Just A Brooklyn Kid

(Sample)

A Biographical Novel by Asta Dido

The Candy Store

My name is Salvatore, last name Diddio. Born and raised in The East New York Section of Brooklyn, in the 1940’s, where it was summer all year long except for the time when there was snow in the streets. I was called, and was the original, “Sallyboy!” a two sewer stickball player and master of all the games of marbles, king of “Ring-A-Leavio” and the deadliest player of the card game “War” that ever existed! I could pitch Pennies with the rich kids and win! I was a good kid—I was the best kid--ever!

As kids growing up in the streets of Brooklyn we gauged the seasons by the kids games we played; Potsie, Skellzies, Kick the Can,, Statues, Red Light-Green Light, Johnny–on-the-Pony, Stoopball and hundreds of other games, most of them, lost forever. Of them my favorite was the roughhouse Ring-A-Leavio! When it rained we traded Comic Books and “Base Ball Cards.” I say Base Ball cards but there were all kinds of cards especially those of Cow Boy Movie Hero’s. Dixie Cup Ice Cream from the Bungalow Bar Truck even had the covers made into round cards that you had to peel off the waxy paper protective covering that ya delightfully licked clean to see. There were strips of cards that you bought from your corner candy store that depicted war scenes and had to be separated by tearing the serrated connection. You could play with these cards by either flipping them to match the heads and tails of cards on the ground or wrap them in a rubber band and toss against the wall to see who came closest; if you were smart you cheated by placing a rubber shoe heel in between the deck for the weight that just plopped when landed. The Jewish kids in the next neighborhood (south of Livonia Avenue) played with filberts, the round hazel nuts rolled by the handful into a hole called the “pot” and the winner was the one who got the most in the pot in three tries. That game was too nutty for me—I would rather roll with “Tootsie” Tootsie Roll Candy that is and lick button candy off strips of paper sold in my (Mom & Pops) Candy Store. There was Baby Ruth and Milky Way that we kept in with the ice cream—frozen stiff. Speaking of Stiffs, the previous owner passed on and left his dentures in a glass with eight flat sides half way down and we kids, brother, sister and I refused to drink from that glass (or anything like it)—we skived a Brooklyn word derived from the Sicilian Sciviouso or sloppy. We learned these word from our parents who could never decide what language to speak so, the combined and spoke both American and Sicilian dialect.

That dialect and those made up words my parents used, got me into some fun trouble on a visit to my relatives in Petrosino, Sicily in 1954.

