Pool and Billiards in ENY and vicinity

Tonite I was  watching  the film The Hustler. The all-time best film centering around the game of pool ( pocket billiards). The movie puts you in a world of seediness, gambling, hustling, sleeziness, and the psychology involved in this hustling world of a game of skill.  Anyway, if you haven't seen this film, see it. Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason amazing.
   So  this inspired me to add a post to my blog. I haven't written in ages. For all I know I already wrote about this stuff.
   When we reached 15 years old we started to go to Murray's pool room. You had to be 16 years old to get in. I am not sure if that was a law or not.  We all had phoney proof  to get in. Usually a whited out birth certificate copy. Murray's aka Biltmore Billiards was located above the Biltmore movie theatre. That was on New Lots Ave. and  Wyona St. in East New York. The proprietor was Murray "Bilty" Finkelstein. His son Moe, was the football coach of Thomas Jefferson High School. Football champs in NYC  many times.
      My memory fails me as to what the business hours of Murray's were.  But if you got there a half hour before the opening, you could  carry the big block of ice upstairs. Yes, he had an icebox. That kept sodas cold. Refrigerators were available. Actually right across the street from  Bressner's.  But Murray was old school, and old, and he had an ice box. If you were lucky enough to carry the ice upstairs, you got a half-hour free time on the pool table. The cost back then was 80 cents an hour.
    The tables were all lined up in a row, close to each other.  They were also close on one end to the wooden wall.  Up front where Murray sat, were two billiard tables. The better players loved billiards. No pockets 3 balls, tough game. I think at this pool room, the best players were Giff who made the most difficult shots imaginable. Dave the Rave who played amazingly good position. So who was the better player?  Hard to say.  Shotsy was also great, as was  Mel the Window-washer, and Manny ( who I still see every once in awhile). Manny collects pool tables and can run 60 balls.
      You could hear the sound of balls clacking. It was a sound I loved.  That mixed with the scoring beads banging into each other. It was an old style pool room. It had old tables and no score keeping thing on the tables. We used wood beads on a wire, with a big bead indicating every 5th bead. The beads was  used to score straight pool. All that background sound was joined in by  people shouting out " Time on Bilty"  or "Time off Bilty".  There were lots of hustlers trying to get you into a game of rotation or 8 balls.  We liked to play rotation when there were 4 of us.  the person who sunk the 1 ball and the person who sunk the 5 ball were a team. The  first team to get 60 points wins ( add up numbers on the balls)... 5.8.10. and 15 balls were money balls. If you  sunk those you got paid for those plus if you win the game.
  The tables were in good shape, all green felt, none of this crazy colored felt. Playboy Billiards downtown Brooklyn near Nevins St and Flatbush, had modern tables with colored felt and score keepers on the table.  They also also allowed women to play.  Murray's, didn't allow women in the pool room.They claimed it was because they only had one toilet, a Men's room. Although, I remember at one point two or three women were allowed in. Leona, Susan with the Mustang and  one other.  Not exactly the girls you would bring home to mama. But I liked them. They didn't play pool they just hung out.
      Giff was a  Murrays celebrity, not just because he was a great pool player, but he was  very wild, and pretty hilarious.  Crazy Lazer was another celebrity, a lot older than we were, he was famous because he did 20 years in Dannamura prison for murder or something. He was small and didn't look dangerous but his eyes had a cold, murderous look. Quite often, some New Lots Boys  would play pool there. I forget who,  but  Joey Jet, Arnie Mandel, Sandy "sick"Schmidt, Jimmy BigHead, others played there and  fights would happen.  One time this glue sniffing Larry aka Dobey Dolan, got in a fight with a guy outside. He had a good move, he threw his jacket over the guys head and started pounding him.  While in the pool room, a good weapon, if need be was the butt end of a  pool cue. Super hard wood.
   Another celeb was  Izzy Knish. Izzy was older, and was a bit mentally challenged. He was  harmless and a nice guy. He kind of humiliated himself all the time, to be liked by the guys. Out on Wyona Street  Izzy would do a  soft shoe shuffle and sing Moon Over Miami.  And everyone would throw quarters at his feet. And Izzy would  say,  "how about more  quarters for Izzy".
   Murrays was where we hangout when we cut out of school.  I played pool mostly with Moony, Jackie, Fuzzy, and Fish or Fatsy. But it varied a lot, depending on who was around,,,,I was a mediocre pool player,,, I think the most balls I ever ran was like 8 but I told people  14.
   Curly's pool room was closer to Jefferson High School. They had a boxing ring in the back, and amateur boxers would fight and people would bet.  Curly's had a mostly Hispanic clientele.  But we liked to play there. It was  10 cents cheaper an hour than Murray's, only 70 cents an hour. They had two Snooker tables. These were longer than regular pool tables and the balls were smaller.  9 ball was a popular game at curly's.  More room between tables.  At Murray;s  you had to take  one of the short cues if you were on one side of the table because a regular size cue would hit the wall.  Curly's also had the beads, and the hanging  lights over the tables.  When you left Curly's  your hands would be filthy, as the felt was rarely cleaned.  My friend Fuzzy liked the convenience of Curly's, since he worked at Fortunoff's. Fortunoff became a famous department store in Westbury and on 57th street in Manhattan, but Maxy Fortunoff started with pushcarts on Livonia Ave. Later  moved into stores. He had about 7 stores, all next to each other, House wares, Healthcare, Bedding, etc After years a suspicious fire happened and  the insurance help build the giant Westbury Dept store.  He hired a guy as VP who was in a  gang called the Monks and then in New Lots Boys. He saw potential in him.
     Curly's was actually in Brownsville as it was on Livonia and Alabama. the far Pennsylvania Ave stop on the New Lots train #2 or 7 or something ,,, we called it the IRT 7th ave. Murray's was closer to the Van Siclen Ave stop, but it wasn't that far from Pennsylvania Ave.
   Joe's pool room was on New Lots Ave. and a lot of tough guys , wise guys, hung out there.
Sometimes we would play at Marions on Eastern Parkway near Nostrand, or go into the city and play at Julian's on 14th street, or Ames.  We also played near Kings Highway, a pool room with an Italian name ( can't think of it).   Later on I knew people from  Queens played at Golden Cue. Lots of great pool players there. My friend Tom the Sailor hustled there.
    The movie brought back great memories of great times, at the pool room. Over the movie theatre that became a Church. We used to see two movies, and  5 cartoons every Saturday.  Walk in to the movie that was  halfway over, sit past the end and  see it up to the part where we came in.  People  yelling at the screen.  Folding popcorn boxes and throwing them into the projector light at the screen. The theaters were super dark then, so when you  opened the door in daytime to let your friends in for free, the light was blinding. The matrons and ushers were mean, and  had flashlights, and if you smoked in other than the last 10 rows, they would throw you out.  After the movie we would go to Nino's for a great slice of pizza or a veal cutlet sandwich.  Nino's was  a great place. When we were younger we would stop at Judy's Sweet Shoppe for candy to bring into the theatre, since it was cheaper.  Sandy would buy chicken corn aka candy corn,  I would  get the chocolate babies or jelly beans.  The good old days.
   

