Snow Storms in the projects

I find it interesting or disturbing that I don't remember what I have already written about.  Of course I vaguely remember, possible events i covered.  In my early posts about growing up in  East New York, I know  I talked about the witches, the blue rats,fishing for rats in sewers with chewing gum on a string,weapons, packs of stray dogs, shoplifting, burning my moms kitchen down, lots of cool stuff.  I'm too lazy to look back and see what i wrote about. So for those who read all the old stuff, forgive me if i repeat myself. For those who didn't ,, what are you waiting for ,  read the old ones, those are the best, well they were the longest  haha.
       Since it is snowing outside now I think I'll recall the snow storms of the  50's.  My memory tells me the snow was at least 6 feet high. Considering that I must have been  4ft 6"  the snow was probably 2 ft high and some  deep drifts. All I know the  snow was over our heads in some places. One cool thing about  East new York was there was these barren fields  we called "the lots".  Some were once farms. Some were just  empty plots of land. But they were always  down a hill.  That being said,  hills and snow, that means  sled riding. We all had those wooden sleds with metal runner blades.  The brand was  something  Flyer,, maybe  Famous Flyer,  Sky Flyer , i can't recall.  But they were indestructible. We always had a  rope tied to the wooden steering handle.It didn't exactly steer it, it kind of bent the metal blades to guide you in a direction.  We would   hold the sled up , like holding a surf board. We would run with it and dive with it down onto the hill , and ride it down that snow so fast , it was scary.  We'd often end up buried in a snow bank. Or we would flip over  and roll down the hill with the sled. Sometimes we would crash into our friends and  ummm try to kill them.   No one ever  died that i know of.   The more  we sledded, the more packed down the snow got, and the faster we would go.  There was a hill, we heard about since we were little, but we were too young to go to. But when we were 13 we were old enough to attempt the deadly  "Snake Hill". It was  up by Highland Park. That was past East New York a few blocks after Fulton St or Jamaica Ave. The Park was bordered by Ridgewood on one side, and  Forest Park, Woodhaven  on the other side.   Anyway, the hill was  crazy. And it went across a road with traffic. And you couldn't stop . And you could surely  get killed. But we all tried it. Snake Hill was  for  ENY  sled heroes.  Houdini's grave is in Highland Park by the way. Every year someone steals his head from the statue of him.  Years later, drug addicts would hang out by his grave and leave cough medicine bottles on the monument there.  After a rough , scary sled ride there, we would stop by White Castle for a  9 cent or 12 cent hamburger. Well usually  several of them.
    The other thing we would do as kids, when it snowed was build a fort. We were obsessed with forts. We built some good forts and defended them against the enemy.  The enemy was always the kids from the  neighboring buildings. Like  740,  756, or maybe the guys from  "Dry Gulch" that was the area by our  elementary school. PS 273 aka The Wortman School.  There were good "lots"  near the school.
We would have our forts and  line up 100 snow balls to throw. We were well armed with  snow balls. Some were more like  ice balls.  I used to love when one of us would yell out  "Attack!"  We'd grab a  bunch of snow balls  run towards the enemy , and bombard them. then run back to the fort and  hide, and make more ammo.  It was fun.  By the end of the day we'd be frost bitten.  Even on more peaceful snowy days when we'd build a giant snowman, with carrot nose and  coal buttons, we'd still get frost bitten.  We would  go inside the building and put our  frozen gloves on the radiator in the lobby. the hallway was always  wet from our snowy boots.  We usually wore long underwear or two pairs of pants. Sometimes we even had  flannel lined jeans. You don't see those anymore.  We had our woolen beanie caps that we pulled over our faces .  You could see through that wool.  We'd love to throw snowballs at  tractor trailers.  To hear the sound of 20 snowballs hitting the side of the container was a wonderful drum- like sound.  Some friends of mine , one time ventured up to the train station on Van Siclen Ave. and were bombarding the subway trains with snow or ice balls as it went by.  My friend Sandy and Dennis got arrested for that. Imagine, all the shootings you hear about today and  my friends get arrested for throwing snowballs at a train.  Come on,,, what the heck.  Anyway, moving right along,  I learned fast that leather gloves turned into the hardest things after you wear them in the snow all day and put them on a radiator. The worst part of this learning experience was that it was my father's leather gloves,,Oh yeah, he was so pissed off.  But hey, at least my hands stayed warm most of the day.
   Well I hope it snows and snows tonite. It will bring back those fond memories of big snow storms in Brooklyn.  

Hurricane and phone service

Hurricane  Sandy left me with no phone service on my landline and fax line.
Both Verizon and At&t were and still are out of service.  They changing the  date repairs will be completed. I figure it will be in  6 months.  AT&T was a problem even before  Sandy. Their cells service was the worst.  I asked one of their representatives if  AT&T  meant  Always Telephone Trouble, they didn't laugh.
     I had a conversation the other day with a Verizon representative. I asked for a credit on  my bill, since I have had no service since the storm hit.   I called into repair  a few weeks later to see what their progress was.  I didn't think I had to call in immediately since my whole neighborhood is out of service.  They told  me credit is only from when I called in, they said I should have called sooner..I said  , "how could i have called, i didn't have phone service".    Then they said  , If i didn't pay the balance they would cut off my service.  I'm scratching my head... I don't have any service  ,,, now they want to cut  off my service.. So I ask them " if you cut off my service , how will I know?"  since I do not have any service ,,, hmmmmmmmm

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy hit hard. I thought it was all hype but i have to admit I was wrong.
Manhattan, which seems invincible ( before 911 happened)  was  flooded and  a major part of Manhattan was  flooded and without phones and power. Pretty much sucked.  Now there are  gasoline lines miles long. Crazy stuff.  Anyway, I found a  place to stay that had power  outside of manhattan and while people were buying  flashlights and water, I was busy buying  ingredients to make a delicious  Bolognese  sauce for my pasta.
     Several years back, when  in East Hampton, Hurricane Bob hit hard. Bob lifted  100 year old trees out of the ground and me and my friend Frank were busy looking  for  pizza dough to make pizzas.
Some things  never change.

things i hate

Things I hate:
I hate it when I go to grab a container of orange juice in the fridge and it is empty
I hate it when bugs get caught in a spider web and I don't understand why the spider doesn't get caught      in the web
I hate it when I go to my Friday appointment a day late
I hate it when the cleaners gives me back money in my pocket and I wonder how much was really left there
I hate it when I get food made from pork and it says kosher ( jello)
I hate it when I enjoy making sounds like  a wounded seal
I hate it when my farts can be heard by my neighbors
I hate it when my aunt has a longer beard than my uncle
I hate it when my aunt wants to give me a kiss
I hate it when I watch the pizza guy throwing the dough around, stop,  wipe his sweaty forehead and  start throwing the dough again
I hate it when waiters can't speak english and describe the dishes they are serving and i have no idea wtf they are talking about
I hate it when the weathermen are hyping a hurricane that won't really be much of anything
I hate it when I look at the  toilet paper after each wipe
I hate it when i start grossing myself out

Doctors

I have gone to doctors since I am a child. My experiences have not been the greatest.