Speaking of Candy Stores, at age 10, I stepped behind a store counter and began working for my Mom and Pop, my bosses and the owners. I could “jerk the soda’ with the best and make an egg cream and malted milk shake fit for a King or Mafia Boss. I sold frozen twists and mellow rolls and “twofers”—cigarettes two for a penny; Wings, Spuds, Lucky Strike, Chesterfield, Camels, Old Gold and Johnnie’s “Call for Philip Morris” brand. We had one kid with a speech defect caused by a hair lip, Ritchie, sent by his mother every day, with one cent to buy “a ponies wirt of titiettes”—there was no “carding” in those days. I remember the old Italian men coming into the store to buy “Di Napoli Cigars”—black like twisted rope and just as stinky. I guess I can say it since I am the first born Italian/American generation, we called them “Ginny Stinkers.” That’s politically incorrect these days and anyone calling me Ginny, Wop or Dago better guard their nose because Ima punch it flat! In later life I became a school teacher and I’ve always known that you learn just as much and more outside the classroom. You can and will learn many things by working behind a store counter, especially a candy store, stuff you can never learn anywhere else like don’t turn you back on kids—some kids steal candy and will rob you blind given half the chance. Some adults seeing a kid behind the counter will try to scam ya saying he gave you ten dollars when he only gave you one. You keep the bill on the register keys and be careful giving change—you close that draw quickly to avoid the guys I call “the grab and dashers!” Lessons can be harsh and sometimes cruel and even brutal but add these to your formal schooling and you can become a well rounded human champ! In the store you are placed squarely in front of the nature of the human being and there are no better class rooms or instructors; it’s the perfect “give and take!” We had big tubs of fresh ice cream in several flavors including the rare to die for pistachio which we sold by the scoop in a sweet cone. I could make malteds, sundaes and banana splits; don’t laugh I had crushed and candied nuts too. We had Charlotte Russes and “Jelly Apples” (that momma made in the kitchen in the back of the store where we lived). The Charlotte Russes, I don’t know if the exist today, was a patty of plain cake served in a paper pastry cup and covered with fresh whipped cream and was delivered to us daily by the baker himself and who serviced his route. They sold out every day—we never had one return especially with me behind the counter. My mother kept blaming the baker for ”shorting” her but, I was the culprit and she knew it and let me slide because I put in some long hours—from 3, right after school, ‘till about ten pm. We closed at eleven. Our candy store had no refrigeration as such—we had large chunks of “dry Ice” that the ice cream man delivered. We could freeze all kinds of candies and jellies and sell them along side frozen pops, popsicles and the ever delicious ice cream sandwich. My favorite then and will always be “the walking sundae”—One scoop of vanilla ice cream covered with fresh whipped cream sprinkled with dried nuts and drizzle over with cherry syrup served in a paper cup with a small wooden spoon. We could keep all varieties of chocolate candies on the counter until it got too hot for them. Left to my own devices I would eat all the halvah in the store and never sell stick one; that’s when I learned the tough lessons of self-discipline and self-control—there was a hellof a lot to pay if I ate the halvah; the profits. I never had to buy a comic book—there they were all in front of me; all the magazines, newspapers and paperbacks—it was like working in an art museum! The crime magazines and their covers were the most graphic of the day in the years pre-Playboy and Hustler. Hell, at ten what boy is interested in cheesecake and in girls in general. Sallyboy loved building model airplanes, comic books, the movies, Brooklyn handball, Coney Island and Pizza. The universe of a ten year old New York City street kid was a wondrous and miraculously rich world. Leaving that world is like breaking something you loved and used for years and having to throw it away—survivable but, truly sad. We took the “papers” in from the chained down newsstand at night and on hot summer nights it became the “best seat in the house.” It was like sitting on a real throne and watching and naming the cars that passed by. Our favorite was the ‘50 Studebaker and ya didn’t know if it was coming or going. The earlier cars looked very similar but there were standouts like the Kaiser, Henry J or Frasier, La Salle, DeSoto, Packard. My father had a gray 1937 Plymouth during WW II and could not drive it because gasoline and tires were rationed so it was kept garaged in pristine condition until it was sold at the end of the War.

The Society

Sid the Bookie came in daily for fountain seltzer swirled in milk to calm his ulcer and to buy the Daily Mirror. He would scan the sports pages and leave the paper on the counter and which I would place back on the rack to sell for three cents which was big money in those days. Sid was a genius with numbers, horses, odds and a photographic mind who never needed or used slips of paper to record bets; because of that he was never bothered by the police or arrested for illegal gambling. Oh, and he took numbers and had a couple of number runners working for him; every number, every penny bet and any and all possible payouts kept under his Adams’ Hat covered head. Damon Runion and Jimmy Breslin would have loved him! Sid the Bookie was a quiet and reserved man, always well dressed, barber shaved with manicured nails, who never spoke more than a sentence or two and those sentences always contained numbers, always, and he always left me a five cent tip on top of his two cent plain with milk—what’s with gambles and the number seven. Sid, incidentally, never needed or had “protection” he was always approached with the reverence afforded a Bishop or Cardinal; Poppa called him “Senor Soldi” (soldi, in Italian means money or coins). His office was in “Bronco’s” a saloon across the street on Pitkin and Sheffield Avenues, run by an old hag who would make your money disappear if you were foolish enough to leave it on the bar. “Shortchange” must have been her middle name, at least with Sid you knew your money was safe, even if briefly, and he made good on your winnings however rare. Sid always eventually won. Sid, though not a gentile, was a true gentleman. He was the kinda guy you saw in the movies in Lowe’s Pitkin Theater on Saturday morning with twenty five cartoons, the news, a free comic book, and a serial cliff hanger or “Chapters” as we called them. Sid the Bookmaker, was a roll model but, for who or whom? I often wondered how many computers would be needed today to do what he did in his head? My father hit the Italian numbers run out of the social club called “The Society” for $800 in 1932 and he and mom bought an apartment full of furniture including the bed on which I and we kids, were conceived. Still to this day I can’t believe my parents actually had sex and most kids polled would say the same. The Society or “Eu Sou-che-dou” roughly in Sicilian dialect was a meeting hall on Pitkin Ave, not far from the Crescent Street, Brooklyn’s City Line. It was a place where all the men came to this country from all the towns on the side of the Island farthest the much maligned Calabria. To have the head of a Calabrian or, “Testa de Calabrese,” was an insult. Those from the towns and cities of Palermo, Trapani, Mazara del Vallo and Agrigento were passively accepted as Piasanos and Compares (Goombas) but, any man closer to Catania was looked upon suspiciously and Sicilian’s are a suspicious breed of humans! Every move, gesture, smile, sneer and hand motion has a significance and an interpretation and ya best be careful who you spoke to; the undertaker, a doctor and a lawyer were “men of honor”—those who you could turn to when you needed a loan or “special favor” (need I say more?) Some things came to America with these men and their “brotherhood” and they called it “their thing!” They came from an isolated island with a violent and bloody history—the peasants against all the kings, rulers, land barons and would be conquerors (more than seventeen in all) who tried to subjugate them. Screw with me and I’ll get you; we will kill your soldiers, slit your throat, poison your sheep and cows, burn your houses and ya better send someone you don’t like to start your car! The word for it is “Revenge” taken far beyond what we today believe is thinkable! I wonder how many American Born generations it will take, if ever, before it vanishes the Sicilian Psyche? Don’t ask Sallyboy—he’s just a Brooklyn kid. Enter Sid, “Senor Soldi” called “il juda” or the “Banker”-- referenced as “questa judatzsa” if you lost a wager, was the only non-full blooded Sicilian allowed in the Society Hall but never offered a glass of home-made wine or even a glass of water. In fact the players of the card game Brisk sitting at the few tables, smoking those black cigars there, never even turned their heads to acknowledge him; met at the door without a handshake and ushered into the back room only to come out about five minutes later looking thinner or fatter with his bulging money belt depending on the prevailing luck of his patrons. Some men just have that “air” about them and Sid was one of those men. Sid was that man of “Honor” that transcends time, space and opinion—in the old country, in the Kingdom of Sicily, he would have been a “Doge!”

