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.
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