Gene are kidnapped by the Thunder Riders from the secret underground empire of Murania. Ruled by the icy, evil blonde Queen Tika, Murania was 25,000 feet underground, complete with towering skyscrapers, robots, ray-guns, and elevators tubes that extend miles from the surface. Meanwhile the crooked Professor Beetson plans to invade this underground kingdom and seize its radium wealth. One of the appeals of this adventure was that Gene rode with two kids, a boy and a girl, automatically sucking every kid in the audience into the drama.

The outer space genre included Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Captain Video, the latter being one of the few movie serials originated on television. Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe was my favorite. A rocket hovering over the planet Earth is dropping purple dust into the atmosphere, causing instant death! Blasting off to save humanity are Flash Gordon ("Buster" Crabbe), Dale Arden (Carol Hughes) and Dr. Hans Zarkov (Frank Shannon), three inter-planetary adventurers who head back to Mongo, the source of the plague. Upon landing, Flash discovers that none other than their arch enemy, Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton), is the madman behind the attack. Eluding imminent capture, Flash and his comrades head north, closely pursued by Ming's soldiers who have been ordered to stop the heroic Earthman, no matter what the cost.

Finally there were the cops and bad guys serials including Dick Tracy, Gangbusters, and Junior G-Men staring the Dead-End Kids (Later known as the Bowery Boys). I think I liked Junior G-Men best, again because it featured kids having adventures we could only imagine. We never even stopped to question the idea of a gang of city street kids working closely with the FBI. Their aim was to rescue their leader's father, a scientist who has been kidnapped by "The Flaming Torches," a group of saboteurs in league with a sinister foreign power. Leo Gorcey, the wisecracking leader of the Junior G-Men, was probably in his mid-thirties toward the end of this serial's run!

I think being weaned on radio in the dark days before television gave me a vivid imagination and a thirst for adventure that these weekly movie serials helped satisfy. You knew the wagon with the heroine wasn't going off the cliff, but there you sat the following week munching on your pepper and egg hero while pretending to be a real hero riding hard behind Gene.

Movie descriptions courtesy of Thomas Film CLassics, http://www.shop.thomasfilmclassics.com

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Uncle Mike: 1923-2013

Started the new year with the sad news that my Uncle Mike passed away. He would have turned 90 this May. Michael was my mother's younger brother and the last of the children born to Pasquale and Katerina Camardi. I recall seeing the sweetest photo of Mom and her brother, her in a white dress and him in a white suit, taken at the 1939 New York World's Fair. He was a cool character blessed with dark good looks complete with a pencil-thin mustache that he wore all his life. I remember at our Christmas and New Year's Eve family parties when he was still single he would always show up with a lovely girl on his arm to spend some time with the family before going off for the evening's entertainment. 

As a young man, Uncle Mike liked living large, even when his income didn't support it. He always dressed impeccably and carried himself like an Italian Count. He drove nice cars and went to nice places despite a less than stable financial foundation. I remember overhearing the family discussing his lavish (to them) lifestyle and his reluctance to put his nose to the grindstone and settle down with a nice Italian girl. Once he borrowed my mother's movie projector to show some films at a bachelor party. In with the projector was a reel of old film of my parents wedding, a gift from Negri's Furniture, a neighborhood store that filmed your nuptials if you bought furniture there. Sadly the film was lost and Uncle Mike was in my mom's doghouse for a long time. I can't blame her; I'd give a lot to still have that rare film of my folks.


In his 30's Uncle Mike was seriously dating a girl named Ella. She was pretty, vivacious and got on famously with the family. We thought for sure that this was "the one". The next thing we knew there was an engagement announcement, but Ella was not the lucky girl. Uncle Mike had met an attorney named Lola (whatever Lola wants, Lola gets) and decided to marry her. Her family was well off and apparently happy to have Mike in the fold. I remember going to their wedding. It was probably the first "catered affair" I had ever attended (photo left) where dinner was served by waiters instead of the football weddings we were used to. It was nothing like the elaborate weddings of today, but for poor Brooklyn Italians, it was "tre elegante".

The marriage turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Mike. Aunt Lola was a smart, ambitious woman who would never tolerate a lay-about husband. With her prodding and connections, Uncle Mike crashed the business world and became a purchasing agent for a trucking company. From these humble beginnings he rose steadily in the company, apparently having a natural gift for schmoozing and a good business sense. He worked for many years until finally retiring when he was around 80! Grandma and Grandpa would have been proud to see their son, over whose future they had so needlessly fretted, become a real force in the business community. Uncle Mike also adopted a son, Michael, from Lola's previous marriage, who turned out to be a successful doctor with a practice in Virginia.

A few years ago I was compiling a family history, and Uncle Mike was kind enough to share his written recollections of the old days on Hull Street. There were some lovely details about my grandparents' early lives and Mike's sisters including my mother that I was able to share with my children. There will be a small service this Thursday in Roslyn Heights where Uncle Mike lived. Most of our remaining family members are no longer living in New York, so my sister and I will go to represent the family. I will celebrate Mike's life and remember him as he would wish to be remembered...a guy who loved life and squeezed all he could out of it.

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