My father whose name was “Giuseppe” was called “Peppe” by his Italian friends and “Joe” by everyone else, had not a spiteful bone in his short framed handsome body, was well liked by everyone as a “happy-go-lucky” fella. What was not to be happy about; he squeezed in a couple of years of Italian High School before having to leave to work in the fields as a sharecropper and goat herder 24-7, of course, to support his family. Give my father a loaf of bread with some cheese and a glass of his brother Lucca’s wine and he was the happiest man on earth; oh and he loved to “play the horses” and above all sleep on the couch! It was in Society Hall that he met and became best friends with Giovanni Salerno who had two brothers and a picture pretty sister named Maria. Giovanni became Uncle John and my father’s “Brother-in-Law.” Introduced to his little sister, lightning struck Joe (that’s what they say in Sicily) when he met Mary! Love and an arduous Sicilian courtship supervised and chaperoned by my Grandfather followed. Later with a Father named Joseph and a Mother named Mary, I could have been named Jesus and not Salvatore—I guess it was the wrong time and place!!!

Grandpa Mateo was a big, tough and old fashioned 16^th Century Man who had to kidnap his wife, to marry my Grandma—a dubious custom. Her parents had him arrested and in jail he was water tortured and had every hair torn one by one from his body. He escaped and hid in a root cellar (dark hole dug into the earth in his mother’s bedroom) fathered 5 children (one died at birth) and one dark night stowed away on a Canadian Ship, arrived in Canada and crossed the border illegally to start a new life in the Old Mill section of Brooklyn;. called for his family and built a stone two-story house with his own hands.