In East New York as a kid, there were 3 or 4 doctors.  My original doctor I think was Ok, as i'm writing i'm remembering names of some. There was a  doctor Levin and  a Dr. Norton.  They would  come to our apartment in the projects.  Yeah, they made house calls.  They would do the   say Ahhh thing with the stick and then give me a  shot in the  butt of penicillin.  Imagine a doctor making a house call in East New York today. They  would  be  robbed or killed  most likely. 

     A few years later  our doctor changed to a  H.I.P. doctor .  His name was  Dr. Anolik. He was on Williams and New Lots.  The guy was huge , he had hands like an ape.  Mind you  I probably weighed 90 lbs when i saw him or less.  He would  tap your body with his giant hands and  say  does it  hurt. Each time he would tap me , i'd  gasp and almost  collapse , and  answer  "no it doesn't hurt".  It would end with a  shot in the butt.  They loved that  shot  stuff.  Another  time I went  there for an ear infection or earache.  The guy had a strange accent  , and  his instructions were "  put raps in your ears" ,,,,it took a while  to get  that interpreted, finally , I found out he was saying  "put DROPS in your ears".

      Later on , still in ENY,  Dr. Willins,  told me I was  allergic  to  penicillin.  Mind you, i was never allergic to penicillin, never had a reaction.  He came to this revelation because  i had hay fever, therefore  , i must be allergic to penicillin.  So , since then , as illogical  as it was, I have told every doctor that I went to , that I was allergic to penicillin.  Dr. Willins also told me , when I had mono aka mononucleosis aka  kissing disease, that  I needed to eat  meat.  I was a vegetarian at the time. I knew  soy and  nuts gave me  enough protein ,,but he insisted that  I needed to eat meat.  So  I ate meat, and eventually i was better. 

     There were two dentists in East New York , the Newman Bros.,  one was an orthodontist and the other was  a regular dentist.  They were the best dentists in the  neighborhood. They were on Hegeman Ave and Pennsylvania Ave.  Their office had these weird pictures of  kids, later i found out they were Norman Rockwells.   I had braces,  and i had to wear  rubber bands stretched between  upper and lower teeth. I hated these braces,,I ended up ripping them out of my mouth.  Rumor had it, that these dentists, weren't really dentists and  had some  fake  diplomas from Univ. of Tennessee.  I don't know if the rumor was true but they were really nice guys and they looked like  dentists.

       Bringing things up to the present,  I saw one doctor of mine scalping  Rolling Stone tickets  outside the Meadowlands a few years back.. Makes you worry a bit.  And  just last week I went to the eye doctor for  a thing like  a sty ,,, he  asked me  if i had a microwave.  I lied and said  yes.  So he gave me a prescription for  potatoes.  Not just any potato but  a  red new round potato,, he wrote , put in microwave,  wrap in  hot cloth and put on your eye. Imagine,  the guy prescribed a  potato.  Gotta love doctors.

insects, reptiles and stuff

As a kid growing up in East New York and spending summers in the Catskill Mountains playing with insects and reptiles was a big thing.  My brother used to play with ants and would stick his face to the ground watching them. He had a  big sore on his nose from age 2 to 3. That's how close he would get to those ants.  We used to  feed ants sugar, thinking they would grow to be giant ants like in the movie "Them".  There were a lot of bushes and big lawns in the projects. The bushes always had bees flying around the  flowering plants, mostly the white flowers.  I used to grab a bee by the wings and put them in a jar. The  cover of the jars always had a few holes punched in them.  I thought I was being kind to the bees, but they didn't last too long in the jars. I guess they need more than air to live.   Butterflies were fun to catch. The swallowtails were really hard to  catch. Those were  too fast. I think  maybe I only caught two of those in my life. Mostly it was the  yellow or white  smaller  butterflies or moths that we caught.  The wings would leave this magic powder on your fingers. I figured if I got enough of this stuff , maybe I could fly.  I never could get enough of it.
     Grasshoppers were pretty cool and really easy to catch. The big locusts were more difficult but we got those too. Lightning bugs or fireflies always amazed me.  I still can't figure out how they did that glow thing.  Centipedes were ok to catch and so were caterpillars.  Worms we would  catch just to fish with.  Daddy long legs for some reason were just there for us to pull their legs off.
     In the mountains, we used to walk through the woods and  hunt for salamanders. They were orange and  had some  spots on them. They looked like little dragons. I would get a big pickle jar, line it with ferns and  moss and rocks. It was  like  salamander world. We would probably catch  20 in a day. While hunting salamanders we would  catch toads and  wood frogs ( that's what we called them). I would  but those in the  pickle jar too. I was always afraid that  the toads would give me warts.  They said  if a frog peed on you , you would get warts. But the toads looked like they had warts all over them.  Bull frogs were  so hard to catch.  I did catch one  probably more than once. They were huge. I fell into the lake one time  trying to grab a  bull frog.
    Hornets I hated, i once was in a chicken coup and got a hornets nest down my back . OUCH. So wasps and hornets were mean , and I tried to avoid them. Ants were fascinating . How they all worked together  , always busy , always carrying things.   Garden Snakes or were they Garter Snakes,,they were harmless slithering things. We would catch these a lot and they were great for scaring  sisters, moms and girls in general.
     Nature is really fun.  Walking into a spider web is still pretty  messed up .  Yuck.

