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.

pee dance

Happy Holidays to all my readers and fans.  I just looked at my post last year about Christmas tipping, check it out if you didn't see it.
     My new year resolution for this year , is not to make fun of old guys dancing on the Men's room line, waiting to pee. It is amusing watching  a bunch of guys over  50 doing the "pee dance".  All sorts of creative steps, but they all keep to the basic move, of a hand in their pocket holding themselves. I think in crowded places like stadiums,  theatres etc, there should be a special line for senior citizen men.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

When I was  a kid growing up in E.N.Y.  I went to elementary school P.S. 273 aka the Wortman School, we had a lot of fun.  Kindergarten all I remember were 2 pretty teachers and making sand castles in the sand box.  First grade got better, I had my first crush on Sue Ellen. I'm not sure if it was the cool red pencils she used to bring to school that got my attention. I got everyone's attention in 1st grade as i started my carreer in comedy, yes,  I was the class clown. My report card confirmed that I was the  "class clown". What an achievement. But Miss Glaser loved me anyway. 2nd grade the Ms Levinson was a little stricter and called my mother in to talk to her about my not paying attention in class.  I was pretty funny though.
Third grade was a nightmare,  Miss Bauman was  a  short, blonde, nervous woman who had the loudest screams ever.  Half of the time she was screaming at me. Even though I was  innocent.  There was a song on the radio sometime around then, called Charlie Brown, he said in the song " why is everyone pickin' on me"?  My good friend Sandy used to throw paper airplanes at Ms. Bauman when her back was turned. Immediately she would turn , yell at me,  make me stay after class and write on the board 100 times," i will not throw things in class". Sandy was a good looking kid, great athlete, romeo, and charmed the teachers and everyone else. We hung around together , but somehow I always got into trouble,, one way or another.
One time we were playing with an old garden hose.  He tells me put the hose to my ear and listen to him talk thru it.  So I do, and  I thought that was  a cool echo sounding voice. He then tells me to say something to him. I put the hose to my mouth and get ready to say hello, and Sandy blows hard through the other end. The result was  my getting a mouth full of spiders and dirt, and trench mouth.  I was tricked, DANG!
Another time we were playing , throwing rocks. Wouldn't ya know it,  sandy threw a rock and it cracked my head open. I had to get to the hospital for  stitches. I got a  "hole in the head".  Anyway, 4th grade i had Miss Kessock, she was my favorite teacher of all time. She used to read to us. I remember her reading Mary Poppins and  Pippi Long Stocking.  I used to  look at the shortest books, that mostly had horses or cowboys, like  Cowboy Sam,  the Black Stalliion, etc.  Miss Kessock used to give us a choice of writing a book report or drawing a picture about the book.  Did I mention I was the slowest reader ever, and i hated to read.  However, I was a great artist. I used to take a book from the back of the room. Usually birds, reptiles, dinosaurs, were the titles and I would draw one. I always had a crowd of kids around me when i drew these pictures. I was  really good at that. Also, being the class clown, Miss kessock actually liked my sense of humor.  She was the best. But, not learning to read or not reading kind of effected my schooling later on , and hatred for  term papers and reading assignments.
     We normally went home for lunch.  There were 4 of us in a contest of who ate the fastest. We used to run home, eat a sandwich and run back to school. All within a  half hour.  This guy David was usually the winner.  I used to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich most days. i think David didnt eat and just lied to us. But who knew, I would  shove that sandwich down my throat so fast, almost choke in order to win. i think i won once. Maybe David actually ate that day.
      Lateness was a big problem for me. I  was late for school everyday.  I still have a lateness problem. It must be a disease, late-itis, and it is incurable. When I got to school , i had to wait on the lateline, then  write my name and a report would go to the principal's office.  In the  5th grade, I figured out the cure for my lateness.  I became the  lateline monitor.  There was no more latelines. Since I was the monitor, and was the last to arrive, no one was ever late again. Including me. It was genius.
      My teacher  Mr. Rosansky used to walk around the room and firmly push his middle finger back with his thumb, and flick it hard at my head , after every wise crack I would make in class. He did that to all the  clowns in the class.  It was kind of fun to get  popped in the head.  It made you feel "special".
Me and a few of my classmates started the song writing society. Since we had to sing the Star Bangled Banner,  My country Tis  of Thee., etc  we wrote our own words. 3 of us collaborated on the lyrics, and sang them loud in the  auditorium during assembly . Also during practice in the classroom. Words such as the Star Strangled Banana,  Jose can  you see instead of  oh say can you see. etc etc. good clean fun.
We also had a group named after a pickpocket on the TV show Yancy Derringer. The Jody Society. We used to walk around and pick pocket peoples things, usually it was  pens. At the end of the day we showed how good we were, and emptied our pockets.  Somedays  I had 10 pens. I was  such a good pickpocket. I made my mother proud.  NOT!
      6th Grade was Mr. Kerr, a good guy, there was also a real tall teacher, who had a TV show called Mr. Wizard. The guy was a Science whiz.  My class clownmanship excelled in 6th grade.  Mr Kerr even came to my house to brag to my parents what a clown I was. Well he didn't exactly brag. He wanted to know how to shut me up in class.
       Roller skating was a  big thing from  kindergarten to   6th grade. We used to skate great. Wearing  Union Hardware no. 9  skates.  Big clamps,  always  had a skatekey, and wore it around my neck.  The leather  strap would get tucked in a cool way. The metal wheels against the concrete, would make a sound that let you know spring was here. Everyone would be skating. I could skate backwards, frontwards and pretty fast. I had a cool hockey stick, that said Rangers on it, and  i taped it up really cool.  We used to play roller hockey in the PS 273 park. We also played roller derby.  I was even blood brothers with  Sandy,  Bernie, and  Moony. We cut each others wrists with our pocket knives and held it together, vowing the blood brother oath.  It was pretty cool , we thought back then. And I am still in touch with my  blood bro Moony.  Sandy, died  in the  70s.  Bernie I imagine is off in some far off land. He a very political 6th grader.  Well those were the good ol' days.
         Yep,  I'm still late.  I'm late right now for an appointment.  OUCH!

