Kenny Davis As Perry Mason was pretty convincing in making the case of neither of us as team captain, and of course he was right - all down the line, too, as Tommy Konwinski was, indeed, named captain by our coach.
So, Kenny was world-wise, at age 7 (or 8?). And I was world-weary, with this dispiriting development.
The words I couldn't quite find with Kenny, or anyone else, about the situation, I found with my mother. I had briefed her earlier. Now I was coming home with the dread conclusion.
"He's captain. Tommy Konwinski, big guy, conceited jerk. What good does that do anybody?
"He's the strongest player. But he doesn't lead anybody. He doesn't talk to half the kids. They're not good enough. He only talks to other kids who don't need any help and don't like anybody, like him."
That was the gist of it, although the un-gist was (rest assured) protracted.
At one point, my mother got up from the dining room table. "I'm still listening," she said, as she went into the kitchen.
She came back with a plate with four Oreos and a glass of milk for me. Uh-oh. That meant this was serious in her mind, for me. I had a raw vice for Oreos, which I tried to fight, so this was like opening a bottle for a bad drinker, This One Time.
I was done talking. Now was my mother's turn.
"This all reminds me of something," she said. "Some things," she decided. "That I've been thinking about since you first discussed this with me.
"Do you remember," she asked, "when they had you reading the Bible by yourself in school? Because you were too far ahead for Reading class?"
"Uh-huh," I said. That was in first grade.
"And how some of the stories disturbed you? In some it was the language. In some it was the thought."
"Mm-hmm," I said. I knew not where she was heading.
"One was the story of the lepers and the tax collectors. And how Jesus welcomed them and stayed with them, even though they were shunned by society. And you said," and she was laughing - editing herself - "well, you said you couldn't live up to that example.
"I told you not to worry, that Jesus only expects - well, I told you not to worry and we would talk about it someday when I thought it would be easier for you to understand. Today is that day.
"Jesus wants us to take care of each other, and think of others before yourself - or along with yourself, at least. He uses the example of lepers just to shock us into thinking. We can't do what he did. But we can follow his example.
"On your team, you don't try to aggrandize yourself by staying with the better players. You spend time with the boys who are not so good, and try to help them get better."
"I spend the most time with my friend Kenny Davis. He's my best friend and he's one of the best players."
"But you are friends. You don't hang around with him because he's good? He's talented but he also helps the other boys - you told me. He's modest. Like you. I bet you would like him if he was modest but not good, and you wouldn't like him if he was good but not modest."
I turned an Oreo on the plate.
"You always knew all this, in your heart, and I knew you knew. But it wasn't until you had enough experience in life, that I could talk to you about it clearly.
"My next thought, the story that really disturbed you - that was 'disgusting' - was Jesus saying if your hand leads you to trouble, cut it off, or if your eye, pluck it out. Remember?"
I did, like a story from a horror comic.
"Well," my mother said, "again, Jesus was making a point. Dramatically. And again the point was to people like Tommy Konwinski.
"It's a message with a lot of levels. But one simple level is to boys like Tommy. That if God gives you a gift - like a good hand, or eye, or you're good at sports - and you don't use your gifts generously, then it's better that you never had them. Because God expects things of us based on our blessings."
"To whom much is given, much is expected," I said.
"Exactly. So I don't want you to worry about the injustice of Tommy being named captain. That isn't as important as the work you do.
"And that's my final point. The story - this is not one that bothered you - that Jesus tells of the Pharisees who pray out on the street, or loudly in the temple, so everyone will hear, and think good of them.
"Jesus said, those men already have their reward.
"He told us to pray in private. And then we would get our reward, the important one we're praying for, not the cheap one in men's eyes."
I nodded - solemnly, perhaps, but vigorously enough, I hoped.
"You see, don't you?," my mother asked.
"I do," I said.
"Good," she said, smiling. "Now, I've talked a lot. Do you want to talk more? Or ask anything?"
I thought. "No," I said simply.