Fright at night

I was a frightened kid. All these  children's stories and my own imagination scared the heck out of me.
The scariest for years , and now that i think about it, i'm scared.  Hansel and Gretel is the story that was so frightening  for me. There was one witch in that story that I pictured with a dark cape like thing over her head.  Her big nose and her cackle scared me so much. I used to see her in my parent's bedroom window.  I would hear that cackle and  i'd be so frightened and run out of the room.  I'm getting the chills as i write this.  In the other window were little pumpkins with witch hats laughing and rocking back and forth ,, Scary stuff,  for years and years. Then I'd always worry about  the door falling off its hinges as murderers tried to get into the house.  I'd sleep with my plastic sword and a  sledge hammer for protection. I probably weighed 50lbs  and yet I was gonna kill these monsters with my weapons.
        I still sleep with my weapons.  Ya never know

Childhood Weapons

When I think back  to  the childhood days of East New York, even as little kids we had weapons.
Of course, the popular shows on TV were all shows that had guns. There was Bat Masterson, Lone Ranger, Texas Rangers, Davey Crockett, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke( no action), Cheyenne, Wanted Dead or Alive, Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Gabby Hayes, Hotel de Paris, Yancy Derringer, Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickock ,Rifleman,and more. Then we moved on to the Untouchables , these guys had  machine guns.
     As kids we all had  cowboy type guns. I even had a  derringer that was built into a belt buckle.  You breath pushing stomach out,and the gun pops out and  fires. I had a Rifleman rifle. You could  pump and fire that one.  We always practiced drawing  our guns and  trying to be the fastest in the East.
Some lucky kids had  BBguns. Comic books always advertised  Daisy BB Rifles.
      Even as  little kids we used to take the wooden sticks from  Good Humor ice cream bars,  we would sharpen them to a very sharp point.  We would  scrape them back and forth on the  stoop outside our  house.  When they were nice and sharp, we would stab a friend.  So much fun ,,haha...
      Then of course  paper clips and rubber bands were a popular  weapon, trying to shoot at  birds, we never hit them though.  Pea shooter were really fun. We'd use whole dried peas as ammo, a wide plastic straw was the pea shooter. These were accurate and powerful.  I was  very  proficient at hitting people's heads with a pea.  Pocket knives were popular. We played Stretch or Land with them. Sometimes missing and hitting our feet , while trying to  stick it in the ground.  Occasionally someone would have a switch blade , that was really cool.  Or we would take a ride to  42nd street, where some novelty stores sold nice  knives.  My father who was a cop, would confiscate knives from kids and bring them home. The only problem was ,  he would  break off the  points. So , i had  about  20 knives with no points. I hated that. Occasionally he forgot to break the points. I had a nice yellow  switchblade, thanks to my dad and  a  white  ivory one.  Boy Scouts were cool , in that we were able to buy sheath knives. You know, the big hunting kind.
     We moved on to more sophisticated linoleum or oil cloth guns.  You would  use 2x4's , nail them together and have a trigger system with  clothes pins and   thick rubber bands, some bottle caps too.  Stick a  little square of linoleum between the bands and push the clothes pin and  FIRE.  they worked great.
We heard a lot about  zip guns.  These were made from  the  thicker tubular part of a car antenna usually.  Sometimes  a  pipe.. I never made one.  Not even sure  if i saw one. But we heard of them quite often. Car antennas were a good weapon.  We would  break off an antenna, and carry it around and  if we had to  use it as  whip type  weapon. They really hurt if you got hit with one.
     I already spoke about  our  pastel chalk socks  , that we used on Halloween, to bop people on the heads.  ( See my Zorro gang  post).
     One time I took a  real 7.7mm  Japanese rifle to school. I was a soldier in  the school play. The teachers freaked out.   Yelling ,  "the kid has a real gun" ,,,,wow  did i get in trouble.
    So  weapons were a part of  daily life.  Chains, guns, knives, sticks,  we loved the stuff.  Nowadays,
lots of real guns, people getting killed every day. Not a good thing.

Parents and the trouble we cause them aka buying horses, cars, and boats

 We were teenagers, we really needed to buy a horse. An Apaloosa was what we wanted.

we didn't know about  checking the horse's teeth, or health. We just liked that the spots turned blueish when the horse sweated. We found an Apalossa  at Henry Miller's stable on Wortman Ave near Cleveland St.  Three Hundred dollars for the horse what a deal.  I forget  how much the  boarding was ,but we didn't care.  Well, the good news hit home about the  horse purchase.  My father  for  some reason  was influenced by my mother yelling  " You bought a horse????"  " Are you out of your mind?"

 Well my father  stepped in, and   I had to tell my partners, 3 of us, that my father was going down to the stable and getting our  money back , for the old broken down Apaloosa.  

          It was spring,  it was  flounder season.  We needed a boat.  Me , Mooney, and Red went to Cross Bay Blvd  near the "first bridge".  We stopped at  the Big Bow Wow for  Hamburgers first.  Cross Bay had lots of good places , like  Pizza City,  Weiss's, even Nino's moved there. Well we saw a boat for sale. It was a blue boat with a canvas top , even had a windshield and steering wheel.  we knew very little about  bouts. Red was   a kid who looked old, so he was our lead man. We started the boat up  checked it out. We had  literally no idea  what we were checking out , but the boat was  not sinking, that was a good sign.  We put a down payment on the boat.  Yes,  the news got out ,  we bought a boat.

A good horsepower Evinrude motor,,  i think it was  18 feet, and perfect for  going into the jamaica Bay and catching  flounder , porgies,  and stripers.  My father   went nuts when he heard about the  boat. I know  secretly he really wanted a boat of his own, and was just jealous.. But  he went back to the guy   and  insisted on  giving our down payment back.  My father was a big guy ,and  probably would have hurt the guy really badly if he didn't give our money back.  So he was successful in getting the money back and  making us giving up our  awesome boat.