Everybody’s Aunt Mary

Jimmy Buffet has a recorded song called “I’m A Piece of Work” that he could have written for my Momma. Called by every neighbor, relative and friends Black, White, Pink, Green and Yellow “Aunt Mary” she was a pistol, pisser, one-of–a-kind, lovable 5^th grade educated, wacko genius with a heart bigger, more generous and of material richer than any precious metal or diamonds on this or any other planet! You won’t think I’m lying it on thick as you read her story! I’ll go back and forth with this part of the story because I don’t think I have the skills as a writer to do it justice. The most memorable years of our lives were spent in a cold water flat in a six story walk up apartment house on 221 Georgia Avenue, Brooklyn 7, East New York, N.Y. Georgia Avenue and the adjoining Pitkin Ave was racially, and I might add peacefully mixed; it was peopled with Italian, Irish, Polish and Black Families. There was no difference in my mother’s eyes whatever. The was no such thing as African-American, not even Negro and never in my life heard the “N” word these were simpler and nicer times.. We were White kids and Black kids, White families and Black families. Our parents were friends with their parents and I can tell you that the Black Parents were really strict and I mean razor strop disciplinary no nonsense strict. As kids we all played and grew up together—friends were friends and that was it! It was the Black kids, and one in particular named Leon, dropped on his head as an infant, never to pass age five, if that, mentally, who hugged my mother and held her so closely and called her Aunt Mary and that name stuck! ” Give me a kiss uh hu ah hu Aunt Mary” were the only words he was ever known to speak. .My mother loved Leon as if he were her own and she was angry spitting mad when the drunks at Bronco’s Bar called him “Snowball” and made him dance and scramble for the pennies they threw at him. We got our first television set, a 12 “ Andrea in 1947 and the first night and until the novelty wore off when we turned on our lights in was like the General Assembly of the United Nations, a packed house and, Momma made Italian S cookies and lemonade for all. She was mad that our rent increased two dollars to seventeen a month because of the TV and she never forgave the owner and the spiteful super she called “Bonzullo” (big belly) who my mother caught slitting my baby brother’s carriage. That Schmuck (a good Brooklyn Word) took his time and was admiring his work and Mom had the time to rush to her stove and back with a big pot of boiling pasta water which she emptied on that fat slob’s head. He never bothered or spited us again and would turn tail and hide whenever he saw Mrs. Diddio. Momma could be a tough piece of work!

Mom and Dad were both full time factory workers. They worked hard and saved, bought the Candy Store and had to work harder—I learned to cook and was real good at it and never heard any complaints—at least from my parents—I guess they were too tired to make a fuss. I watched my Brother and Sister and took care of the Store and still had time for school and fun. Both parents were what they called “piece workers” or paid by a completed piece of a garment; in my mother’s case a sweater and my father a woman’s slippers. Each night, tired or not, they had to do their tickets. Each ticket was on the garment or shoe and pulled off and had a different value depending on the operation. At the end of the week you turned these tickets into the boss and you were paid accordingly.

Both were members of the ILGWU—remember that fact. My mother operated a Marrow Machine that joins a sleeve or collar with that fancy stitching to the sweater. It is no boast that she was the fastest and most highly paid piece worker’s in the country. She took home big bucks—more that $300.00 a week and remember that’s a penny or two a piece! Remember the Old Western Movies about Gunslingers’—they were challenged to a duel and asked to “DRAW!” In the shop that was my Machine Slinging Mom always challenged by other machine operators who thought they were faster and never were only to be defeated with the excuse it was the machine’s fault, the pulley was slipping, the string or needle broke and some broke down in tears and flat out quit the job!

Now I can tell you how corruption, Union Corruption, can hurt the American Worker. My parents had a combined working average of about 60 or thirty years each. In the last shop my mother worked the Union Rep, instead of going to the workers first to try and negotiate a price for their labor would go to the boss and then tell them the price the boss was willing to pay—take it or leave! My mother rallied the workers and confronted the Union Rep who failing to bullshit Momma and the workers got angry and said:” I’ll fix your Ass!” And that the son-of–a-bitch did! He had my mother’s and father’s Union Cards “Pulled” No retirement, no sick leave or pay, no benefits, nothing. Sixty years slaving down the drain. Three cheers for the ILGWU and its then prez Dave Dubinski; if he were up in heven with my now passed parents they would kick his butt but he probably went directly to hell with the crooked Rep.

They Came to America and Loved it!

Humbly my parents came to Our Country and became proud American Citizens—They made it their Country! Have you ever been to Ellis Island? I have and so have my parents—at different times of course. They, my parents, were the “huddled masses” yearning to go to the country where the streets were lined with gold. My parents were never disappointed; both became fiercely proud American Citizens and voted in every major election from the time they took the oath of allegiance. My father came over at seventeen with some high school education and quickly learned to read and write English and picked up Yiddish from working in hat and mattress factories in New England. He always retained that thick Italian accent. When he spoke people would look astonished because my father looked as Jewish as a Rabbi and as handsome, as learned and very distinguished! God, was he handsome and my mother was his picture prized beauty! I’ll show you their wedding picture on the back cover of this, my first book. My mother was the story; she came over at seven. Ellis Island has the records of her arrival with her mother and three brothers. The records are all computerized and fun and exciting to see. Momma told me about the wonder of seeing the Statue Of Liberty and seeing snow for the first time on the boat’s railing and sticking her hand into it; she kept it there so long that they had to take her to the ship’s doctor crying in pain. She told me that story 40 years later and she still had the pain etched on her Sicilian wrinkle free Facia bella. Both parents were fantastic cooks and my mother’s chicken sauce and my fathers seafood fruitti di mar were to die for. My father made his own wine in our cellar and one time “tapping the barrel” wine spilled on the floor and he got down on his knees and lapped it up crying and wagging his tail at the same time. They could boast of the beautiful fig trees and grape vines in the back yard. Be prepared for Mamma, the practical joker!