"You get it, right?"
"Right," I said, and I knew she knew I meant it. "I'm just going to go upstairs a while."
"You haven't eaten those Oreos," she said.
"It's alright?," I said. I didn't want to seem ungrateful. "I'll have them tonight."
"Okay," my mother said.
I went upstairs to the bedroom I shared with my two brothers.
The sun streamed in and our bedsheets were bright. Eddie's was orange, Paddy's was yellow, mine was NFL, with logos. I guess the different sheets helped us stay personally distinct, in a small space.
I looked out the window at our yard and the alley and the street. I turned around and knelt down at my bed. I put my forehead to the bed, on my folded arms, and said Thank You. I didn't want anything but to say that.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Non-Commissioned
So maybe Kenny Davis and I would be Best Men at each other's teenage weddings, rather than go to Vietnam, but that was in the future.
In the present was the issue of team captaincy.
About halfway through the season, coach announced that he would name a captain. To formalize leadership, recognize ability - maybe acknowledge valor; I don't remember. Easy to make fun of (it's only Little League), but there it was, a real thing, status conferred, so you had to take it seriously.
Or I did, as that kind of kid.
Coach was going to wait a while to decide. He hadn't yet, he said. We would each have the chance to step up and earn it for ourselves, he said, or to lobby for someone else.
"What do you think?," I said to Kenny. "Should it be you, or me?"
"What do you think?," Kenny said. "We either have a chance?" His look said No.
"What do you mean?," I said, responding to that look. "Of course we do. Who plays harder than us?"
"We get dirty," he acknowledged. "But, come on. Konnie is the boy."
"Konnie" was Tommy Konwinski, our star pitcher. Big and strong, he also had a mean streak that intimidated foes.
The trouble was, it affected teammates just as much, if not more. Make a bad play and he might show you up on the field. Make a key out at bat and he'd rank you out on the bench.
"Konnie," I said derisively. "He don't lead, he - ", and I stopped, lost for words, for once.
"He leads the way coach sees it," Kenny said.
"Me and you are out here every week early and late, helping other kids with their game," I said.
"I'm not saying me or you don't deserve it. I'm saying we're not going to get it."
I frowned. No words.
"And me," Kenny said. "I got an even extra reason." He touched his fingers to his face.
"Oh, man," I said. We had never discussed race before. This was a hard place to start.
"Come on, man," he said. "It's like your grandmama said about wishing."
Huh. I had told him once how our grandmother helped raise us. And when we'd say, as kids will, that I wish this, or I wish that, she would scowl, comically, and glare, and bark in her brogue, so heavy with native - or immigrant - fatalism, "Well, wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first."
It surprised me that it stuck with him - enough to remember it, now?
"Kenny, she didn't mean that. She was just being funny."
"Well, it is funny. It's funny because it's true."
I got the feeling he was telling me something, that he knew more about than I did.
In the present was the issue of team captaincy.
About halfway through the season, coach announced that he would name a captain. To formalize leadership, recognize ability - maybe acknowledge valor; I don't remember. Easy to make fun of (it's only Little League), but there it was, a real thing, status conferred, so you had to take it seriously.
Or I did, as that kind of kid.
Coach was going to wait a while to decide. He hadn't yet, he said. We would each have the chance to step up and earn it for ourselves, he said, or to lobby for someone else.
"What do you think?," I said to Kenny. "Should it be you, or me?"
"What do you think?," Kenny said. "We either have a chance?" His look said No.
"What do you mean?," I said, responding to that look. "Of course we do. Who plays harder than us?"
"We get dirty," he acknowledged. "But, come on. Konnie is the boy."
"Konnie" was Tommy Konwinski, our star pitcher. Big and strong, he also had a mean streak that intimidated foes.
The trouble was, it affected teammates just as much, if not more. Make a bad play and he might show you up on the field. Make a key out at bat and he'd rank you out on the bench.
"Konnie," I said derisively. "He don't lead, he - ", and I stopped, lost for words, for once.