Doo Wop talk

Nothing like the sound of harmony. I think it was Billy Joel who made the song Lookin' for an echo.
Well that's what we did a lot.  It was pretty easy in the projects to find an echo. You just went into the hallway and started singing. Until of course someone reported you to the Housing Police and then they'd chase you  away.
     Hitting Harmony or Chimin' off ,  you'd say " hit a note"  Baaaa, that was me much of the time. I was  mostly a baritone.  Although with  Al and the Candlelights I was  officially the base.
That was  me, Fuzzy, Mass, Lil Wick and Big Wick.  Our demo record was  My Girl ( the flip side of Babalu's wedding day).  I had a great  base part.  A cross between the 4 disks bass and the Marcells.
    I one of the best groups I sang with , We were the Escapades, me, Mass, and  Woody, Moony on the lead.   So many mixes of people that sang together.
   A memorable night was  singing  baratone  with Elk hitting 2nd tenor,  Woody hitting 1st, Moony was bass and  Wendy sang lead. Wendy sang lead for  The Holidays.  We sang When We Get Married by the Dreamlovers  at Elk's house.  It sounded  amazing.  Elk erased the tape.  I think he was jealous of  Wendy's lead.
   Elk always sang lead when we did 40's songs  like  Chattanooga Choo Choo.   Anyway,  we had another group called  Johnny and The Pumps.  Me Johnny, Rigget,  Moony, and Woody.  We even had a manager  Frank.  Somehow he was  hooked up with the Emotions.   It was a funny group.  Rigget had a heavy Brooklyn accent,,, when we sang Sunday Kind of Love   he would  say  True instead of  Through.  " I'm true with my old love I loved her  true and true"  it was pretty hilarious.
     Me and Chupper could hit harmony wthout chiming off. We  knew each others notes.  Me Stanley Chupper and Wein sang at Geno's kids wedding,,,, In the bathroom.  Sounded good.
    Songs we sang were Fine Little Girl,  This is My love, Closer you Are, Mexico, Please say you want me, Sunday kind of love,
Wine Wine Wine, Roaches, some  songs by the Tymes.    So many good tunes.
  We often  would just sing  background. Bom Bo Bom Shoobee doo wah, Doo wop dit dee,
       We all could  recognize a song by the  first note.  I could  picture  Moony, always snapping his fingers  and  moving in time with the beat.   Singing  was amazing if  everyone  hit the right notes.
Quite often, when we were like 15, we would  want  some  wine. We would call it  Singing Juice.  We would  pay this older guy Chan a quarter and he would buy us some  Areba or Thunderbird for  like  90 Cents. That stuff got you messed up, but you could  hit some high notes.
     There are  other stories about drinking too much wine, and it didn't go over too well with my parents.
     We used to hit harmony up at  Curly's with  these guys Fosta and  Domenech ,  They were on an album produced by Al Brown.  They were Johnny and the Moonlights.  One night we went to see them and the  Caravelles  at this Church in Bushwick. It was pretty scary.  Me , Moony, Jackie, Woody, were the only white guys in the place,,,,  The Caravelles sang some Smoky Robinson songs.   They were amazing. The lead singer was  Speedo from  the Impalas.  They made Sorry, I ran all the way home,,,,, I thought I'd have to run all the way home... It was an exciting  night,,,and we made it out of there without  getting in any trouble.
     Anyway, Doo Wop is  so awesome,,,I know it's kind of dead, but things are  coming  back. Hipsters are wearing  tight pants that are  above the ankles.  Reminiscent of the  early 60s.
  So  Goodnite Sweet Heart, well it's Time to go ,,,,,,,,,,

Skelly and Jeans in ENY

it's been so long, I have no idea what i'm gonna write about. Probably something I already wrote , but who cares.
We used to play Skelly, or in the Bronx they called it Skully. I guess the both names make sense, since there were skulls or skeleton heads in the center of the chalk drawn court.
A big square was drawn on the Ground. I forget what you would call the ground, it wasn't a sidewalk. It was a wide path, paved with gravel. No cracks like sidewalks have. We would take chalk, everyone always had chalk available. Draw the big square and then 8 numbered boxes on the corners and sides.
in the middle was the 9 box , surrounded by 3 skeleton boxes.  The idea was to shoot your checker  into the 9 boxes in consecutive order. Then into all the  skull boxes and then you shoot for killer  onesy.  Once you were a killer, you would try to hit the other players' checkers and they would be knocked out of the game.
   You could  always tell who was a skelly player , because they usually had holes in the knees of their jeans. Mothers kept busy sewing patches on jeans They even had iron on denim patches for lazy mothers who couldn't sew. My mom was a great sewer and had a Singer sewing machine.
Nowadays, they sell jeans with premade holes in the, we worked for our holy pants.
    The checkers, they were soda bottle caps. They weren't like the new kind, they were like beer tops, the ones we use a bottle opener to get them off. However, you didn't want to use those caps because the opener would bend them. We would go to the coke machine where people would  buy a bottle and open it right there. Those were called "smoothies". Some people  had  beer key openers and those made smoothies also.  Now back in the day, bottle caps were lined with corks. An excellent  checker was made by taking the cork out of one and doubling up another  one , hence "double corker".
Triple corker was the most you could do.   You would then stick thumb tacks in them , for  color, design, weight and to hold the corks down.  Do people still know what thumbtacks are?
   My favorite checkers were crayon or wax  checkers. We we would melt different color crayons into the caps.  THey looked the coolest. Finally there were clay checkers.  Clay was a household item back then, we took clay and filled the checker. It was heavy and could blast someone far.  Or if someone was  ready to blast you , you could  switch checkers, put the clay side down,  now you were pretty hard to move if hit.
    It was a great game, and I fondly remember my ripped knee Wrangler jeans.  Btw, wranglers were the best. they faded  just  right. Lee was popular but stayed dark blue, kinda sucked. Then there were no name brands, those weren't cool at all.
    Oh yeah, we wore black leather belts, maybe 2/12 inches wide, with square brass buckles.  They called them Garrison belts. Some of us used to try to sharpen the corners of the buckle, in case of a belt fight, you could do more harm. If you were "cool" you wore the buckle on the side, never  right in front.  Sometimes we would  hang rabbits feet from the loops, or some kind of puzzle.
 Motorcycle jackets were in fashion, and they had a lot of zippers to hang rabits feet from.
To get even more fashionable, we would  go over to Carl's Motorcycle Shop and buy studs.  We would put studs on our jackets and belts.  Star shaped studs were common and  round pointed ones.
   We wore cuffs on our jeans back then too.
         Depending on what age group, styles changed. Around age 11 we would  hang at Lou's stable, We wore cowboy boots there, with our Wranglers.  We would walk the horses to cool them off and get free riding  time.  We'd have to shovel  horseshit also.  My favorite horse then was Blackie, that horse would  move without even kicking it.  The horse I felt bad for was  Rosie Buckin'. The horse was more like a pony, and she hated to run. But she would  buck. Sometimes some mean older guys would  ride her and hit her with sticks or pipes to make her run.. That sucked.  Ayrab was another slow one but a big reddish horse. We would ride them out into the lots, the weeds the swamps. Down to the beach along Jamaica Bay.   It was a lot of fun.
     So , i'll end here, for now and hopefully get back into the swing of bloggin' again.

New Film out The Seven Five ( 75th precinct)

I have to see this film about the 75th precinct in ENY.  About  corrupt cops there.  The 75th precinct moved their station house from Miller Ave in the 70s.. The reason was because the neighborhood was too bad, even for the cops.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/06/corrupt-cop-doc-the-seven-five-is-a-must-see/