While talking about poppa’s tail; of course he didn’t have one but he did have hemorrhoids and Momma being the joker she was, removed Vaseline from its jar and replaced it with Vick’s Vapor Rub. Wow, that was heavy! One night about three in the morning when poppa made his usual “pit stop” he decided he wanted a “lube job” for his coullo and the Vick’s hit the fan; yipes, when the Vick’s was applied to Poppa’s anus he hit the roof screaming in all three of his languages reserving the choice curse words for the devil, the doctors, the lawyers, the bosses and every animal on earth all while doing a tarantella all around the house and asking for help from Jesu Christ and all the known Saints. After that night his piles disappeared—guess they were too afraid to ever come out again! Talk of “home remedies!” What’s that expression about an ill wind? Momma never did ‘fess up to what she had done. And even though she was “programmed” for thrift during the great depression she threw both jars, the evidence, into the yard next to the fig tree and grape vines. Years ago there was a slogan by Theodore, Dr. Seuss, Geisel, for an insecticide bug spray that went “Quick, Henry, the Flit” no doubt, for many, way before your time. To get mom’s goat we kids used to say “Quick, Henry, the Vick’s.

Funny you should ask, my mother’s nickname was Maria la Grabba (grabba is goat in Sicilian) because she raised goats as a young girl and she was used to having them around. They would all come when she called wagging their “tails” behind them. Momma Mary had no accent butt (sic) she was a practical joker! I deliciously add here, My Momma, was in my opinion, the greatest gardener on the planet—she was a “plant whisperer” and she could coo and fondle tomatoes till they grew to the size of pumpkins and my father would take them and, with a secret technique he learned as a boy in Petrosino, Marsala, make a simple salad with basil and garlic so delicious your brains would fall out of your head; of course, after you licked your plate. If Mamma was “a piece of work” Poppa was “something else!”

The War Years

Like all families we had good times and a time when we could actually claim to be poor. The times became difficult around the time of the births of my Sister (1937) and my Brother (1941) mom had to stop working and Poppa became sick with an unknown illness and couldn’t work. We became a “no income” family and, we moved several times—each time to a poorer neighborhood. I can remember times when there was no food in the house—not even stale bread and when we were lucky we had plain pasta. I used to call that “Pasta with Pasta” Pasta without butter, lentils, broccoli, cauliflower, fava beans—nothing! Somehow The Welfare was notified and came to interview my mother. Momma told him “we don’t need to beg, we don’t want charity” and threw him out the apartment. It was fun to see that creep scamper off like a dog with his tail between his legs. Yeah, Momma had the power. Let me hear “Momma had the power—Yeah!” I remember the Singer Sewing Machine man coming to the apartment for an installment payment on the model 1401 Mom thought she could make extra money with. Mom gave him seventeen cents and he took it without question. Those were really tough times. Those of you who complain now should have lived then! Things started to improve after World War Two began. In early 1942 my father landed a Defense Job. They trained him as a lens grinder for bomb sights and periscopes and paid him $200 a week. With his first paycheck he came home and plopped down on the couch waving two one hundred dollar bills in the air drunk as a skunk. So, that was two things I had never seen—my father drunk and a hundred dollar bill. I never saw Poppa drunk again and I didn’t see a bill that large until my first job with American Airlines after I was discharged from the USAF in 1957. Oh, I loaded Atomic Bombs on Airplanes and couldn’t put that on my resume but American Airlines hired me anyhow—loved that company and all the people I worked with in Crew Scheduling. With all the “Stews” it was like being in the candy store all over again. Some of the Stews I dated could have been Centerfold Models—lucky me.