"He leads the way coach sees it," Kenny said.
"Me and you are out here every week early and late, helping other kids with their game," I said.
"I'm not saying me or you don't deserve it. I'm saying we're not going to get it."
I frowned. No words.
"And me," Kenny said. "I got an even extra reason." He touched his fingers to his face.
"Oh, man," I said. We had never discussed race before. This was a hard place to start.
"Come on, man," he said. "It's like your grandmama said about wishing."
Huh. I had told him once how our grandmother helped raise us. And when we'd say, as kids will, that I wish this, or I wish that, she would scowl, comically, and glare, and bark in her brogue, so heavy with native - or immigrant - fatalism, "Well, wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first."
It surprised me that it stuck with him - enough to remember it, now?
"Kenny, she didn't mean that. She was just being funny."
"Well, it is funny. It's funny because it's true."
I got the feeling he was telling me something, that he knew more about than I did.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Fathers To The Men
Kenny Davis's father worked for the Transit Authority. "Not a driver or engineer," he said, as if expecting the question. I didn't ask. I knew better, as my father worked for Pan Am, but in an office, not a plane.
Likewise, Kenny's father worked in an office, he said, but doing exactly what, he didn't know. "He sure gets up early, though," he said.
He was proud of his father, as I was of mine. About military service, too. Kenny's father had been in the Air Force; mine was a Marine.
"Never would I be a Marine," Kenny said. "They make you dig holes, and if you don't do it fast enough? They hit you in the head with a shovel. Then they make you hold up big bags of sand 'til you cry." We both laughed. "I swear, I saw it in a movie."
"That's what's good about the Air Force, I guess," I said. "They can't make you dig holes in a plane."
"My father told me he ate good in the Air Force," he said.
"My father said in the Marines, if they didn't eat fast enough, they got hit in the head with a pan." More laughs.
"I don't know about the army, now, though," I said. I meant the military in general. "You know about Vietnam?"
"Mmm," Kenny said, which could have meant yes or no.
I followed politics. I wrote in the streets in chalk for LBJ in 1964. I was in the crowd when he campaigned in our neighborhood, driving through in a huge flatbed truck.
I read the News and the Post every day, cover to cover. I watched talk shows on Sunday mornings - and took notes. Oh, yes I did. Aged 7. I knew about Vietnam.
"It's supposed to be a war," I said. "But it's not a war."
"Nobody attacked us, right," Kenny said.
"Yeah," I said. "It's a little country with and jungles and swamps. Steaming hot. People wear pajamas and flip-flops. There's Communists and not-Communists. But nobody has anything.
"It's a million miles from here. We have soldiers over there. They don't even know who we are. But we're killing them, so they're killing us back. They have, like, bayonets. We have bombers, bombing everything. It's insane. It's a sin, even, I think."
That slowed the talk a bit. Kenny was Catholic, too. Sin is serious.
"Why are we doing it?"
"To show who's boss." I paused. "Even to ourselves. They're making kids go. Go over and kill people, and get killed, maybe, because we said so. If you don't, you go to jail.
"But if you go to college, you don't have to go. That's for rich people. Although I'll go to college, some way."
"Me, too," Kenny said, bouncing a ball on the ground. "I mean, I want to go anyway."
"Or if you're married? Then you don't go."
"Shit, I'll do both," he said. We both laughed. We generally didn't swear. This was for comic effect, as I think we were starting to scare ourselves. "I know two girls to get married to. Three."
"That's good odds," I said. We were back to joking, I thought; but Kenny said,
"You talk to your father about this?"
"No," I said. "My mother."
"What's she say?"
"We talked all about it. I told her I ain't going to no Vietnam. She said she don't intend to let us. Me and my two brothers."
"It's good to have your mom on your side," he said.
I nodded. "Best," I said.
Likewise, Kenny's father worked in an office, he said, but doing exactly what, he didn't know. "He sure gets up early, though," he said.