         So  now  me  Fuzzy and Red were walking down Flatlands Ave. just past the  Bat-A-Way,which was a batting range, next to a  golf driving range. We stopped at  Carvel  on  Pennsylvania Ave for  some  Flying Saucers and Brown Bonnets. Then as  we walked further we came  across the  junk yards.  We went into Pete's,  we really wanted a  car, and wanted to fix it up.  We saw a great  car.  A 1956 Olds  '88.  It was  red and white and  blue and white.... it had  3 and a half doors.  The blue and white was one of the  doors.  The red and white was the rest.   we say a half door because one door was from  a  smaller  car, like  a  Rambler.  It didn't actually fit too well.  We had to tie it shut.

We found a garage to put it in up on Hegeman Ave. for  $30 a month. We drove and pushed the car to the garage. We paid only about  $150 for the car, to the best of my recollection. What a deal.  So what if it didn't run  too well, we knew we could fix it .. Well, we thought we could..  We were so  happy , oh yeah,,I forgot to mention ,, I stole my father's  license plate so we could  move the car and not get arrested.  That''s  how  my dad found out about the car,  he questioned me about the license plate.  He was  a  cop, so he knew how to get the info out of me.  The man went  bizerk.  " how could  this  SOB sell a bunch of kids a  car." my  dad said.   He grabbed his  38 caliber  Smith and Wesson pistol ,  and  rounded up me and  Fuzzy and  Red .  We went  up Hegeman to Miller Ave and  opened the garage and he looked at this mess of  a 3 1/2 door car and said " what the heck is wrong  with you kids?".. Of course the  car wouldn't  start, just when we needed it to start.   we put it in neutral and  pushed it to the the junkyard.  My  father  drew his gun and  flashed his badge.. He said " You sell these kids this piece of junk car..... Now you;re going to give them their money back",,, the  guy says  , pointing to Red,  but that guy is an adult,,, my father  said  that adult is 15 years old!"    Well Pete gave the money back and took the  Olds '88 back.  We were heartbroken,,, but  hey,  parents are mean,,, right?

      So  that was  some  year,  almost a  horse,  a boat and  a car.  After we returned the car, we went to Bella Pizza and got a few slices of  Sicilian pizza,  and  tried to forget our misfortune.  Parents,, Parents Parents,,,,  gotta love 'em

Art in the 50's

I'm  9 years old, i wake up and  sit at the breakfast table. My mother serves me Beechnut Mixed Cereal. I love the stuff. Especially after adding enough sugar to make sugar swirls in it. Thats at least  12 tsp  of sugar. I have a  side order of  chocolate milk, with Fox's U Bet syrup of course. That was the best. My dad used to buy ugly cans of Hershey chocolate syrup sometimes. I don't know what the man was thinking.  UBet rocks, it's what the  candy stores used to make  egg creams and  ice cream sodas.

     We had a formica dining room table ,, the  perfect easel.  I pour out some  syrup on the table  and begin to do a magnificent  finger painting. I was  like the Salvador Dali or  maybe Jackson Pollock of  chocolate syrup painting. I covered about half of the table. If i felt in the mood, ketchup would be a good highlight effect.   Then it would dry, with a  wonderful shiny texture.  It had a peculiar affect on my mother ,,, when she would look at my paintings , her face would  turn the color of the ketchup.  Amazing,  I loved that color on her, but then she turned violent and  I had to run. 

    Now its already  10 AM and  one of my favorite shows  was on  TV. Winky Dink.  This show was great , because  at one point in the show, which was  a  cartoon character show.  The  human  host would  say, " ok , kids take out your  Winky Dink screens and put them on the TV" .  Ummm I didn't have a  Winky Dink Screen.  A WInky Dink screen is a clear greenish plastic screen that stuck to the  glass TV  screen when  laid across it.  The host  would slowly  have lines appear,  and  it would form  figures such as  the Winky Dink character, or  secret treasures.  We would have to trace the screen, and then you'd have a picture on the  plastic. It was really cool.  However,  when one didn't have the screen, but  one had  lipstick and  crayons, well,,,  it kind of looked  better  right on the glass of the  TV screen.   OMG   my mother     went  nuts.  Here I thought I did a good job with the drawing ,,, She called  my  dad in and  he  couldn't believe what he was seeing.   Him being a rational man, said to my mother ,, "i think we need to buy him the  Winky Dink screen",,   and they did.

smells

I was just thinking about  certain smells.
The smell of the subway ( especially when walking over the  metal grate on the sidewalk)
The smell of a butcher shop with sawdust on the floor
The smell of the ocean
The smell lilacs
The smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire
The smell of horses
The smell of a  new car with leather seats
The  smell of fresh baked bread, cookies, pies, cakes
The smell of fish
The smell of burnt garlic
The smell of the forest floor
The smell of moth balls
The smell of skunk
The smell of DDT
The smell of punks burning
The smell of hair burning
the smell of rotten egg burps
The smell of wet nail polish
The smell of a dry cleaning store
The smell of truffles
The smell of fried pork rinds
The smell of bacon
The smell of exhaust fumes from motor vehicles
The smell of whiskey breath
The smell of a wet dog
The smell of ginkgo
The smell of Old Spice

Current Events

Will they change the name of Sandusky , Ohio?  considering several schools and  foundations have already done so, because of the terrible things Jerry Sandusky has been accused of.

Here's  my headline:  SANDUSKY GOES FROM PENN STATE TO STATE PENN!

PHOTOS OF East New York Projects

Some Photos of East New York Project area. Now that I figured out how to post photos I'll be posting a few more

View of my apartment 738 Stanley Ave. 2nd floor..
wow they finally got  air conditioning

Front of 738 Stanley Ave. We used to hang off that ledge over door

View of my side of the building. apt 2B
Still has my initials middle window 2nd floor

My initials  CL  outside my window 50 years ago and still there

Close up of my initials

Smoke Stack on Stanley and Schenck Ave. that Sandy "Sick" Schmidt climbed to the top

Used to hang out at the Galazy Diner weekend late nights
Dave the counter man served us

The famous George Gershwin Junior High School 166
where I got into a lot of trouble. I had made copies of the keys to this school

we used to joke about a guy named  Jimmy from Hendrix St.