I started in Kindergarten in 1940 but can’t remember much of that so, I can spare you the shitty details. I say shitty because the teacher wouldn’t let me go to the little boy’s room and I soiled my pants and ran all the way home crying with the teacher frantically following and sorry she did because when Momma saw me she turned on the teacher like any Momma bear defending her cub would: “Are you absolutely crazy? You let this boy run across streets with traffic with his pants full of shit? What kinda teacher are you? If he asked to go to the toilet why didn’t you let him? What the hell’s wrong with you? Wait till I see the Principal! You freekin @^(^E#@)###@&!!! I felt bad but, not as bad as that teacher felt. You heard the term “repression”—I can not remember that teacher’s name. Funny, Mr. Freud, the things you can remember and the things you can’t. The only other time my mother laced into a teacher and ripped him apart was in High School when Mr. Notact failed me in shop and threatened to keep me from graduating and because I stood up to him in class he called me—wait for this, he called me a Communist! My mother reamed his pupick so long and so hard the wax in his eardrums melted! My mother stood up for her rights and the rights of us kids. The only one my mother was afraid of was my father and the only thing I could figure was that she let him have his balls. Yep, she was a clever chick—Aunt Mary was loved by all.

Something the kids of today wouldn’t understand is and was radio. I would rush run home after school , turn on the radio and listen to Jack Armstrong “The All American Boy” and sponsored by “Wheaties, the best breakfast food in the land!” There was Hop Harrigan and Tank Tinker—pilot and his mechanic, there was Don Winslow of the Navy, Sky King, Sgt Preston of the Royal Mounties (“On King , on you huskies!”) and Golden Arrow. At night there was Inner Sanctum, The Shadow and my all time favorite “The Lone Ranger—his background music “The William Tell Overture!” You had to use your imagination—it was the ultimate Gestalt! Mom had her favorites—the early soaps--Helen Trent, Mary Noble, Backstage Wife and the whole family sat around the radio to listen to Fibber Magee and Molly, Amos and Andy, the Life Of Riley with Digger O’Dell and the fascinating stories of Bill Stern. There were tremendous shortages during the war and almost everything was rationed. The Government passed out “Ration Books” to families and urged everyone to buy War Bonds, I had a little book in which you put ten cent stamps and when the book filled you turned it in for a Bond. I remember Gordon Hogg stole my stamp book but I could never prove it. Gordon was the kid version of “Big Bad LeRoy Brown!” We had two Junk Yards on Georgia Avenue guarded by vicious dogs and Gordon Hogg, Like Jim Croce’s LeRoy Brown was meaner than those Junk Yard Dogs.

I can remember the day of my liberation from bullies. At nine or ten, this Polish Kid named Walter, almost twice my size got his jollies by teasing me. The last time he ever did that, he took my hat; I said “gimme my hat” and he said “I dare you to make me!” I threw a right jab and bloodied his nose. He cried like a baby and became my slaveboy. Ever since the nose has been my favorite target and that one shot heard around the nabe built me my “Rep”—the kids changed my name to DiBo and I became their leader. Other nabes heard of me and would send “emissaries” to petition me for peace. My Mother’s Brother Tony was a “Prize Fighter” and some of his zest for combat must have rubbed off on me. Momma told me I died as an infant—I turned purple and had no pulse or heart beat and that she ran to an old Italian woman in a panic and that she brought me back to life by immersing me in a sink full of ice water and that’s why I think I became a fighter—I had to fight for my life! I never became a bully and hated bullies all life long. I became a big kid and had to shop with my mother for clothes labeled large, extra large and the hated terms “Portly” and “Stocky.” You know if left to my mother I still would be wearing short pants, knee pants, and those terrible tube pants called “Knickers”—you heard me right, Knickers! In England , where I spent the Korean War Years, Knickers were woman’s panties, Napkins were diapers and a fag was a cigarette. WW II seemed to last forever that’s why this chapter is probably the longest. We got the War News everyday and in the News Reels in the Movies and we didn’t have to try hard to de-humanize the enemy: “Hi Hee, Hi Ho, Hitler is a jerk, Hitler is a jerk, Mussolini is a meanie but the Japs are Worse. In school we would draw pictures of American War Planes bombing and machine gunning the Japs and Germans all with sound effects.

Anamonically, boom,kiksksksk, crash, ieeeee and die dirty rats!