He was proud of his father, as I was of mine. About military service, too. Kenny's father had been in the Air Force; mine was a Marine.
"Never would I be a Marine," Kenny said. "They make you dig holes, and if you don't do it fast enough? They hit you in the head with a shovel. Then they make you hold up big bags of sand 'til you cry." We both laughed. "I swear, I saw it in a movie."
"That's what's good about the Air Force, I guess," I said. "They can't make you dig holes in a plane."
"My father told me he ate good in the Air Force," he said.
"My father said in the Marines, if they didn't eat fast enough, they got hit in the head with a pan." More laughs.
"I don't know about the army, now, though," I said. I meant the military in general. "You know about Vietnam?"
"Mmm," Kenny said, which could have meant yes or no.
I followed politics. I wrote in the streets in chalk for LBJ in 1964. I was in the crowd when he campaigned in our neighborhood, driving through in a huge flatbed truck.
I read the News and the Post every day, cover to cover. I watched talk shows on Sunday mornings - and took notes. Oh, yes I did. Aged 7. I knew about Vietnam.
"It's supposed to be a war," I said. "But it's not a war."
"Nobody attacked us, right," Kenny said.
"Yeah," I said. "It's a little country with and jungles and swamps. Steaming hot. People wear pajamas and flip-flops. There's Communists and not-Communists. But nobody has anything.
"It's a million miles from here. We have soldiers over there. They don't even know who we are. But we're killing them, so they're killing us back. They have, like, bayonets. We have bombers, bombing everything. It's insane. It's a sin, even, I think."
That slowed the talk a bit. Kenny was Catholic, too. Sin is serious.
"Why are we doing it?"
"To show who's boss." I paused. "Even to ourselves. They're making kids go. Go over and kill people, and get killed, maybe, because we said so. If you don't, you go to jail.
"But if you go to college, you don't have to go. That's for rich people. Although I'll go to college, some way."
"Me, too," Kenny said, bouncing a ball on the ground. "I mean, I want to go anyway."
"Or if you're married? Then you don't go."
"Shit, I'll do both," he said. We both laughed. We generally didn't swear. This was for comic effect, as I think we were starting to scare ourselves. "I know two girls to get married to. Three."
"That's good odds," I said. We were back to joking, I thought; but Kenny said,
"You talk to your father about this?"
"No," I said. "My mother."
"What's she say?"
"We talked all about it. I told her I ain't going to no Vietnam. She said she don't intend to let us. Me and my two brothers."
"It's good to have your mom on your side," he said.
I nodded. "Best," I said.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Team Depth And New Vernacular
Not to discount our coaches, but it is pretty easy putting together a Little League baseball team.
You make the most athletic kid the pitcher. He is your workhorse, in the parlance. He will have to throw and move the most.
The catcher is basically a target. So is the first baseman; so you put big kids there.
The outfielders don't do much, at least in Little League. Not many kids hit soaring rockets out there. Basically, it is helpful if outfielders do not sit down while playing, do not wear their gloves on their heads, and have the presence of mind and the ability to throw balls hit to them back to the infield.
The infielders - second and third base, and shortstop - must be nimble. Most balls will be hit to the shortstop, who is also part of most double plays and relay throws, so he must have a brain, to anticipate moves.
Second base will see less action, as will third; but the third-baseman plays closest to the batter, and will get hard-hit shots, so needs quick reflexes.
Coach noticed, although how could you not, that my reflexes were cat-like, practically supernatural, and I was installed at third base.
I would have been disappointed at not being shortstop - the star position - had the post not gone to Kenny Davis.
He was better, and we had rapport, so I was happy to play next to him.
The level of skill at this level of play was not high, so you mostly just had to pay attention to play well. Kenny and I were set, with laser-like intensity. But we also liked to laugh, and did. We started to emerge as team leaders, in tandem, and became friends.
We talked a lot. I remember him asking me once about errant throws. I made very few. He asked if I had a secret or something.
In fact, I did.