Public School 273  "Dry Gulch"

ENY ice cream and dogs

Well i'm not sure what I'm going to write yet, but I passed by my old apartment at 738 Stanley Avenue and my initials painted in white paint are still outside my bedroom window.  Ahhh, that window. When I was younger , I would stand  outside that window and yell to my mother  who was in the kitchen." Ma, throw down some money for  ice cream".  Bill Cosby talks about the  ice cream man, he  was so right-on with his stories.  We kids would  go wild for the ice cream man.  Hi Ya Al used to give us prizes. The worst prizes ever.  Tiny paper parachutes,  rubber blow toys that made fart sounds, little metal clickers that sounded like crickets, i forget the others, but  we  liked  Hi Ya Al the best. I think his name was  Al Calzone from Delancey St.  Yeah he travelled all the way to ENY to sell ice cream. Not a bad move . There were so many kids in the projects.    Good Humor Ice Cream was good  and I used to order the  Chocolate Eclair pop from that truck.  But  Al  had  Marino  Ices. We would carve a hole through the middle. We'd call it a donut and we would turn it over  and suck the sweet syrup out of the ice.  My favorite flavor was called  blue gelato.  Johnny and his father  Rocky  sold ice cream and  I wrote about them  before.  They didn't have the best  quality ice cream but they came around earlier and we gave them  business too.  Carvel truck came years later. I wasn't much into soft ice cream.  My brother got run over by the Carvel truck, got a  concussion. I think they gave him  $1000, what a huge law suit  haha.  Bungalow bar had  a  cool truck with a wood shingled roof.  I used to like the  pull the cord and ring the bell and watch the kids come running.
       So,  where was  I?  Well, my window faced the  flagpole.  Our projects had a flagpole.  How many flag poles are there anymore, ?  Anywhere?  Well we had one, and when someone famous died it would be at  half mast.   I hope I spelled that  correctly.   On my way to  high school, and  yes I maybe skipping years, but  so what.  There were packs of stray dogs laying in the grass behind the flagpole.
I  loved dogs, but I did have  a fear of dogs I didn't know.  I used to play with  stray dogs, named  Laddy, Queenie, Spaghetti and more, but these had no names and they looked mean.  I had to get by them to catch the bus on Linden Blvd.  Scary ,,, i would  move slowly , then as i was about to pass the pack , I would  run and run so fast.  My orange laces on my high white Chuck Taylor Converse would look like a blur.   I'd run across Linden Blvd and  quite often the bus would be  pulling out ,,,, So  I'd jump on the back  bumper  grabbing on to the  big sign advertisement on the back of the bus. Usually someone else would  jump on too.  We had about  a mile  ride to Jefferson High School.  on Pennsylvania Ave.   There was a space between the sign and the  bus , so you could slip your  fingers in there.  It was  fun.  Mind you the bus was only a nickel with  your bus pass.  A year or so  later ,they changed the design and eliminated the space. This really made it hard to ride the back of the bus.
    Back to the dogs. There were many stray dog packs.  This particular pack had  several Shepherd looking  dogs. Big mean ones.   So one day,  a few years later, i had bought a dog.  A German Shepherd named Pancho.  This dog was smart.  I taught him to  jump over  a 5 foot high fence.  People would  fear this dog, when they saw him fly over the fence on command. We didn't have to use leashes in those days.  Dogs could run free.   In any case, Pancho ran away one day. He must have  picked up the scent of a dog in heat.  He headed to the  weeds.  He went to the pack of about  12 dogs.  I was watching him, he had ignored my calls to him.  He got involved in a  brawl with the  pack leader.  I was  hoping my dog wouldn't get killed but  I did nothing to help him. I just  watched from a distance.  I was actually afraid of being eaten alive.  Pancho won the  fight with the  leader of the pack.  it seemed like he was the new leader.   I refused to go in and get him. Those dog eyes glowing in the dark, there was no way I was going into the pack.  I turned around and went back home and  basically said  goodbye to Pancho.  The next day, Pancho was  hanging outside  the building.  I felt so good that he returned.  Pancho's full name was  Pancho  El Akbar, or Pancho the Great.  he was  great, loyal , smart and tough.  I miss that dog.

Babysitting-----my specialty

My two baby sitting experiences, will never get me another baby sitting job.  Let me say I was an adult during these experiences.
Awhile back  a neighbor hired my 10 year old daughter to babysit for her  2 year old.  Ummm how stupid is that?  So of course I went in to help.  The 2 year old banged her head on a pointy piece of furniture  and  was crying loudly .  So , I thought quickly and  gave her  a video tape in the plastic case , one of those  big VHS  tapes.  So the kid takes it and starts banging it on her  head.  She was  really enjoying  doing that.  She stopped crying  and we all were laughing . Then we noticed that now her head was  bleeding. The mother came home and saw a  bloody kid.  All I could say was  "she was having lots of fun".

Another time, i was  watching  my friend's  5 year old, maybe  4 year old.  Anyway,  the kid was bored and  I had to think of a fun thing to do.  Band Aids... yeah that was the idea.   so  we put  all different  shape and color band aids  all over  her   arms and face and forehead.  It made the kid laugh every time i showed her in the mirror.  It was quite hilarious.  However, when she revealed  her wonderful  Band-Aid makeup to her mom,  Her mom let out a scream.  First I thought it was a good scream, but it was a bad scream..  I got  yelled at "what did you do to my daughter:"... I said ,  "we were just  having fun".
A funny thing is, the memory stuck in my friend's daughter's mind as a memorable event.  About  2 weeks ago , she sent me a picture of her 5 year old child with duct tape all across his mouth eyes and arms. And she said " you taught me well"..... Oh my!

I don't think I was so bad, when I think of a story about  my wife's father watching her.  She was  3 years old and he was holding her  hand walking with her by the public swimming pool.  He  was then engaged in a conversation with some friends.  All of a sudden he noticed all these people diving into the pool,  his daughter  ( my wife)  was  under the water ,  while he was just holding  her hand.  She  almost drowned.   I guess  I'm not the worst babysitter.  :)

4th of July in the projects

Let's start out by letting you all know that the Boulevard Projects in  East New York, were built  in a swamp land. That swamp was filled with garbage and then they built about  26 buildings on top of the garbage or landfill.  There was still the  stream of water from the sewage plant, that we called  Shitz Creek. There were rows and rows of quansett huts or we called them the barracks.  These were  inhabited by veterans of  World War II .  Some of these people  had goats. There were 2 cow farms, several vegetable farms and two riding stables.  There were woods that we called Sherwood Forest, where the police found a huge crop of marijuana  back in the late 50's  when not many people even knew what it was.  We had names for every landmark, from Dry Gulch, to "the lots" , to the circle, The Pond, Volcano Mountain, and of course the  witch's  house.   