Pot Smoking in East New York

Back in the 50's in East New York there was a marijuana bust. Most people didn't even know what that stuff was. Some guy was  growing pot back in the woods behind the Projects. We called the woods Sherwood Forest. There were quanset huts or we called them Barracks, that went from East New York to Canarsie. There  were goats, and farms. Starrett City now is where Sherwood Forest once was. So they burnt the guys pot field.   Years later when we knew what pot was we would be amazed that this stuff was growing in our neighborhood. Around 1963  or 1964  pot started in East New York. It didn't really start but it became popular  amongst "cool" people, so to speak. There was one known ex-junkie in the neighborhood. He was a graduate of Synonon, the  heroin rehab center. Perhaps the only in the US ( maybe).  I don't want to divulge names on that,  but he was famous for starting people smoking pot.  His name started with a D, that 's all i'm saying. So this pot smoking started before  Hippies started. What was funny , it was  "tough guys" that were smoking the stuff.  Not all of them. It started a division between the ones that did and the ones that didn't.   In those days they didn't sell rolling papers.
You had to buy a bag of tobacco and it came with rolling papers inside. There were two brands that had papers.  Bugler was one, that you settled for if you couldn't get the  main brand. The main brand was  Top.  It took no time to figure out that  Top spelled Pot backwards. Bambu and EZ Wide and Rizla didn't come for years later. The joints people rolled were like toothpicks.  People would buy nickel bags ( $5), I think it got 20 of those skinny joints. It also had seeds in it. Since it was a new thing people would smoke in the streets, in parents houses, anywhere and  non-smokers wouldn't have any idea what was going on.  Yes, they heard a lot of giggles. Some scoundrels would  rip off people and sell them  lipton tea or oregano and tell them it was pot.  Remember this was early on, and people were new to it.  By late 1964-65  we were moving from DooWop to the Beatles and Bob Dylan. The best pot that you either  could get or heard about was  Panama Red, Acapulco Gold. There was  Black Pot, and  Chiba Chiba that was supposedly from Africa.  There was a Black guy named Kelly, that  had pot named after him "Kelly Red".   People would  call pot  Tea ( because it looked or smelled like tea burning), or Boo. The  Rolling Stones mention the word Boo in their song 19th Nervous Breakdown."when you were in school and you had that boo it really messed your mind,,,", many songs had hidden meanings about   pot.  Tambourine Man by Dylan was a favorite. Puff the Magic Dragon was another. It was days of censorship. The Rolling Stones were on Ed Sullivan show and had to change the words in a song "Let's spend a night together"  to Let's spend some time together"  ,,, It was hard to mention pot in the songs. It wasn't until a couple of years later, like 1967 when Beatles and Joe Cocker  did " I get high with a little help from my friends"... Yeah yeah I know pot smoking was going on in Harlem. In the 40's and 50's,  ,it didn't all start in East New York in the 60's.  But it became popular then.  Then California hippie migration started.  People learned to roll  huge "Cali joints"  They stopped putting  "roaches" in cigarettes after emptying out the tobacco, and  created "roach clips" I knew a guy Davey who started a business making soapstone carved roach holders.  Great carvings.  I carved a few too . i still have  one or two i think carved into heads. What's interesting is the early days of pot, brought people together , like  a  clan or  family.  You would say " are you a head". It was like a clandestine group.   Of course then by  1967, the world went wild with drugs in general. East New York was loaded with junkies and  pill heads.  People  you knew who were great athletes would be found in alleys dead. The gangs fights between Black and Whites kind of ended when the junkies started.  What happened was  the Blacks and Whites started to do heroin together.  It was probably one of the only good things heroin did , was bring people together ...Of course  eventually they would rob each other  and kill each other or themselves.  Bad stuff.  Anyway, there was also the  other crowd that did LSD, and those that did Speed, which the motto Speed Kills was  very popular. As it really did kill people.   So,  anyway,  by 1965 ( going back)  Hashish started to be known. It was much stronger than pot. They had many kinds. Red Lebanese, Black Pakistan Slabs,  Red Afghani, and  the best was  Black Nepalese with white mold on it, also their Nepalese temple balls.   Some guys in college smuggled a lot of Kif, back from Morocco stashed in a  VW  van.   These days,  and i don't indulge, just for the record. Pot is much stronger than back in the day.  Its hard to imagine that it is stronger than nepalese hash, and  I still have my doubts.  But it became more sophisticated.  And  now its' not the "cool" people who smoke the stuff. It's  the people  who were called the "straight" people, the suit people,  doctors, soldiers, murderers, artists,  all sorts.
     So there ya go, what was once a cult thing is now mainstream, and is legal in so many states.  As the world turns . I guess  my generation is finally running the world. it was bound to happen. And Its a good thing.  I'm not advocating pot, but if cigarettes and alcohol are legal, why shouldn't pot be.
It keeps a lot of people happy.

College Days

It was a crazy day at Stony Brook University, in G dorm. I had just  bought a new Czechoslovakian Motorcycle, a Jawa. It was a big engine, but the frame was big , so you felt like you were riding a heavy duty  bike.  A few of us had bikes, and we rode thru the woods and along the railroad tracks and ended up inside  of  Nuclear Power Plant property. Trespassers I think they shoot them.
Well we were certainly trespassers.   Riding thru these woods i hit a few trees and knocked by foot pedal off, but it didn't serve much of a purpose anyway.   We were amazed that we fell upon such a  hidden secret area. It was not more than 10 minutes that all sorts of government vehicles pulled up and made us get off the bikes, line up against the fence and question us.  I guess we kind of looked Russian. And at that time, Russians could have been spies.   Eventually they let us go with a warning.  Meanwhile my bike didn't even have license plates on it.  But managed to get away with that violation.
So we ride back to  the college.   Oh , I forgot to mention our bikes were loud.  We took the baffles out of the muffler , and my friends Ducati had what they call a megaphone, making it growl even louder.  We started riding around campus .  Our dorm room was on the 2nd floor.  We thought it would be cool to ride through the dorm halls with 4 loud bikes.  So we did. It was surely loud. It was  hilarious, scaring people just getting out of the shower , walking down the hall with a towel around them and a roaring motorcycle   shoots by them. In the safety of their dorm.  The guy in charge of the floor, the RA, chased us back outside. He was a good guy , so no worry there. Then it happened  , a glorified  Barney Fife or Wyatt Earp campus cop pulled us over , out in front of the dorms.  He swaggered up to us with his leather jacket and boots., hands on his hips, sunglasses. You get the idea.  Then he gives me the weirdest traffic ticket.  It said "  No License, No insurance, No muffler, No NOTHING!".  Now that's a bizarre ticket.
    Other bike antics were riding with 6 of us on one bike. pretty nuts.  Or the time me and Marshall were riding to FIT( College in NYC),  after we flunked out of Stoney Brook.  There we were going down Flatbush Ave.   They had just passed helmut laws , and we didn't have real helmets. we were wearing  football helmets. We looked kind of funny.  As we are riding, a big tractor trailer was crossing the intersection. We had recently seen Abbott and Costello ride under a truck with their motorcycle in some old movie.  They were fine afterwards.  So I look back at him, he was behind me,  He looks at me.  We both knew I was thinking of going under the truck.  He taps me and  says   NO!  So  I listen, figuring he was a smart guy.  And we stopped. We see under the trailer there is a bunch of metal stuff that would have stopped us. We would have been dead.
   Then back in East New York,  I'm riding the bike, me and my friends had bikes and we were doing that Marlon Brando circle thing. Just going round and round in little circles. Well, wouldn't ya know it, my bike slid out from under me, and got stuck under a car.  Talk about  embarrassing.  And how the heck do you explain to anyone that your motorcycle is stuck under a car.
    We used to sit up nights and talk about  our motorcycle "gang" taking over Rhode Island, we didn't think that would be too difficult. Then we thought Grande Mesa Colorado, population 9 would be an easier task. We never made it there.  We had dreams of buying a penguin, and training him. We were kind of weird kids and thought the penguin could hang with us and tell us what to do and stuff. And he'd be smoking cigars ,  His name was Max.  Ok, it would have been Max, if we actually bought him.
   We went down to a store on Wall St. called Treflich's Exotic Animals.  We walked in and  a dozen apes were going wild, They were shaking their cages, just going bizerk. We asked the guy, where's the penguins. So he showed us the only one he had. He said he didn't get much calls for penguins. The penguin was a big Emperor Penguin. It looked pretty cool.  The manager guy said to us,  ' you have to wash him down twice a day and fee him fish".  "Watch your fingers because he will snap them off."  Then he gave us the price , $275.  We thought that was a bit steep for a penguin. And where will we keep him.  So we left the place penguin less, but  it did seem like a good idea.
   I still love Penguins.

Happy Holidays

A Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah and Happy New Year to you All.
The weirdest Christmas tree I ever had was decorated with motor oil cans and matchbooks.