health food

They say certain chocolate is good for you. The more cacao the better.  I tasted a chocolate bar
that had 85% cacao. It was terrible.  So now instead of eating 85% Cacao
I prefer 100% Ppig

at a sushi bar

I was at my local sushi bar the other night. They had 3 sushi chefs working most people assume chefs in sushi restaurants are Japanese, but that is not the case. Also a common assumption is that all sushi chefs are trained sushi chefs. In fact, most sushi chefs in the U.S. are sushi chefs that have done their apprenticeship in Japan, under a master for  7 years.  O.K. back to my story.
     This place I have been to many times, so I do know the ethnicity of the chefs. One guy, a short, stocky guy with huge hands is from Burma, the guy in the middle who wears a black hat is from Mexico and a very funny guy, the third has a very zen-like, focused appearance and looks very Japanese.
      A woman is sitting next to me at the sushi bar. I engaged in a conversation with her and she is Chinese and has just come back from Hong Kong. She has a heavy Chinese accent and loves to eat.  As I was pigging-out on an extraordinary quantity of Japanese food, this woman was outdoing me on the quantity she was  eating.  She had a  huge bowl of  yosanabi ( japanese noodle,seafood soup) in front of her, plus various other dishes she had already finished. Now she tries to order some  sushi directly from the sushi chef. This is from the  zen-like sushi chef.  She says in a thick Chinese accent, " I would rike some sushi, same rike rast time. I want a rot"   The sushi chef, replies in his heavy accent, back to her " zushi?  you want zushi"?  She says "  zushi? what that?  I want sushi."  He says  "  zushi, with Lice"? she says  "SUSHI"  .   I feel I must help them.  You see the  zen- like chef, although appearing to look very Japanese, and he even speaks Japanese, is Chinese and speaks Chinese.  I know this for a fact, as a good friend of mine is Chinese and has spoken to this chef in Chinese.  So I say to the woman"  you are Chinese. He is Chinese.  If you speak in Chinese , you will get what you want!"  She asked him in Chinese, he smiled, and answered in Chinese. They began conversing at rapid speed.  She got tons of sushi. She was  very happy. The sushi chef was  very happy.  I was very happy