     I'm not sure where this story is going, but  at least you know the lay of the land. These projects were located right on the  Idlewild Airport plane route  , later known as Kennedy Airport. The planes would come so low and so loud the buildings  seemed to shake.  If you were home watching Rin Tin Tin on TV, or something the planes would come over and make you miss the whole end of the show.

     So  July 4th is summer, it is so hot , and so humid.  Most of the people in the building would  come out front and sit on the benches outside.  If it was  around  dusk,  the kids would be playing  3 feet over the boundary line or  ringaleevio or hide and seek.  When evening came, Someone would have a  portable radio and  playing either  1010 WINS  Alan Freed Show, or maybe it was a few years later and they had  Murray the K and his Swingin Suaree on WMCA, or the Good Guys.  Perhaps  it was the  Jocko Radio Show,,,or even Latin music hosted by Dick Ricardo Sugar on WEVD  playing  Charlie Pamieri or Pacheco y su charanaga... I was in a Latin band, playing the keyboards.  Our leader was fluent in Spanish and played Timbolis.  ( I'm not checking spelling on any of this,,,sorry),.  

        So its hot it's humid,, people sitting outside  and the  mosquitoes were like  B-52's attacking everyone. They seemed to like my taste the best.  I'd love to smack a mosquito when he ws drilling his stinger into my arm and  "splat"  blood would  splash al over my arm,if i got  a good one  and had perfect timing.  That is, after he filled his tank.

    Leading up to the  4th, we would try to secure fireworks.  A few of the parents would buy Roman Candles or some kind of  rockets.... Cracker Balls we always had,, and would throw them not he ground and scare the crap out of  old ladies and  others.  Sometimes we would arm ourselves with  cherry bombs or M80's.  They say an M80 equals a quarter stick of  dynamite  maybe an  1/8. There was  something  called  aerial bombs that were  more powerful ,In any case, we would  walk around with our  brown paper bags filled with these ash cans aka  M80's  and throw them at people.    During the day if we went fishing on the  Cross Bay Bridge,    we would throw them lit into the water,,,they had  water proof stuff around the  fuse,,  We'd get a big  splash,,,The best  was catching a  giant  pre-historic looking  horseshoe crab.. taking that crab and shoving a  cherry bomb into it and  blowing it to smithereens.   

        Now  we are back in the projects and  it is kind of dangerous on the  4th or around that date, because  people  would throw explosives at you ,,, Yes even if they knew you , we would  often have  cherry bomb fights. Scary stuff.    Someoen would always  buy a "mat " of firecrackers  , i think it was  80 packs..  I seem to recall Tiger  Brand, made in Macau.   i used to collect labels of different brands of firecrackers.   We would like to light a whole  pack at a time. You would  hear  20 simultaneous explosions.  Sometimes we would light them off in the hallways,,,, oh the parents hated that  ,and we would get yelled at ,,but it was really loud in the hallways.  One time this guy Eugene jackson, he ws  really tall,  I remember.. He threw a firecracker  at me and it blew up in my ear.  Two of my neighbors,,"the big kids"  Mal Capone and  Arnie ran after him and  kicked his  butt.  Hey good to have peeps.   Anyway,,,,  we would like to go up to the roof tops and  look out about  15 blocks to  Blake Ave, and watch the tenement  fires.There were so many fires around that time of year.. And those  old  houses  would burn easily,,,  There had to be  3 or 4 fires a night up on  Blake or Sutter Ave.

The firemen had their work cut out for them.  

      Sometimes people   were stupid and  held a cherry bomb  or even a fire cracker too long.   It would blow up in your hand,, It happened to me with a firecracker,, My hand  blistered up pretty bad... One guy, named Fly Away  held  a M80 too long and lost  2 fingers.  They didn't call him Fly Away because his fingers flew away,,He got the name because he was like  6 ft 5in and  skinny as a rail . If a wind  blew he might fly away.   

    So that was the   firework fun in the Projects,,,  the little kids had sparklers and  well, because  we also didn't have much money, we used to make  our own fireworks but tying  steel wool  to a  string, lighting it and  spinning it around like a  sparkler.. That's ghetto fireworks.   As young kids we had this things called punks.They were skinny brown  things with a thin wood stem.  They would burn like a cigarette. We would burn holes in papers and leaves with the hot tip.  Or wave it around in the dark watching the   orange designs it made...It was also good , supposedly , for keeping the mosquitoes away.  On the hot days we would  go to the  Super Market ,, either Speedway or  The Market Place to cool off. Maybe go to the movies. Those were the only places with air-conditioning.  We  had fans.  Some people  talked about having blocks of  ice and a fan to blow the coolness.  We had  2 fans,,  the good fan and the bad fan.  The good fan had lots of colored buttons,  Green was high speed.. my father always seemed to get that one pointed at him.  Now we can't survive without  A/C.   Our cars didn't have  A/C either ,,we had the triangular  "fly windows" in the front that you could direct the air with. I don't think air-conditioning got into cars until maybe  1959.  It was only in some cars,  probably Cadillacs..  We had used  old cars.    If we were lucky someone would drive us to  Coney Island and we would  watch the real fireworks,,but mostly we watched the  tenements burn down and  watch a few Roman Candles and  bottle rockets.  Oh yeah,  and  matches would light by striking it on the  ground,,or on a window,,or with your nail you could  flick the  tip off and it would ignite,,,I think they used to say it had phosphorus  in the tip.. They were Ohio Blue Tip matches i think ,,they were wooden.  They became  illegal I think ,,but they were cool.   you could even throw them on the ground and watch them light.  

    Those were the good old days.   