Lots of murders lately

East New York has been in the news a lot lately. Especially the Boulevard Projects. Murder murder murder. Some lunatic stabbed two kids in an elevator in the next building from where I used to live on Schenck and  Stanley.  Two other murders on Wortman Ave.  Things are out of control. I hear there are murders every week there. When we were growing up there were gang wars, there were switch blades, iron pipes, even zip guns. But you didn't hear about  murder much. Fights,  yes  .  Plenty of fights.
   Some very tough guys in East New York. Arnie Mandel was very tough.  One time  he Buster Russo, and Jackie Maggot took on about  ten guys  at Boy's High at recess. They ended up in jail when one pressed charges.  Arnie at one  time was the best fighter in Sing Sing prison.  He is dead now. He got hit by a truck and died. Maybe it wasn't an accident , who knows.
     Johnny Reb once had a fight with Goody on Stanley and Van Siclen , Reb bit off Goody's ear. This was years before  Mike Tyson did the ear thing.  By the way,  Mike Tyson was a member of the Brownsville Boys Club, where we used to be members as kids.  I wonder if Mike ate hot dogs at Coney island Joe's.  
    Patsy Penna once stabbed a guy on Sutter Ave in the chest about 100 times with a little knife.
I cut Ikey's  wrist because he dared me. He was  gushing blood and  we rushed him to Brookdale hospital.  They said he could have died. Apparently I cut him pretty deep with my Jaguar knife.
   Richie Texas and Big Mel had a brutal fight by Dry Gulch Park. Those were very tough guys.
Bobby Brown was the toughest kid in PS 273.  I think he was like 3 years older than everybody, and he had many scars on his face. I had a fight with his brother Calvin, Sandy Schmidt jumped in and helped me out.
    Sandy was tough, fast and  fought like an animal.  Robbie Rogue was known to be the toughest , craziest guy on New Lots Ave. He hung with Arnie.  Richie Q wrote a book about  ENY recently , I read excerpts of it.  He was a New Lots Member and  had a reputation of being  a very bad dude.
    Danny Russo from Cleveland Street Boys, was  known to sucker  punch people .  "hey gotta light"  POW...   He did have some boxing  training  at the Boys Club on New Lots Ave.  This guy Leon in my building was  a boxing  instructor there. Buster  Russo was a Golden Gloves boxer.
   Crazy Rigat, was so strong and so tough.  He went to Automotive high School , and  He still lives in Boulevard Projects on Stanley Ave.  He is the only White guy  living in the projects.
    The Albanese Brothers were all very tough. Lil' Joe's daughter happened to have married Gotti' Jr.
Just  trivia.  Lil Joe's brother Anthony was tougher than most. There was a story about how he flushed Junior Siricco's head in the toilet at Colony Bowl on Linden Blvd. Junior played Paulie Walnuts on the Sopranos.  The story went, one day Junior was looking all mafia like, black shirt white tie , jitterbugging into ENY/Brownsville from Bensonhurt. He didn't know what he was in for.
     Anyway, people didn't just go around murdering people like they do today.  Yes, some people were murdered by accident  like when Jay Worm stabbed this friend of his.  Or when someone had a hit put on them, like  when they found Johnny Reb in the trunk of a car on CrossBay Blvd in Howard Beach.
   But these days too many people running around with guns.
      Peace, my brothers and sisters.

Random childhood thoughts in the projects

There were a few things I remember as a youth, i'm not sure if I already wrote about but I find them amusing.
   We lived in the Projects in East New York. One Easter my father brought home baby chicks. We had them so long they became big chickens. Imagine 6 big chickens running around an apartment. Then to our surprise my father brought home an Irish setter named Lady. OMG  the dog went nuts when she saw the chickens.  We had no choice but to let the chickens free. We took them, in several trips to the "lots" behind the projects and set them loose. I thought we were doing a good thing. Now , looking back, those chickens maybe lasted a day in the wild.
     Science was fun, especially making  gun powder and bombs. A little potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulphur and there you have gunpowder. work that into a fuse to set off a magnesium ribbon in Hydrochloric acid and you have a little hydrogen bomb. Well, the result was a giant hole in my mother's formica counter top.  My mom hated science.
     Charcoal grilling at its finest. I loved charcoal grilled burgers.  But we didn't have the luxury of a backyard in the projects. So what better place to  grill. In the bathtub. I placed the charcoal grill in the  tub, figuring nothing will catch fire. I was  very smart about safety <cough>,, So i was grilling away, and choking away, and then my parents  came home and they weren't thrilled with my cooking skills.  They thought the place was burning down, it was just some hamburgers grilling and charcoal burning and  smoke everywhere. Oh yeah, we didn't have a bathroom window,just a tiny vent.
      Ball throwing, it was a big challenge at around age 11 to throw a Spalding rubber ball or Pensy Pinky ball on the roof of a  6 six story building. We would try and we would  hit windows on the  5th floor.  Finally one happy day we'd reach the roof. A real happy feeling. Throwing them on the roof of the  14 story building is something I was never able to do. But  I loved going up on the roof of all the buildings.  It could be dangerous.  One kid convinced another  that  he could fly , like Superman, just using a 2 cent paper  parachute the size of a  handkerchief.  The kid jumped , maybe pushed, and died.
A guy named Walter, used to throw cats off the roof, very mean and  crazy dude.
       Me and  my buddy Sandy were the dumbest robbers around. We would go to Joe and Eddie's candy store, one of us would hold the door open the other would grab candy bars and , create a bit of a scene running out.  We would alternate who held the door open and we would do this at least twice a week. The thing is, the owners knew us and our parents. Obviously they saw us. No one ever confronted us. I wonder if our parents paid them for the stolen goods.
      The movie THEM , had giant ants. We thought feeding our tiny ants sugar would make them grow. We tried for about  a week, nothing happened.  What a disappointment. We moved on to catching bees , picking them up by the wings . Tricky business.  Catching butterflies was fun too.
Why was there such temptation to pull the legs off of daddy longlegs spiders.  Still a mystery to me.
I had a dog that could eat about  30 of them in a couple of minutes.
      I was afraid of dogs,  My father filmed me running from a tiny chihuahua type dog . Very funny.
But I always hung out with dogs and loved them. We had Laddy, a stray dog and member of a pack. he would come around everyday, and we would  play with him. He was so smart, he would  crawl like a soldier in combat. Laddy was part Collie and part shepherd and part other stuff. Great dog. Captured by the ASPCA several times. He escaped several times. At least that is what we believed.  He hated people in uniform.  He had nice white teeth , and  would  bark at uniformed people. We tried to take him into our house as a pet, but he preferred to run free.  There was also Queenie, a favorite of ours. Spaghetti, not too many people knew. He was part great dane, and ended up having rabies and died.
The pack hung out by the flagpole in the projects. To get the bus on Linden Blvd, you had to  venture by the pack. It was quite frightening. I had a dog Poncho that ran off with the pack for a couple of days. I was not going to go after him.  I think he became  a leader of the pack after beating the leader in a fight.
     We used to eat lunch fast. Usually peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and race back to school. I think this kid David had the 7 minute record.
      I was a toy soldier in the school play, Christmas Story.  I brought my own props. This caused havoc. I found a Japanese WWII rifle, loaded with a  7.7mm bullet and a bayonnette. I brought it to school. I thought I looked so cool as a soldier, with a real gun. The teachers didn't think it was so cool. My father didn't think it was so cool.  My butt after being whooped with a belt by my father didn't think it was so cool.
      Well, those are some thoughts for now.

warning labels

i heard someone on the radio talking about funny warning  labels on products:
I should keep adding to the list i'm sure there are really funny ones.
1) a box of pudding said on the bottom of the box " do not turn over"
2) Christmas lights said on it " can be used indoors and outdoors" hmmm where else is there?
3) Korean knife said "warning: keep out of children"
4_ Frito Lay package says on the bag regarding a contest " WIN!  no purchase necessary, details inside package"

Christmas tree mink coat

Happy Holidays to all.
I was creating a joke from a thought I had. For all I know, someone thought the same thing many years ago , but I never heard a joke about Christmas Trees.  So here is what I got.
Fact:  Many Christmas Trees are Douglas Firs.
Joke: Where did Cathrine Zeta-Jones get her mink coat from?
        she got it from Michael Douglas' Christmas Tree.... LOL
 ummmmmmm,,,,,,,, it's a  Douglas  Fur Tree

Hey,  I try.