"I don't want to make an error."
"Yeah?," he said, wide-eyed and wagging his head: sarcastic.
I laughed. "Yeah," I said. "But I don't want the other kid to make an error, either. So I think about that when I throw. Make it so he can get it. Help him make a good play. Help the pitcher, too, with the out. If I was doing it just for me, I might mess up. But it's harder to mess up if you're doing it for other people too."
He looked out at the field, then at me.
"You really think like that?"
"Sure," I said.
"That's deep," he said.
I shrugged, one-shoulder. We stopped talking a while. Kenny was looking at the field again. I was thinking about what he said; new vernacular to me.
You make the most athletic kid the pitcher. He is your workhorse, in the parlance. He will have to throw and move the most.
The catcher is basically a target. So is the first baseman; so you put big kids there.
The outfielders don't do much, at least in Little League. Not many kids hit soaring rockets out there. Basically, it is helpful if outfielders do not sit down while playing, do not wear their gloves on their heads, and have the presence of mind and the ability to throw balls hit to them back to the infield.
The infielders - second and third base, and shortstop - must be nimble. Most balls will be hit to the shortstop, who is also part of most double plays and relay throws, so he must have a brain, to anticipate moves.
Second base will see less action, as will third; but the third-baseman plays closest to the batter, and will get hard-hit shots, so needs quick reflexes.
Coach noticed, although how could you not, that my reflexes were cat-like, practically supernatural, and I was installed at third base.
I would have been disappointed at not being shortstop - the star position - had the post not gone to Kenny Davis.
He was better, and we had rapport, so I was happy to play next to him.
The level of skill at this level of play was not high, so you mostly just had to pay attention to play well. Kenny and I were set, with laser-like intensity. But we also liked to laugh, and did. We started to emerge as team leaders, in tandem, and became friends.
We talked a lot. I remember him asking me once about errant throws. I made very few. He asked if I had a secret or something.
In fact, I did.
"I don't want to make an error."
"Yeah?," he said, wide-eyed and wagging his head: sarcastic.
I laughed. "Yeah," I said. "But I don't want the other kid to make an error, either. So I think about that when I throw. Make it so he can get it. Help him make a good play. Help the pitcher, too, with the out. If I was doing it just for me, I might mess up. But it's harder to mess up if you're doing it for other people too."
He looked out at the field, then at me.
"You really think like that?"
"Sure," I said.
"That's deep," he said.
I shrugged, one-shoulder. We stopped talking a while. Kenny was looking at the field again. I was thinking about what he said; new vernacular to me.
Monday, September 5, 2011
The Little Foreign Legion
Little League was away from the neighborhood, and devoid of anyone I knew, so it had the aspect of the French Foreign Legion: a sterling opportunity to become new; to find (or reinvent) oneself, through stirring heroics to last ages. That was for me.
Of course, my father accompanied me to every practice and game (he had the car), but didn't seem to recognize the full weight of my goals, nor the signs of my transformation. I suppose they were rather oblique.
We were driving home one night from one of our first practices. I was tired, and had my cap pushed back on my head to emphasize it. I had had a pretty good night.
But not as good as one other kid I saw. His name was Kenny Davis.
He could do anything I could do, except much better, but what really impressed me was his demeanor. He had a sense both of concentration and ease, which I strove for myself, so certainly recognized.
"Hey, Dad," I said, riding home. "Who did you think was the best one there tonight?"
"You," he said, after sort of a long pause.
"No, come on," I said. I appreciated his kind loyalty, but I was looking for an honest answer.
"I don't know," he said, which I suppose was honest as you could get without actually saying "I wasn't watching that closely." I appreciated that, and his subsequent willingness to listen to my scouting report.
"Who?," he asked.
"I think that kid Kenny Davis. We were catching at the end."
"The colored kid?," he asked, by way of clarification.
This was the word used at the time. It was not black or African-American or of color, yet.
As it happened, Kenny Davis was the only "colored" kid in the program.