PS 63

PS 63 was on Williams Avenue, between Liberty and Glenmore Aves. Friday at PS 63 was Assembly and we had to wear white shirts and red ties. Remember this was during WW II and Russia were our allies and whether some of the teachers were “Pink,” “Fellow Travelers” or not, they taught us Russian Folk Songs. I remember being in a play about a Russian Pretzel Maker and singing “Who’ll Buy My Booblishki.” The Assembly is where I was first introduced to Classical Music. I met my best and lifelong friend, Martin Feldman, in the 2^nd Grade. Marty and I were both into model airplanes and that common interest sparked a friendship that has lasted close to 65 years. Marty lived with his mother Jean and father Morris at 61 Pennsylvania Ave and kept his planes on the landing leading to the roof. I kept my models in my bedroom and built them on the kitchen table with balsa wood, pins and airplane glue. I built better and prettier planes than Marty but, Marty built planes that flew. It was a win, win friendship in every way. Marty’s mother passed about that time and he never took his Barmitzfer. Eventually Marty became sort of a member of our family and had the uncanny ability to show up precisely at dinner time. Marty loved my Mother’s cooking—everybody did. Her Sicilian Style cooking was the best and my Aunts Anna and Kate were her equals. Guys, if you want to eat well, marry an Italian woman. In the 4^th and fifth grades new sights began to appear in the classroom—titties. Girls started to develop breasts. Perhaps they appeared sooner but, we boys didn’t notice—sexually, we were out of it and the girls had it down way ahead of us. The Italian girls were the first to bud and the Jewish girls next. Rose Ann Lungo had breast so large they mesmerized all the boys and we all had a crush on her. I wish I could use the real family names because I remember each and every one of them and at some point I might be able to get by with using the family name without their first. I’ll check this out with my publisher (when I get one). I was promoted from grade to grade by the skin of my teeth. It was in the early days and it was called “social promotion.” Not that I was a dumb kid, I was a poor student because I wasn’t into it. The classes were divided into three groups. The bright kids were in group one; group two to use a cooking expression was “medium rare” just average kids and group three the group I was placed in and never left, well was, Eras, slow. All the Jewish kids were in group one I always thought it was something Jewish mothers put in their chicken soup or maybe it was the matzo balls and screw “political correctness.” All the kids in group three were Italian but we whipped ass on the playground—we were always the punch ball and dodge ball champs. Marty was the only Jewish kid not in group one and I don’t remember him in my group—he was most certainly the Misha in group two. I know what I was not but, I can tell you what I was! I was the best damn Artist in PS 63! I could draw and copy cartoons well enough to work for Walt Lantz of Woody Woodpecker fame or Walt Disney Studios. I could and still can copy drawings of DaVinci and Mickey Angelo. My favorite teacher in all the world, her real name Mrs. Brenner, took us in the fifth grade and kept us through the sixth more than taught me—she touched my soul and ignited a life long passion for Art and Creativity; in my graduation autograph book she signed it “To a Future Artist!!!” Mrs. Brenner, wherever you are, I love you. There were three teachers that shaped my life and she was the first and best. There was no “grouping,” ever in her classroom just super kids with a super master teacher. Ten teachers like her could change the world for the better! Teachers reading this take notes…

Japan Accepts Defeat

The Second World War ended while I was in the 6^th Grade. The headlines read:

Washington, D.C.,

At 6:10 p.m. EDT on August 14, 1945, The United States received word of Emperor Hirohito's surrender and declared Victory in Japan or V-J Day. As the news spread block parties broke out all over Brooklyn and indeed the country. The War to end all Wars (a phrase that was to become a joke) was over. But on the night of the 14^th and the next day August 15 it was “Party Time” and there was food, music and dancing in the streets. Nine months to the day the birth rate went through the roof.

Note: This is from another Chapter but it’s just too much fun to leave out and the language could be edited somewhat:

My mother took me department store shopping and I had a great life altering and humorous experience at Mom’s expense. Mom had to pee real bad and could no longer hold it in and women ya know don’t have the same bladder control machinery as we men. Momma always took us kids in with her so I saw it all. So strong was her urge she turned her back to the lavatory door pulled down her pants and backed in already aleak. Much to her shock and surprise the stall was occupied and she plopped down in some Black lady’s lap who was even more shocked and certainly surprised. Wow, what a wild scene and it was the first time I heard the word “motherfucker” as in shidt, get your muthafuckin ass off me lady in notes three octaves higher than Ella Fitzgerald could scat. What was altered? Free at last to stay home and read my comic books when Momma went shopping. Because I held life so dear, I never mentioned it again but Momma knew she had given me a free “get-out-of jail” card that I could use whenever and if brave or crazy enough.