SPIT

Happy Thanksgiving.  It is a day of overindulgence , over eating, feeling so stuffed that one can't even move.  Well, that's how I feel ,, Like , why? why? why?
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Let's talk about  spit.  When I was maybe  11 years old I had a nickname Spit.  I've had several nicknames throughout my life. Some were, Chops, Spit, Fog, Dart, Fingers, Wigout, Qtips, Lip, Colonel,
   Anyway back to Spit.  There was a weird time when something hit me, that  spit was dirty and not to be swallowed.  So i would spit every ten seconds I think.  Hence the name of Spit. I had developed many techniques of spitting.  If you are going to spit you have to be cool about it, not gross about it. Did you ever see these gross dudes, hocking and getting up balls of phlegm. Then they spit and then hold their nostril and shoot a  snot rocket. Pretty damn disgusting.
  I was a cool spitter. I could spit between my teeth. It's not that easy to do. You kind of push your tongue behind your front teeth and it makes a sound and spit shoots out.  By the time I got to the 7th grade I lost the nick name spit. But didn't stop spitting. Just not as much. I mastered many techniques of spitting.  Dotting, was a very cool way to spit. It was like pitching underhand.  You lifted the spit out from that reservoir in your lower mouth and gracefully pushed it up  through or past your bottom teeth and a dot of spit would come out and fly a good distance. My friend Manny was the best dotter I've seen.  It is an almost silent spit.  Manny used to dot a lot on the guy sitting in front of him in class. It was  pretty cool at the time.  Now in a spit fight, you really want to get  some  phlegm up and really shoot it out.  I think I could shoot a phlegm ball a good 12 feet.  Some would  call it  "hocking a louie or loogie".Spitting was an important  skill in East New York.  Spit balls were popular. Where you spit a tiny piece of  notebook paper.  In any case my favorite type of spitting was the  thru the top teeth making that  squeeshy sound.  I  have lost most of my skill over  years of not practicing. But I can still make the sound, just the projectile is weak.

Cool you tube of Brooklyn 60's gang called Ellery St. Bops

below are  two you tube videos i found. and enjoyed very much . Featuring the Brooklyn gang of the 1960's called the Ellery Street Bops. They were famous and tough in Bushwick area, but known all over.  The photos are  great and the background Doo Wop is awesome.

video credit goes to rtoledo who did a great job with these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0ijxFG2QBU&noredirect=1

and  movie  2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVC-JKM-zkM

2 posts in one

Hi All,  I haven't been here in a few months.
Anyway,
The other  day I went to the cemetery to visit my dead relatives. I figured it might bring some good luck. The cemetery is an old one in Queens. Some of the tombstones have cool old pictures on them.
Rather than ask where my people were buried , I wandered around until I found some. I can't believe I actually found most of the graves I was looking for.  In my Jewish tradition, you're  supposed to put rocks on the graves,to show you were there.  I have no idea of how this tradition came about , but  I will say there is a scarcity of rocks in the cemetery.  They should have a vending machine for rocks.
I noticed one tombstone with about   30 rocks on it. I was thinking that was very greedy of them, but probably it was  little kids, playing  "steal the rocks from other graves".  So I figured if I stole some rocks from them, it wouldn't be a sin or anything. So I stole several rocks.  I hope it wasn't a sin, because  I was  about to commit another sin.  I had to pee.  So I found a secluded spot behind some graves, and  peed the longest pee ever.   Oh boy,  two sins.  Then a giant rat ran by.
Meanwhile, the sun was going down it was the day before  Halloween. I was still searching for my grandparents graves. They were in an area , where everyone buried was from  Volochisk, Ukraine(Russia).  I finally gave up because it was almost dark. Some rabbi looking guy waved me down, to give an old lady a ride to the grave of a famous rabbi. The roads are quite narrow in the cemetery . I think i hit two graves or a pole and a grave.  Anyway, it was weird picking up a stranger in a cemetery. I dropped her off and headed for the front gate.  Just my luck,  it was locked.  I wait for a while and then start to drive around looking for someone to let me out.  The office was closed.  I didn't see anyone. So I go back to the gate, it's dark and scary. Scary thoughts going through my mind . Ghosts and  goblins. Crazy stuff.  Then someone taps on my window and scares the daylights out of me. It was the security guard. He was wearing an NYPD hat , to look official.  He started yelling at me.  "what are you doing in here?" . I was pissed off that he was yelling at me and I told him if he kept yelling he would  end up  in here permanently. That didn't help my cause to get out.  The argument went on, and he points to a sign that said  "cemetery closes at  4:30".  He asked me if i could read.  Finally  he  opened the gate and let me out.  Very crazy experience.
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Tonite after dinner, while  walking to my car, a gentleman stopped me and asked "where can I get some ice cream around here?".  The man had an Italian accent and confirmed that  he was from Italy. I had just returned from  Italy and they have the best  gelato there. So, I figured this guy knows his ice cream.  So I gave him directions to a good gelato place a few blocks away.  He says" it's good ice cream" I say, " yes it is gelato". He puts on a sad face. He says, in his thick Italian accent "  I no wanna gelato, I want ice-a cream".  " You know , Ben and Jerry".  Oh my goodness. The guy comes from a place with the best ice-cream/gelato ever, and he wants Ben and jerry.. I was thinking the next person will approach me and  want some  pastries.  I'll direct them to Veniero's for good italian pastry and they'll say  "no no  I want  Hostess twinkles".    
   And that's what  makes the world go 'round.

Summer in the city

Summer in East New York, for starters was very hot. If you spent a few weeks in the  mountains, like we often did, when you get back to ENY it had a strange dirty, kind of fogged over look.  Quite often we just sat around outside the building on the bench. Someone would have a portable radio. We'd be listening to oldies from Newark, NJ. "The Relic Rack" was a favorite. Other shows were  Jocko on your Radio, or Alan Fredericks Kit Kat Club.  Earlier  years had Alan Freed.  I remember  listening to these old songs and with a switchblade, I'd be carving my initials deep in the  wooden bench slat. Day after day I would  keep carving in the same place, making my initials deeper and deeper in the bench.
The mosquitoes were huge. They weren't friendly bugs, they were like  B-52 bombers , diving  into your  neck or arm and sucking your  blood out like the vampires that they are. I kinda like smashing them, while they sucked and the blood would splatter all over. When  we'd go upstairs we'd fight over who got the big fan. I remember the good fan had colored buttons and  the green button was  high speed.  We had no air conditioning.  Nowadays , I can't survive without  A/C.  The  cars used to have "fly" windows, which were little windows you  could turn to direct the wind at yourself to cool off.
     Summer  nights always had the sounds of sirens in the background. They were more melodic than the annoying sirens on police and fire engines today.  We would go up to the rooftop on our  6 story building on Stanley Ave. and watch the fires burning the tenements on Blake Ave. Speaking of Blake Ave,, it was where my mother liked to shop. They had  pushcarts, and each one sold  a different product. Everything  from fresh fish, to vegetables, to meats to pots and pans.  Eventually, Fortunoff graduated from pushcarts to stores. Each store would specialize . One would have clothing, another was a pharmacy, another  dishes and cookware and another  was  bedding.Eventually, There was a suspicious fire and the stores all burnt down. This was on Livonia Ave, in Brownsville.  My mom loved the fire sale and bought all this "china". She was so proud of her purchases. I think she got an amazing deal.  Then a few months later , Maxie Fortunoff opened a huge department store in Westbury. Amaingly, this guy Murray, a New Lots Boy and my friend Fuzzy's boss at the pharmacy store, was given a job as  VP of this huge department store.  It just seemed weird that a hoodlum, could have such a high powered job. At least it seemed that way back then.   Curly's pool room was  on the same block as Fortunoff. When we were 15 we would go there to play pool. You had to be 16, but we had phony proof of age.  Curly's catered to mostly Hispanic folks.  There was a boxing ring in the back. They had pocket billiards,  billiards and snooker  tables.  Only men  were allowed into  pool rooms back then.  It was a few years later when  Playboy Billiards  started letting  women in.  Curly's was  filthy and your hands would be black after  shooting pool there.  The price was  70 cents an hour for the table. Most often we would play for  "time"  or for a couple of bucks.  Murray's pool room, was our other spot. it was  80 cents an hour. It was  right over the Biltmore theatre. Everyone there knew each other. So it was always easy to get a game with someone. The best players in Murrays, were Giff, Shotsy, Davey,Manny and big Mel .  There was a guy named Crazy Laser who spent 20 years in Danamura prison, and a  whole bunch of  lunatics up there. If you got to  Murray's early you could  carry up the block of ice that he used to keep the sodas cold, and get a half hour free time. The tables were "old time' with  beads on a wire to keep score. The sound of the beads were something that stays in your head. The same with  pool balls smacking against each other. A guy named  izzy Knish would sing Moon over Miami outside and  people would  throw him quarters.  Izzy had some   issues but everyone treated him OK.  Saying "sing another one Izzy".  Oh yeah, Gary Crutch was a real good pool player too.  Hate to leave an important fact like that out  , haha.
       I don't know where this story is going, but when we'd drive home from  clubs on Long Island, we would know we were home when we smelled sewage from the swamps off the Belt Parkway near Pennsylvania Ave.  The water way we called shits creek, would give us the smell , that woke us up and told us to  exit the Parkway.  Imagine, the familiar stink of  sewage, told us we were home.  It's a beautiful thing.  Hot town summer in the city, singing, listening to the transistor radios.  Fishing for  stripers off the bridge. Doing crazy stuff.  Ahhh the memories.