  

Tennessee Food

I had hoped the food in Tennessee would be really good. Well, it wasn't. When you ask someone where to eat for the best food, they recommend a restaurant chain. " oh y'all kin go ta Olive Garden for some EYEtalian food".   Then some local recommended Calhoun's for  BBQ.  Turns out  Calhoun's was a chain .  The food sucked.  They fry everything. Even corn on the cob fried.  I'd show ya a picture, but I haven't learned how to post pictures yet.  friend  okra,  fried green tomatoes etc.  The people here think Mac n Cheese is a vegetable.  The menu says  pick  your  main course, such as  ribs, chicken fingers etc and   choice of vegetable. The list has  friend corn on cob, friend okra  ,, macaroni and cheese.  Do they grow mac n cheese  on  their farms?  Amazing place this Knoxville.  i think i'm gonna go tubin' in a tire tube down the river.
"

Rainy day in the projects

We lived in a 6 story building in the Boulevard projects in East New York. Everyone in the building knew each other.  People didn't even  lock their doors. Things have changed a whole lot, people have 3 locks on their doors now.  If they were allowed to have dogs, they would have pit bulls.  When it was  nice weather  we had lots to do outside.  You knew it was  Spring by the sound of the metal roller-skate wheels on the concrete.  We wore  Union Hardware brand skates and changed the clamps from the little ones to the big ones.  We all wore  skate keys round our necks.  Skating backwards was a lot of fun, so was  roller hockey and roller derby.  On rainy days  we had a few favorite games.  Blindman's bluff was a  good one. We would blindfold one person , and he would have to grab someone and say "blind man bluff 1-2-3 3 times.  The game was  confined to one floor of the building. We couldn't have someone be blindfolded and  chase us down the staircases. That would hurt ,, We would also play something like dodgeball with a  rubber ball like a  Pensie Pinkie or a Spalding. We'd throw the  ball hard and if it missed the person you were aiming at it would hit Eddie Napolitano's living room wall.  Eddie would come out yelling at us and we would run up to the 3rd floor.  We would eventually be on the  6th floor after being chased all day.  It was a good way to make a rainy day pass.  Another thing we would like to do was to  go in the elevator and  pull that  door open from inside when between two floors.  When you did that, the elevator would stop.  You would  reach in and  press the latch inside the  space on the upper right. That would release the  outer door and we would push that door open.  We all would  jump out onto safe ground. If we missed we would be dead.  it was good fun.  We sometimes would do it between the  1st floor and the 2nd., and jump out on to the first  floor.  This would allow us to  jump down to below the 1st floor. Someone would keep the door open  and  the other person would collect  any money dropped down their.  There were  2 big thick springs at the bottom,  i guess to stop the elevator from  crashing if the cables broke.  if someone didn't keep holding the door open , the elevator could move and  there would  be a chance of being stuck or  trapped down there.  Another alternative but  crazier was  standing on the handrail inside of the elevator and pushing open the  ceiling panel then climbing on top of the elevator. There was a lot of  electrical and cables up there, and it was not comfortable. It was  downright scary and dark. and when it stopped at a floor, while riding the top of the elevator,  it shook and  made a jolting stop on the floors.  It was  scary but fun.
     Other  games in the hallways, were  spinning tops,  playing crack top, where you try to split the  other guys wooden top in half with  your  top.  Tops were fun and came in  two kinds, the rounded ball bearing  point and the   sharp pointed diggers.  The  digger was better for  crack top , the ball bearing was easier to spin it and do some tricks.
    Lastly,  baseball cards flipping was a favorite.  We would play "off the wall", this was a  game where you  held a baseball card facedown with the long edge against the wall or hold the card flat against the wall.  Whomever went first would  hold  a card against the wall and let go the cards would spin to the ground.  The  2nd person would  hold the card either edge or face against the wall and if it landed on a card he would keep it.  If he missed the other guy kept it.  Then we'd do it again , switching who went first.  We would also flip cards.  Maybe  4 cards and the second guy had to flip their cards and  match the heads and tails to win.  Usually if you held a  "head" outward , you would  flip a tail. That is once you had the  power factor down.   Some cards were easier to get than others.  Pete Runnel's on the Senators and  Richie Ashburn on the Phillies were easy.  Don Drysdale on the Brooklyn Dodgers and  Mickey Mantle of the  Yankees, were harder.  We would also play "closest to the wall" with the cards,  You had to toss the card toward the wall. Throwing it kind of  like a "backhanded linoleum throw".  You would try to get close to that wall, or even better  , throw a  "waller" that would stand up flat against the wall. that was pretty much a guaranteed win.  Basball card games were fun. Collecting them was fun too.  Nowadays,  kids buy the whole collection and never  even touch them. They keep them mint to  increase the value. We would  touch them  flip them  , bend them.  We would  buy  a  pack of  5 or 5 cards with  bubble gum in it.  Topp's made them.  We would have check lists and get the set  2 , 3, or 4 times We would trade them, it was  awesome.  
    Sometimes we would  play the  closest to the wall game with  coins.  Same rules.  You could win some  good money , if you were lucky.
   I guess the last game was  ,  ring someone's bell and run away.  We used to do that to people we didn't really like.  Especially,  Tigerlady , in   6 B,,  she was a little crazy and would  chase us and  curse at us really loud.
    So much for fun in the rain.  After the rain  I would like to  leave the building through the 2nd floor hall window,  go out on the the   2nd floor roof,  hang on the    fence below and swing down . It was  something  that would make the parents  panic that  someone would fall and  get hurt. We seemed to like danger.  Then we would go to the curb and  look at the rainbows formed from the puddles of rain, mixed with  motor oil ..I liked those colors,,,, That was  a ghetto rainbow.  Hey, it looked nice.