"Yeah," I said.
"What was so good about him?"
"At bat, he didn't miss a single pitch. Neither did I," I mentioned casually. "But he hits harder. Better swing."
"Hm," my father said, marking an interval.
"Good fielder, too," I reported. "He gets a good jump on the ball. He was in center when I was in left. We kept getting to the ball at the same time. He backs you up if it's yours."
"That's what you're supposed to do."
"Yeah, but did you see the other kids out there? Some of them? They had no idea what they were doing. Did you hear the fielding coach yell? He said, 'Fellas, run, in the direction of the ball.' "
"That's bad, I guess."
"That's real bad!"
"Did the coach say anything to you?"
"Yeah, he did. To me and Kenny. We were playing pretty shallow. He told us to move back. He said it's a lot easier to come in on the ball than go back."
"So did you?"
"Yeah. But Kenny said to me, 'All the same to me.' Quiet, like. We did it, but it didn't make any difference. I can go back or come in." This is because I am Roberto Clemente.
"But you listen to the coach," my father asked.
"Yeah," I assured him, with upturned palm.
Of course, every ball the rest of the day was hit in front of us.
"Good exercise," Kenny Davis said to me as we trotted back to position.
"My legs hurt," I said.
The coach didn't know it, but he was building team spirit.
Of course, my father accompanied me to every practice and game (he had the car), but didn't seem to recognize the full weight of my goals, nor the signs of my transformation. I suppose they were rather oblique.
We were driving home one night from one of our first practices. I was tired, and had my cap pushed back on my head to emphasize it. I had had a pretty good night.
But not as good as one other kid I saw. His name was Kenny Davis.
He could do anything I could do, except much better, but what really impressed me was his demeanor. He had a sense both of concentration and ease, which I strove for myself, so certainly recognized.
"Hey, Dad," I said, riding home. "Who did you think was the best one there tonight?"
"You," he said, after sort of a long pause.
"No, come on," I said. I appreciated his kind loyalty, but I was looking for an honest answer.
"I don't know," he said, which I suppose was honest as you could get without actually saying "I wasn't watching that closely." I appreciated that, and his subsequent willingness to listen to my scouting report.
"Who?," he asked.
"I think that kid Kenny Davis. We were catching at the end."
"The colored kid?," he asked, by way of clarification.
This was the word used at the time. It was not black or African-American or of color, yet.
As it happened, Kenny Davis was the only "colored" kid in the program.
"Yeah," I said.
"What was so good about him?"
"At bat, he didn't miss a single pitch. Neither did I," I mentioned casually. "But he hits harder. Better swing."
"Hm," my father said, marking an interval.
"Good fielder, too," I reported. "He gets a good jump on the ball. He was in center when I was in left. We kept getting to the ball at the same time. He backs you up if it's yours."
"That's what you're supposed to do."
"Yeah, but did you see the other kids out there? Some of them? They had no idea what they were doing. Did you hear the fielding coach yell? He said, 'Fellas, run, in the direction of the ball.' "
"That's bad, I guess."
"That's real bad!"
"Did the coach say anything to you?"
"Yeah, he did. To me and Kenny. We were playing pretty shallow. He told us to move back. He said it's a lot easier to come in on the ball than go back."
"So did you?"
"Yeah. But Kenny said to me, 'All the same to me.' Quiet, like. We did it, but it didn't make any difference. I can go back or come in." This is because I am Roberto Clemente.
"But you listen to the coach," my father asked.
"Yeah," I assured him, with upturned palm.
Of course, every ball the rest of the day was hit in front of us.
"Good exercise," Kenny Davis said to me as we trotted back to position.
"My legs hurt," I said.
The coach didn't know it, but he was building team spirit.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Signed Up
Little League was in Gerritsen Beach, a neighborhood with fresh shore air, and flat expanse. Mostly private houses, not apartment buildings, there was lots of sky. The streets were wide and empty.
The first night (after school; after work for the fathers who brought us), we got oriented.