Home Cookin'

My mother was a great cook for  some types of foods. When she was asked for the recipe she said " you have to come make it with me". This was because  she went by feel. The quantities were not in teaspoons or cups they were in handfuls, pinches, some of this,  a little of that. When she made matzoh balls or gefilte fish , they had to feel a certain way.  WIth matzoh balls she would add chicken soup to the dry mix instead of  water.  Gefilte fish,  what a mess, she would grind the fish after filleting them, when they float they are done. She always had a cigarette,  a Camel, dangling from her lip.  the ash would grow, and I'd keep watching it. Eventually it got mixed into dish as a secret ingredient.  if she used onions and you were allergic to onions or hatted them, she would lie to you . She'd say "No I didn't use onions". If you see onion peels in her garbage and then challenge her, she would  say , "well maybe  a little I used."
        My mother loved using different peoples  recipes, even if  her own recipe was better. The  craziest was when she wanted to use my mother in law's recipe for  some kind of noodle pudding.  I warned her and told her she could die from that food my motherinlaw made.  She of course refused to believe that  it could be that bad. When I explained that  my father-in-law died from her food, she didn't believe that either.  My mother-in-law made me frozen Tater Tots,,, she served them  ice cold,,,I told her ,  "these aren't fully cooked, they are still frozen."  she said " the package said  9 minutes, I cooked them 9 minutes. That's how they are supposed to be."   I've seen people choke on her food. Normally , we would go eat some pizza or something  before we went to my mother-in-law's  for dinner.
One day my mother  while doubting me, took a sample of mother-in-law's noodle pudding thing and  gagged on it, and  spit it in the garbage, and  made  strange sounds.  She said " i can't believe you are right. This food is inedible."  My cat Spanky died within 2 months of eating my mother -in-law's food.  He  had starved himself to death.  I'm amazed no other family members died, but some got sick.
Grayish Greenish chopped liver  was  her  specialty.  She could have  been  this country's secret weapon in the  big wars of the past.
     Thank goodness my kids inherited my mom's cooking talents and not my wife's mom's.
Although, my kids did get to grow up on my special tuna fish.  I would put  Tuna, vinegar, sunflower seeds, M&M's, chocolate syrup ,tomatoes, celery, and a touch of worcestshire sauce in it. The M&Ms made it attractive to the kids, and they loved it.  I always  played around with weird ingredients and that's probably why my son, "chef of the future' developed his famous pasta with tomato sauce and apples.  He is Mr. Experimenter. I wonder where he got that from .  Although he went to Thailand and cooked what looked like amazing dishes.  I believe, you experiment, don't be rigid, following recipe books and you get  a better dish.  Do like my mom, go by feel, by taste.
My daughter makes amazing chocolate chip cookies. It was by trial and error. She discovered the effects on the cookie if you used brown sugar or white sugar. The consistency changed.  Her chocolate chip and  her rainbow cookies are the best in the world.
   So with all that  food talk , I think i'm going to this Vietnamese place and getting a coconut shrimp sandwich.  Adios for now

