Snow Storms in the projects

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

Hurricane and phone service

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

Hurricane Sandy

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

things i hate

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

Doctors

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

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

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

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

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

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

insects, reptiles and stuff

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

Fright at night

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