We met indoors, in a big gym.
We picked up the hats and t-shirts we'd ordered. We met our coaches.
"All right, fellas, listen up. I want to introduce myself, I'm Coach Lou."
Coach Lou had a gut and glasses. In real life he probably drove a Pepsi truck. Here he was General Patton.
His charges were sitting on benches. I was among the attentive few, not the fidgety.
"We're going to learn two things in the opportunity of Little League baseball for you fellas. One, the fundamentals of the game and the nature of the game. You're going to learn the basics of the game and maybe go beyond the basics a little bit, as well of course as the basics themselves.
"Me and the other coaches and myself are going to do our best to instill in yous, also, in the course of the season, the values of competition, developing and learning your skills and all that, and playing the game the way it should be played, with respect for yourselves, your opponents, and of course the great traditions of the game that we call the game of baseball."
Something like that. Coach Lou put his unlit cigar in his mouth and gave us a meaningful look. He was not just Patton, but Casey Stengel and Winston Churchill, in one. I was smiling, not out of disrespect, but pleasure. Ready for battle, Coach Lou.
The first night (after school; after work for the fathers who brought us), we got oriented.
We met indoors, in a big gym.
We picked up the hats and t-shirts we'd ordered. We met our coaches.
"All right, fellas, listen up. I want to introduce myself, I'm Coach Lou."
Coach Lou had a gut and glasses. In real life he probably drove a Pepsi truck. Here he was General Patton.
His charges were sitting on benches. I was among the attentive few, not the fidgety.
"We're going to learn two things in the opportunity of Little League baseball for you fellas. One, the fundamentals of the game and the nature of the game. You're going to learn the basics of the game and maybe go beyond the basics a little bit, as well of course as the basics themselves.
"Me and the other coaches and myself are going to do our best to instill in yous, also, in the course of the season, the values of competition, developing and learning your skills and all that, and playing the game the way it should be played, with respect for yourselves, your opponents, and of course the great traditions of the game that we call the game of baseball."
Something like that. Coach Lou put his unlit cigar in his mouth and gave us a meaningful look. He was not just Patton, but Casey Stengel and Winston Churchill, in one. I was smiling, not out of disrespect, but pleasure. Ready for battle, Coach Lou.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Called Up
It was paradoxical, even to myself, that a go-my-own-way kid like myself would be happy in school, and a little lost outside it.
It wasn't that I liked regimentation and rules. I wasn't an altar boy, or a choir boy. I wasn't a crossing guard.
I didn't need structure for its own sake. Some kids did. That was alright, although it seemed most such kids - the door-monitor type - soon were big on NASA, the FBI, and Hitler. See you later to them, although they tended to be polite.
I didn't need authority. I just needed things to do.
What provided that, just in time, was Little League.
It sounds a little square, of course: like, more Pennsylvania than Brooklyn.
But it was practically romantic to me. I was in love with baseball anyway. So, to be able to play with a team? It was like being a musician, and joining your first band.
It was adventurous from the start, because we played outside the neighborhood. You'd have to. There wasn't a single field of grass and dirt in all of Brooklyn 3.
It wasn't that I liked regimentation and rules. I wasn't an altar boy, or a choir boy. I wasn't a crossing guard.
I didn't need structure for its own sake. Some kids did. That was alright, although it seemed most such kids - the door-monitor type - soon were big on NASA, the FBI, and Hitler. See you later to them, although they tended to be polite.
I didn't need authority. I just needed things to do.
What provided that, just in time, was Little League.
It sounds a little square, of course: like, more Pennsylvania than Brooklyn.
But it was practically romantic to me. I was in love with baseball anyway. So, to be able to play with a team? It was like being a musician, and joining your first band.
It was adventurous from the start, because we played outside the neighborhood. You'd have to. There wasn't a single field of grass and dirt in all of Brooklyn 3.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Passing Out
Like a lot of kids, I could sit and watch ants a long time. Ants were great. They were industrious. On the move. A team. They had their own thing. They didn't need people.