Catching Fish

I bcame a fisherman quite some time ago. I was 8 years old when I went fishing for the first time.
We were upstate in Loch Sheldrake and my father borrowed 2 fishing rods and we went out fishing.
We were using live minnows and had red and white floats or bobbers rigged up. With this setup we could have gotten perch, pickerel bass or blue gill sunnys.  My float went down,  I had a fish, I was so excited. My dad said "  hook him"  ,,,I'm like  wtf does  "hook him " mean.  so I turn to my father and the fish pulls and swims fast and ,  well the rod and reel  ended up at the bottom of the lake with the first fish I caught on the end of the line with a hook in his mouth.  Ummm I was  pretty embarrassed.  My dad was too, he had to buy this guy Manny a new rod and reel.
    I got better at fishing as the years went by.  A fun thing to do was  fish for minnows with the tiniest hook ever . A minnow is bait, they are like size of small sardine.  So, to fish for them with a fishing rod is something no one does .  However, it is quite a lot of fun.  We take a  tiny piece of bread and put it on the smallest #12 hook.  We throw a  handful of bread in the water to attract the minnows.  You can actually feel the tiny fish nibble and then you hook it.. Yes  I learned what  "hook it" meant.
 After we caught these we went fishing  for  bigger fish in Swan Lake.  It was  exciting watching  bass jump out of the water , early in the morning.  They usually hung out under the  trees. '
   When we weren't using live bait, we'd use  spinners that shined to catch pickerel. Pickerel had weak jaws and we had a hand net to net the fish when it was close to the boat. If you didn't use the net, you could end up with just a fish mouth on your hook.  We'd use the coolest lure, a hula popper, to catch bass. It kind of looked like a frog.  It would float on top of the lake and  you would jerk it, and it would make popping sound of a frog. Then a big bass would   dive out of the water with the lure in his mouth and  then dive deep.  What a fight!  then you'd land the  fish and  hope it was big enough to keep. I think at that time it had to be 12inches.  Bass had no teeth. They would swallow a giant  bull frog  whole. They had a sharp needle-like top fin.  Bass are cool fish.
    Now back in the city, yep in East New York,  me and the Napolitanos are getting ready to go fishing for snappers.  I'm abut  12 years old now.  We are going to the  1st bridge.  Otherwise known as the Crossbay bridge.  It's just past Howard Beach. I think the neighborhood was called Broad Channel. At the end of the bridge there were tons of tiny bait fish. These were called  spearing. They actually taste good fried. But in those days we didn't eat spearing. We caught them in homemade nets.
We took window screen  and using  fishing line we made it into a basket.  We then tied a rag to this basket and we had a long cord on it.  We would buy Moosebec sardines for  9 cents a can , rub the sardines into the screen and pout the oil on the rag.  we'd throw it in and watch the  spearing swarm the net then we'd start pulling  the net in fast.  We'd end up with many beautifully shiny spearing and a few killies. The spearing had a silver horizontal line across their bodies. Most of the fishermen would spend 75 Cents on a box of frozen spearing. Every fisherman knows live bait is so much better than  frozen. Even  fresh dead bait is way better than frozen.  We would fill small paper cups with the spearing and walk the bridge.  Their had to be  50 guys fishing on the bridge. We'd sell a cup of spearing for  15 cents.    we' d make between 10 and  20 bucks a day.  We would  take the spearing and put them on a long shafted hook and   catch snappers.  Tons of snappers. Snappers are  baby blue fish. They are fast and  fun to catch on a light weight fresh water pole. A few years earlier we would  go way back  in Jamaica Bay, on foot and fish for mostly snappers, but it turned out the water was polluted.  Even the water by the  1st bridge was polluted for swimming , but we ate the fish anyway.
One year sharks chased in  the mackerel.  We would catch some snappers and  cut them in chunks and then fish for mackerel.  The mackerel put up a  good fight and we would catch a bunch.   Occasionally we would catch the fish that swim under sharks, called pilot fish. Those were fun to catch, but they weren't meant to eat. So we would throw them back.  Other times of year when we were fishing on the 1st bridge, we would fish for porgies.  Porgies were fished for on the higher part of the bridge. In the deeper water , and on the bottom.  We usually used worms to catch  porgies.  Just  a piece of a worm .  Blood worms had  4 black teeth like claws in their head that would come out and grab you.  Those little worms hurt.  Ouch.  Sand worms had  2 bigger  black  teeth-claws ,those would  really hurt.  Sometimes fishing for porgies we would  catch a horseshoe crab. These were big  black helmet like things with a long sword sticking out of them. They are kind of prehistoric.   They war  big too. We would then take a  cherry bomb or  M80 ashcan and put it inside these guys.  They had waterproof fuses . We'd light it throw them over the bridge and watch them blow up .  That explosion was accompanied by a loud  boom.  So much  fun.
     Now the big fish.  I went out at night with my father and  this mechanic friend of his, into Jamaica Bay.  It was  somewhere between  the 1 st bridge and  JFK airport. It was called  Idlewild Airport back then.  It's real dark out there, and tons of sandbars.  The boat was lit up like a Christmas tree. The guy had  tail lights from  cars all over the  boat.  This guy was drinking a lot of beer.  He kept swerving all over the place.  My father asked him why he is swerving . He said he was avoiding sandbars.  I don't think we were near any of the sandbars he was avoiding. The guy was seeing  sand bars.   When he stopped swerving  , Crash,  he hit a sandbar.. He couldn't start the engine now.  We started driving ,  he said  it was a  Cotter pin or Carter pin that broke.  Now this is my first time going for  Stripers.  That is  Striped Bass. The prized salt water fish to catch.  At that time it had to be  16 inches to keep it.  Nowadays , it has to be  28 inches to keep and was as high as  36 inches to keep.. So we are drifting and drifting.  My line is in the  water  floating  a big 'ol sand worm on top.  My father  and  Sal, look scared.  We go past the Marine Park bridge. That means we are  approaching the Atlantic Ocean.  I am not frightened at all.  i want to catch my first  striper.   There weren't cell phones back then to call for help with. The 2 grownups are waving lights , as we drift out . Then  POW,,,,i get  a hit. I hook it  hard, but  pulling my rod straight back... I let it run....it  breaks water and  runs  . I can hear my drag   buzzing,as th fish runs out and I reel in every chance I get.  My pop and  his friend are  busy looking for  help.  And i'm fishing with  this big striped bass on my line.   Finally  I get the fish in... I am so happy . I am so proud .  I finally get the attention of my father and Sal and show off my fish.  They say "we are halfway to France and you were still fishing?"  I say "yep, and  here is my first  striper".  We measured it and it was a keeper. It was about  18 inches.. It was such a good fight.  The U.S.Coast Guard showed up and  towed us in.   I was so happy, they were so thankful the Coast Guard showed up.  They cracked open a couple of beers and  we were on our way back to dock.  What a great  night.
       After catching my first bass, I was psyched to catch more in my life.  Me and  some  neighbors, Mickey Napolitano and his dad Fast Eddie, My dad, a friend  named Barry and  Wobby Boy would get ready at night and go to the 2nd bridge, aka Broad Channel Bridge.   We'd stop on the way at  Pizza City or Big Bow Wow for some Food.  The Aliens  Motorcycle gang hung out at the Bow Wow, and people  drag raced between the two bridges.  Anyway,  we get to the bridge, find our spots .  We'd  put nice juicy big sand worms on the gold striper hooks. We'd use long long leaders, they were  monofilament leaves about  3 feet long.  We would  float the word on top.  The  best Striper fisherman on the  bridge were Striper  Stanley , who was  my friend Hoss's  father. and  Striper Bob.  Bob would  yell "Over the Bridge"  every time he landed a striper. The 2nd Bridge was much higher than the 1st Bridge and it was  long way up  if you got a striper. If you got a huge one  you had to walk it all the way to the end and  bring it in on the shore.  Anything  under  20 inches you could bring up on the bridge. We all started using the same  Striper  cry " over the bridge"... We would fish until late and get back to the projects at like  3 AM.  We did this in the  hot summer. It helped us get away from the heat and mosquitoes. I think it did. Striper fishing was mucho fun.
    We then got into  Striper fishing at Lido Beach. Also shark fishing, as sharks would come in close to shore , as well as Sting rays.  We  bought Harnell Rods and  Del Fino reels. These were the state of the art fishing equipment for  surf fishing at the time.  Mitchell 302's were also used or I'm pretty shire Penn made an open faced reel.  We liked  spinner reels and  would use the Penn reels , like a Penn Senator on the  Party boats.  I remember  Richie Napolitano or his brother Sonny catching a big sting ray. It weighted about  40 lbs and they thought they had a giant shark on.  Those days were exciting.
      That was many years ago ,,i mean many.  The last 20 years I've been surfcasting  on  the East End of Long Island.  We take our  4x4's on the beach and cruise from East Hampton to Montauk.  It changed out there in the last 15 years, You used to be able to ride the beach anytime. Now it's limited times and limited areas.  When blue fish were in , it was a lot of fun.  There would be  1000's of them feeding frantically on bait and even biting each other.  Just as frantic were the  fisherman  driving fast  ,jumping out of their jeeps and throwing in their lines. Usually using Hopkins lures  or  Ava lures.  We were very particular as to what color rubber tube was on the end of the lure. Or we had  feathers on a Hopkins.  Sometimes it was darters or swimming lures. We were experts.  We wore our waders when the weather got cold. We would be in the water with the fish. A big bass was quite a fight. Catching big bass and fighting it , watching it run out , reeling it in. Watching it break water. Your arms tiring ,  hoping you would  win out over the tenacious bass.  You would get it all the way in and then it would  make a  big surge outward, swimming for its life.  Finally you would  haul it in and if you were lucky it would be  a huge fish. 28 to 36 inches was the minimal size you were legally allowed to keep. The biggest  Striper caught by someone that  we were present for was a 100lb bass at Montauk Point, by a novice fisherman , that didn't even know what they caught. Sickening.
   Anyway, fishing can be a lot of fun. An old fisherman, named Francis, told me, that the "Stripers arrive when the Lilacs Bloom and then they go with the first  snow".   I can't wait to get out on the beach this year and catch a few bass. And of course  cook it up and  eat a most delicious meal.  You are only allowed to keep one fish. That is for conservation purposes.  If we think there will be many fish, we will catch and release the fish , and wait for the big one to take home.  We surfcasters would  always bid each other farewell by saying "tight lines'  to each other.
  I think there will be more fishing stories on this blog.  Like the times I almost drown. Well that's a whole nuther story.

My roots

My grandparents didn;t speak English. One grandfather i never met. All of the grandparents were from Russia.  That's what they said. They were Russian. My grandfather was in the Russian army.  The grandfather I knew was a furrier. His brother was a baker.  Grandpa's name was Sam and his brother they called Juice. Because he drank a lot of juice.  One side of the family was from  Bila Tserkva, a town near Kiev. The others were from Volochisk ( aka Woloczysk) , in the West, near the Zbruch River. It is now  all known as the Ukraine.  Volochisk is in the Volhynia province of the  Ukraine. This is Southwest of Kiev.  My father said his family was  richer than my mom's.  He said  "we had wood floors, your mom's family had dirt floors".  I was impressed  , haha.  I really want to go to Russia/ Ukraine and see where my ancestors were from.  I love the food, I grew up on that food. The language would have a familiar  sound.  One  day  I'll make it there.

