The 2nd floor hallway in our building in the projects stunk today. All the neighbors on the floor were holding their nose. Of course I knew the reason it stunk, my mom had taken this huge cow tongue and put it in a giant pot. Did you ever see the size of a cow's tongue? I doubt if my mother thought I was going to actually eat that thing. Anyway, that plus some cabbage dish she was boiling, you could smell all the way to Ashford St. It didn't stop us from throwing the Spalding (pronounced Spaldeen) high bounce rubber ball against the wall and catching it. The wall happened to be the other side of the Napolitano's living room wall. The only thing I had going for me was when Big Eddie came out to yell at me for throwing the ball against his wall, the stench from mom's beef tongue drove him back inside. On rainy days we'd find alot to do right in the building , like throwing balls against people 's walls, playing "blind man's bluff " in the hall. That was a game where you blindfolded someone and they would have to grab one of us and say blind man bluff 1-2-3. Then that person was blindfolded. Another favorite, fun thing was to ring someone's bell and run away and watch them looking around. Seems dull and stupid, but it would crack us up. The elevator game was a good one, mostly because it was dangerous. You would ride up in the elevator and when you were between floors, you pull the inner car door open, pulling it hard to the left. Now the outer hall door, was tricky to get open. You had to stick your hands in along the door frame, and feel for the latch to unlock it. It was a safety feature so, a person wouldn't be able to open the elevator door and fall down the shaft if no elevator was there. We would open the second door and jump out onto the floor. It was scary but cool. Under the elevator car was a light bulb with a pull string. Sometimes we would open the doors between the first and 2nd floor, so that there was a big space under the car, and we could jump down and find money that fell down there. It was dangerous, if the elevator went back to the first floor because we'd be trapped. There was a big spring or shock absorber to keep it from crashing . Alot of fun, not approved by parents. Years later, when heroin became an epidemic in the projects, junkies would stash their "works" on top of the elevator, thru that secret door. Anyway, we also used to like to check out the roof, there was a big sign on the door to the roof "Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted- Do Not Enter". That's like saying, "this place gotta be good". So we went up to the roof, there was a little fence around to keep us safe. We'd like to spit down and maybe hit someone in the head, or throw stuff off. and hopefully we wouldn't hurt anyone. Every so often, like once in ten years, you would hear about kids playing Superman, or playing with paper parachutes and they fly off that roof and never be heard of again. 2 kids in my 5th grade class got in big trouble for being responsible for one of the Superman kids jumping off. The 14 story buildings had even a better view, was good place to go in the summer and watch the fires of the tenements on Blake Ave burning. We would hear vendors screaming out their wares in the hallways, "Sunshine Bleach:" Sunshine Bleach" "bleekwater, bleekwater",,,then the Dugan's guy would be yelling "Dugan's cupcakes , donuts, bread" ,, there were lots. The milk man was quiet and he'd leave the bottles of milk in this little metal box outside our door. There was even a jeans sales guy always outside the building , G&M, selling all sorts of jeans. I can;t leave out the knife guy,who would come around and all the women that were home would come running with their knives to get them sharpened. The old man, with the old horse, pulling the wagon with the bell, that was the :"junkman". People would hear the bell and come running with their junk. Hell of a business. There was Andy's hi-flyer, a truck with this rocking thing. We'd call it the rockin-ride. I think it cost a dime or a quarter. He'd come around loud it with 15 kids and make it rock. We'd rock and rock until our brains were bangin' around in our skulls. Oh the things we'd do for amusement. When we were a little older , maybe 12 years old and 13, we would sneak into cars, behind Joe and Eddie's candy store , and push them and jump in and ride them down into the empty lots down the hill. Not a good thing to get caught doing. But we never got caught.
Then we had the club, the midnight riders. I think there were 6 of us. Maybe once a week, one of us would be elected to steal our father's car keys and we'd go for a little ride around the block. At night so noone would see us. One kid's father had a 1953 pontiac that was stolen a bunch of times, and it was easy to start. Johnny, had permission to smoke, he was 12 1/2 and smoked Lucky Strikes. My mother wasn't crazy about all of my friends. Anyway, their was foil in the cigarette pack and we'd be able to cross the wires and start the car without keys , and take it for a ride. One incident, of a kid stealing his father;s car, was when a guy named "Crutch" took the car out for a spin and floored it. He was doing fine, until he crashed it into a pole. He couldnt lift his foot off the gas. Crutch, had Polio, a paralyzing illness.
Hey we weren't always doing things that would get us into trouble. Yes, we liked pea shooter, blowing hard split peas at people's heads, or taking hangers and rubber bands and making sling shots, and shooting at the poor defenseless birds. Oh yeah, carpet guns, we loved those. Take a couple of boards, maybe they were 2 x4's, maybe smaller. We would attach, nail,, clothes pin, bottle cap,,and thick thick rubber bands, we'd pull that rubber band back so there was alot of tension. Then we'd place a little square piece of oil cloth (thick linoleum) floor covering like vinyl. Release the clothes pin and POW, shoot that oil cloth,if you hit someone it would hurt. We'd also make useful things like scooters. A wooden milk crate, 2 by 4 , roller skates nailed to the bottom of the 2 by 4, bottle caps for decoration and we had a scooter. Did i mention the carriage room? There was a room, it said Perambulator Room, wtf does that mean anyway? We called it a carriage room, because people would store their baby carriages,(which were huge) and bicycles there. Sometimes locked on a chain sometimes not. A hacksaw took care of cutting through the chains if we wanted to "borrow" a bike. We were about 12 or 13 and we'd take bikes, girl's bikes , boy's bikes , it didnt matter. We got into the thing of painting them orange. So we had lots of orange bikes. We created a bicycle built for many. First it was the standard bicycle built for two , but i think we got it up to 7 or 8. We would take the front wheel off a bike then connect the front fork to the rear axle of the bike in front and tighten the nuts. We would keep doing it, until we had a bicycle built for 4, 5, 6,7, 8. * was a little much, when you turned a corner the end bikes would break off. So 4 worked fine, We looked really cool on our orange "super bike".
Yes living in the projects was exciting , always something to do. I'll leave some of that for another story. And kids, if you're reading any of this. Don't try this at home.
No comments:
Post a Comment