blueberries and hunting

I was 12 years old,  in Swan Lake, NY after a long day of blueberry picking. Making sure not to pick the green ones, or even the  reddish blue ones.  The big plump blue ones were what we wanted. everyone had a big pot to fill.  The end result was the best, that was the  warm blueberry pie my mom would bake.  The sun was strong in the blueberry patch, occasionally you would hear of an old person  passing  out from sun stroke. Occasionally you would hear about  a young person who stepped in a fresh pile of cow poop.
Well , more than occasionally, and  more than occasionally that person was  ME.   Blueberry picking  was  fun, you would encounter, bees,  wasps, and maybe even see a butterfly. I used to like wiping the frosty thin coating from the blueberry and make it look shiny. I also like to throw a few at someone's head and watch it  Splat.  We used to pick blueberries  often, when they were ready to pick.
        In the same area people would  hunt, that was  later on in the year.  I remember  in Ronnie's garage in Swan lake they had a huge deer head on the  wall. I think it was a  12 point buck.  Someone would say when looking at the head on the wall, " boy he must've been runnin' pretty fast".  Took me years to finally get that joke.  Anyway, there was no hunting in the  summer, but we heard about it.  My father,  one day did some hunting in the summer though. He was a great shot. He took out his  7 shot 38 revolver , or it may have been a  32 calibre, i forgot.  It was a collector's item, having that  7th shot to fool someone who was  counting shots. Well, that is if you were in a shoot out. Not something that occurs too often.  So back to the shooting,  my father draws the gun, and shoots 3 shots in the sky and  2 ducks fall to the ground.  Unbelievable!, the man was a great shot. He scored "expert" in the  police shooting test, and had a medal to  prove it.  He was a police officer. His son, on the other hand, always managed to do illegal or semi-illegal things.  My dad, also was hired one summer to shoot a  giant turtle, that was in Dixie Lake and turning  boats over. So we went out turtle hunting, of course I put a red devil lure on my fishing line and was trolling for some perch or pickerel, while we were scouting  big turtles.  he saw a head bob up. It was the turtle, dad shot at it,  missed.  He had one more chance but missed again.
      Speaking of hunting, and we weren't allowed to in the summer. Also, a 12 year old, I don't believe is allowed to hunt. Speaking of  illegal.  We got David Gorilitzky's big brother's  22 calibre rifle and  set out to the blueberry patch to  hunt.  We figured, if the grownups can hunt deer, and talk about how good it was to eat,  we could hunt better eating   game.  We tracked down  our prey,  it was  huge. It was  right there, maybe 10 of them, big black and white cows.  Yeah, what could be better eating than a cow.
I had the first  shot,  BOOM,  i hit the cow in the stomach,  she started running.  they all kind of scattered.  We heard some old guy with a hat, yelling at us.  "are you kids crazy?  I'm gonna kill yas"  " my cows won't give milk for  a  week now."  We ran so fast.  Got back, hid the rifle, and  prayed no one would find out.  Somehow, we did get caught.  I wonder how  that happened. A pissed off farmer, some amazed parents.  And two kids, who were in deep trouble for  shooting  a  cow. It's sad that we didn't get to eat that cow.  We got yelled at, a little punished, but  it was a fun day hunting. We were kinda  proud.

Deaf people in the restaurant

I was eating in a restaurant and across from me were two women who were deaf.
They were conversing away, using sign language and then also text messaging each other .
I thought that was pretty cool that they were texting.  After they left, I notice 2 other women
conversing away, hand signs flying.  I say to myself, what's going on here? I've eaten here 100s of times
and never saw so many people  who were deaf.  On my way out, I got closer to the second pair of women, who were still waving their hands in deep discussion.  But I was wrong, they weren't deaf.  They were
Italians, just being expressive.