Summers in the Mountains

When I was a kid my parents took us up to the Catskill Mountains for the summer. They would  rent a bungalow most often at a place called Schreiberville, in Swan Lake. It was a lot of fun. The bungalow colony actually had different  neighborhoods from  poor to rich. We gradually moved up from the apartments to  the Blueberry Hill area,  a  mid range bungalow.  In the day time  during the week we were in camp.  Our scheduled activities were  swimming and swim instruction. It is where I got my Junior Life Saver badge.  Also softball and  paddle ball.  We carved our own wooden paddles at Arnie Naroff's arts and craft workshop. We burnt our names in them with a wood burner and  shellacked the rackets. They were like solid wood racket ball rackets.  Funny that one of the kids , Arnie's son, whom I used to play racket ball with , I now see on  TV as a  major financial guest on CNBC.  Joel Naroff was an excellent  paddle ball player.  But me and  Jeff Hausler   beat him and my cousin Glenn in a 3 game match. Jeff was  chubby but fast.  Paddle ball was an awesome game.   Our unscheduled activities were stealing sodas from the storage room of the  Coffee Shop.  Shooting cows , picking blueberries.  Salamnder hunts were a popular activity too. There used to be a microphone in the office and all day long you would hear announcements like " Mickey Abramson come to the office"  or  "the Butcher is here" " the Fish man is at the parking lot"  etc.  Speaking of cars,  My father had a 195o Chevy..  My brother was  about  3 years old one year we were up at  Schreiberville.  My brother, they used to call Dennis the Menace.  Well , one fine day, my father  had parked the  ugly grey chevy outside our bungalow on top of the hill.  My brother wandered to the car and thought it would be a good idea to climb in.  I have no idea if the keys were in the car, but I do know that it had a  Starter button. In those days  you  pressed the starter button  to start the car.  At the bottom of the hill was first the paddleball courts. There were about 50 kids playing there. Just past the courts were bungalows.
We hear the starter cranking and  all of a sudden, the little driver,  My 3 year old brother, had the  car started and rolling down the hill.  Perhaps he just put it in neutral, i have no idea, and he couldn't reach the brake or the gas pedals. But he was moving   fast and about to kill many kids.  This truck driver guy with a shiny bald  head, Al Stitchel, somehow dove thru the window and  pulled the emergency brake and stopped the car. He scared the daylites out of my brother.  The kid wanted to finish his ride; Oh well, 50 kids were saved. A memorable event.
     One day a friend of my father  was coming up to visit.  The guy's name was  Reese.  Well, I was thinking since my father was such a great baseball player, and a huge Brooklyn Dodger fan, that it was Pee Wee Reese the Capt. of the Brooklyn Dodgers that was  visiting.  I wasted no time, and  went to the office and announced on the microphone that "the great Pee Week Reese is at my bungalow".  Kids started  running  back to their bungalows to grab their baseballs and gloves and  pens to get his autograph. Some had cameras.  I went into  our bungalow and said hi to our visitors.  My parents were wondering what was going on outside. Apparently they didn't hear the announcement.  There were 100 people , kids and adults outside.    I told them " they're here to see Pee Wee".   My father said  " who the heck is Pee Wee" .  I pointed to  Reese.  They were thinking  WTF ,   i'm sure.   Well, my parents looked at each other and  looked at  Reese and looked at me.  They then told me he was not  Pee Week Reese.  He was  Harold Reese.  Now ironically,  Pee Wee's name was  Harold too  Damn, I was sure this guy was Pee Wee Reese and  just didn't want to  sign autographs.. Well this is a heck of a story, because   I forgot what  happened.  Either  he decided to sign autographs anyway, which I think is actually what happened or     He said he wasn't Pee Wee Reese.  Oh well,  it was memorable except for the end.
      Noxema was a household item. Very popular with  people who had fair complexions.  I had many freckles and got sunburnt so easily.  I used to go in the pool and stay in until my lips turned blue.  My skin was  bright red, so sun burnt and blue lips. What a sight.   Quite often I was  covered with noxema, what a smell.  Unforgettable smell.   I would be in the pool wearing my t-shirt,  how embarrassing that was but  my mom was just trying to protect me.  One year i had  such blisters from the sun, they had to soak me in vinegar. That was the cure back then, Noxema and vinegar.
   At night, the  bungalow colony had a  "casino" it was  just a  big room with chairs and a stage. They either had  Jackie Mason or some Nipsy Russell or some  Borscht belt comedian performing,  a live band or a movie. The only movie I remember seeing was  High Noon, a great  cowboy movie.   The band was a  cool small band. It was  older guys. I think the name of the band was  Abby Patner band. It's all coming back to me.  One guy Herbie Shlanger  had lived in Texas for a while, so they called him Tex.  He had a  big  white  standup bass. he was  really good.  Then  a friend of mine, he was only about    12 at the time, was a great electric guitar player. His name was Pete. They were jamming the  boogie boogie. Wow that music was  great. We all had flashlights. There were no street lights outside.  The movie time was a good time to  sneak underneath the casino and steal sodas. They had  Mission soda, really good stuff. That's where the store room for the  coffee shop was , underneath the casino.
     There were a few dogs up there.  One dog gave birth under the casino , and a white pup named snowball was born. What a cute dog.  My friend Sonny had a  sheep dog named Curly what a  friendly fun dog.  Joel Naroff had a dog that was very  friendly too, a Boston Terrier.  Really fun dogs to play with .  The rapist guy down the road , Luther, had a collie.  Scary guy,  he was famous and everyone  stayed away from his house but we knew of him. Richie Brown's family had a guest house down the road.  Richie was  a cool guy and  he also liked catching frogs and shooting sling shots. His older brother  Punchy  had the longest hair for those days.  They were good guys and from Brooklyn, Turned out that 20 years later my friend Debbie Duck who I met in Berkeley, was  a good friend of theirs.
     Anyway,  I know i'm rambling, so  to wrap this up,  It was fun summers. We didn't  know about  going to Europe or on cruises or stuff like that. We went to the mountains.  After being  up there all summer, and then the drive back to the city. We'd always stop at the Red Apple rest on Old Rt 17.  It was packed.  We would finally get to Manhattan and pass this  Yale truck  way up on top of a building, right by the West Side Highway.. It's still there today. Then we'd go through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. I loved tunnels.  it was mesmerizing  driving throughout the tunnel. As if you were falling into a deep endless hole. So cool.  Then we get to East new york. You could smell it off the Belt Parkway. The stinky swamps.  The buildings looks so drab and dirty, Such a noticeable difference  between the country and the  city. Hard to explain, but it just hit ya, that you were back in the city . Back in the projects.

let's get macho

As a kid and teenager, growing up in East New York was an ongoing test of  manliness or machoness.
I guess the start of things like this was  the " I dare you to"  or even better  " I double dare you". So we did stuff , like shoot a rubber band at an old lady, steal a candy bar, squirt a water gun at someone, drop a water balloon on a persons head, or  maybe set a field on fire.
    We played games like  "stretch" aka  "land" , where you  put your foot out , next to  your friends' feet and throw your knife in the ground, trying not to hit the other guy's foot.  Yes, we all had  knives, and yes sometimes the  knife hit someone's foot.  A favorite game was  called  "chicken" or "chicken fights" we would be on our  bikes ( 2 wheel bicycles) most often Schwinn Hornets or  Roll Fasts with 26 inch wheels.  We would set up like knights on horses jousting. Go full speed and possibly crash into the oncoming bike.  Of course quite often someone would  turn away or bail out, thus it was  called chicken fight, since someone often chickened out.
      We   played games similar to dodge ball but with pink rubber ball , called poison ball. same rules as dodge ball , but the ball was small and came faster and harder. Sometimes  we    had   " punk tests".
One of the things we did was put two people's arms together.  Forearm against  forearm.  then someone dropped a  lit cigarette between the two arms.   The forearms of each participant of the punk test would heat up and start to burn. The winner would be the one who didn't pull away.  The  one who pulled his arm away because he couldn't take the heat , was  the  "punk".  I still have the scar on my left forearm from  a cigarette burn.
 Basically, we were nuts.  We even took a  nickel and  rubbed it hard on our  arm,  making our initials. Rubbing the skin until it bled, and it scabbed.  when the seab came off you had a scar with your initials.  I still have  a slight remnant of that. it is unrecognizable but I remember it well.
    There were other  silly things we  did, like  walk on hot coals,   play William Tell with  various items from  paper clips and rubber bands, to pea shooters, to BB guns.  That was totally dumb.
   Anyway,  i'm still alive today to  reminisce and talk about it.
        Walking was  another thing,,, Yeah , how you walked.  we would practice until it was natural. We would  walk with a  "bop".  Some  would  call it jitterbuggin'.  You would walk in a rhytnic way, bouncing back and  forth.  Almost with a sort of limp.  We would keep our heads  down and our collars up.  We thought it looked tough.  The bop became just our natural walk , that  made our parents'  heads spin. I still have a  little bit of a bop.  Crazy stuff.