Relatives of mine

I had an aunt with a beard.
I had an uncle named Juice because he drank a lot of orange juice.
I had a grandmother with no finger nail.
I had a grandfather who spoke only Russian and liked to throw handkerchiefs and call them birds.
I had a mother who played high school basketball. She also used cigarette ashes as her secret ingredient in her cooking.
I had a father who taught me to use leaves when out of toilet paper. he also taught me to pee on  cigarette butts and split them apart.
I had an uncle who made my aunt fall wherever he saw broken sidewalk or floor or step near a store,       Then he would call the lawyer and sue the store.
The same uncle could take the grass or blood stains out of your clothes, he was a spotter at a dry cleaners.
I had an in-law who was named Willy the Horse, he died at the racetrack and was a mobster.
I have a nephew who stole bikes and hid them in my mom's basement.
I have a brother who cut his pinky off while doing arts and crafts.
I have a sister who hid a guy in my mom's basement for  6 months before anyone found out.
I have another sister who took my address book and  went off to Europe at age 15 and visited all my friends there.
I had an uncle who was an undefeated pro boxer, but quit because he had good teeth.
I had an aunt who was a great artist.
I had a cousin  Chonka, who I never met, all anyone knew of her , was she lived in Arizona.
I have several relatives in Argentina, that haven't been met.

thinking thoughts

today I realized Mr. Smileyface :) doesn't have a nose.  It makes me wonder how could he smile and know he has no nose. Would a smileyface with no eyes and no nose )   be happy too. I guess we should all be really happy that we have noses.   o o
                                                                 U
                                                                ___

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Nuts, allergies to nuts. It's nuts that people are allergic to peanuts and  say they are allergic to nuts.Packages must say "may contain nuts" if made in a factory with  peanuts.  Also, people allergic to peanuts are not allergic to peanut oil, but they think they are. The last nutty thing is that peanuts are not nuts they are legumes.     By the way , coffee is not a bean it is a berry.
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A woman had her cell phone stolen and she was beat up by transvestites. How scary is it that in the West Village by Christopher St. there are Transvestite gangs.  That is really scary.
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the U.S, Mail

My new mail person started on this route last fall I think. She is not doing a very good job, to say the least.
I used to get mail everyday , even  if it was junk mail or bills.  Now, I get mail maybe twice a week.
Perhaps she is trying to do me a favor editing what mail I should  get.  Who wants  junk mail and bills anyway?  One day I saw her 2 blocks from my house, it was a week that I had not gotten any mail yet.
She recognized me. She recognized me because I had complained to her, when she first started and i didn't get mail at all for  2 weeks.   When I finished complaining, her answer was  "oh, I thought you  moved".   Ummmm  WHAT??!#$%0&*%.  So I assured her I didn't move.  So when she saw me  a few weeks later and recognized me, as i was saying,  she  handed me a pile of mail. She said " here, I have some mail for  you ",   I never heard of a mailman / woman  doing that.  It's like I have the female  Newman.  "hello Newman"   from  Seinfeld.  On occasion, I am so happy to get mail, that I don't care that  she gave me my neighbor's mail  by  mistake.   I take what I can get.  Maybe i should have given her a   Xmas present.  I dunno.  I was thinking of mailing myself  10 letters a day , everyday ,,and seeing how many I get. Also put a note inside, in case my neighbors get my mail, " hey that's not your mail".  So  we will try that and see what happens.

Frog is back

Frog is back.  I have to get back in the groove.  Being in St Martin and  Sint Maarten, was interesting in that the  French Side was  definitely French. People spoke French, signs in French etc.  The Dutch side however, did not have anyone who spoke Dutch, no Dutch signs,  no Dutch people, no Dutch food.  Hmmm why in the world do they call it the  Dutch side. They should just call it the  "other side".

Red neck Inventions

I went to a convention where they had inventors.  One guy was a  "red neck" inventor.
There were some pretty good stuff. He had alot of  ropes and net inventions.  Nets that turn into rope so you can secure your rifle in back of your pickup truck.  Hooks that clip on to the vinyl siding on  trailer to hang stuff. Nets that can protect you from snakes if your campin out and hunting. These nets turn into ropes to  tow your truck out of the  mud.  Aluminum foil to stick in your grill to make it hotter , that's for grillin'.  Even plastic teeth for  chewin'.  Anyway, it sure was interesting.

happy bday

Well it was my son;s birthday today. We went out to dinner and ate like hungry animals.
We had pasta, we had foie gras, we had fish, we had lamb, fried cauliflower, spinach potatoes, octopus, lots of wine too.  Of course we had birthday cake.  His burps were plentiful and  smelliful. Tons of burps.
They lit the candle and we sang  "Happy Burpday To you ...."

in the basement

After East New York, my family moved to Staten Island. A private house, wow, it did seem like a big deal at the time.  I planted all sorts of shrubs and trees. It looked really nice. My father, not knowing anything about  such ornamental flora or horticulture, decided he would help these plants by spraying them with some type of weed killing energizer.  Well after years of these plants doing so well, I came  home to see  bald plants.  An azalea with no leaves, an andromeda with no leaves, the  man did not have a green thumb. A few years later, my father passed away, and my mom would keep herself occupied by cooking for my sister and brother.  She kept mostly to the kitchen and living room before retiring  to bed.  The basement was a thing of the past for her. My sister would do the laundry for her down there. All those steps were impossible for her.
      Well there was alot of action down  there  , unbeknownst to  my mom.  My nephew constantly would go down there and bring various strangers there. This went on for awhile, until the police showed up, and  it turns out my nephew, who would come in from East New York to Staten Island on the weekends would steal bikes parked outside in the neighborhood.  He had a thriving stolen bike business. Here, my mom was  so proud of her grandson, always busy in the basement, with so many "friends".  Basically she was  harboring a  criminal.
       So the  bike theft stopped,  and  my mom would be cooking her   lima bean , barley , soup with  black mushrooms and  a hunk of meat on the bone with marrow coming out of it, and with a cigarette stuck to her lip with a long ash on it, then it would fall in the soup. that was her secret ingredient.  But the soup  smelled great and tasted great.  She would  cook lots of  really good dishes, mostly Russian in origin, Stuffed cabbage with raisins and rice in the meat was one of her specialties, another was  ground liver kreplach (dumplings) were delicious.  She was oblivious to the goings on in the house.  My sister would grab a plate of food and go eat it in the basement.  She would  come up and  get seconds and then go back down there.  This went on for  many months, until one day  my mother  got so scared, she ventured into the basement and there was this guy Louie living down there for the past  8 months. He never came up except  in the middle of the nite to use the bathroom.  He went unnoticed for that long.
When my brother and I found out about this guy , we threw him out. But  it was  amazing and amusing, not to mention frightening that this could happen in my mom's house.   The house was sold so now we can just remember things. Over  2,000,0000 cigarettes were smoked in that house. So much  tar and gook in the air the doorbell stuck.  The white paint and  blue carpet had discolored, but we never knew that until we moved the furniture. You get used to the color and don't realize what the smoke does.  Well, it was  a good way when the house was sold.