Clouds were good too. They weren't alive, of course; but they always changed. Like ants, they came and went on some whim or power that had nothing to do with people.
Getting older, I was starting to feel less connected to people, myself.
I began to notice, and to mind, how unfriendly adults were to kids.
My nuns and family were fine, and spoke as if kids had minds. But so many adults were either bossing you around about something inane, or patronizing you, or ignoring you altogether.
I remember talking to a neighbor one time, Mr. Rohaly, while he was gardening his meager plot. I figured I'd do the guy a favor, kill a little time with him as he puttered.
In the middle of an off-the-cuff soliloquy, about someplace I'd recently been, he looked over his shoulder at me, on his hands and knees in the dirt. His head was furrowed. (He was completely bald-headed. Mr. Nolan lived next door to him and didn't like him. He called him Beetle-Head Rohaly.)
"Really, Stevie?," he said. "Did they have pickles there?"
This threw me for some seconds as I realized this is a remark by someone who really doesn't feel like talking to you.
He must have forgotten about it a few days later, when he was painting a patch of his garage as I walked by, and he said, "You know, Stevie, in the Army, we had the saying, 'If you own it, paint it'." I thought about asking him if he painted pickles in the Army, but just kept walking.
Meanwhile, getting older, kids were also becoming more tiresome, or difficult, or both.
In school wasn't so bad. There was order, and you were occupied.
But out of school, games were getting rougher, or abandoned altogether, for meaningless - what? I couldn't even put a name to it. Hanging around, on the street, on stoops, on bikes, ranking each other out, as it was called; doing nothing.
Talk was getting stupider. Younger kids aren't ashamed of what they don't know. Older, they want to fight about it.
"Your God can't take Hercules and Atlas at the same time," a Jewish kid named Scotty (improbably, but so)once challenged me.
"He can take everybody," I said, although I was not eager to explore anything at this level of idiocy. "He made everybody."
"He can't take Hercules, Atlas, and Superman at the same time," Scotty said, with an air of rigorous triumph.
"Maybe not," I said.
If Scotty was stupid, how about James Conley, who told me Superman was real, because he saw a Superman parade on TV?
"Didn't you see that on the Superman TV show?," I said. I knew the episode.
"They can't fake a whole parade," he said.
Or, relatedly, Robert Packus, who told me his brother was Superboy, because his brother told him so, and then raced down the street tearing off his shirt, into an alley from which he (presumably) flew away?
I started spending a lot of time alone.
I could throw a ball against a wall for hours. I would create a ballgame in my head, with two teams, 27 outs apiece. Sometimes they played two.
Walking alone, I could look at an old wire fence, say, buried in a hedge behind a building, and think, no one has ever seen this before in quite this way. That means it never existed this way before. It never will again. I'd stare, and work myself into a real state of Being and Nothingness, until I thought I'd pass out; if I hadn't already. Had I?
On the normal side, I drew, read, and wrote. But things were closing in on me. That's a funny feeling at age eight.
Clouds were good too. They weren't alive, of course; but they always changed. Like ants, they came and went on some whim or power that had nothing to do with people.
Getting older, I was starting to feel less connected to people, myself.
I began to notice, and to mind, how unfriendly adults were to kids.
My nuns and family were fine, and spoke as if kids had minds. But so many adults were either bossing you around about something inane, or patronizing you, or ignoring you altogether.
I remember talking to a neighbor one time, Mr. Rohaly, while he was gardening his meager plot. I figured I'd do the guy a favor, kill a little time with him as he puttered.
In the middle of an off-the-cuff soliloquy, about someplace I'd recently been, he looked over his shoulder at me, on his hands and knees in the dirt. His head was furrowed. (He was completely bald-headed. Mr. Nolan lived next door to him and didn't like him. He called him Beetle-Head Rohaly.)
"Really, Stevie?," he said. "Did they have pickles there?"
This threw me for some seconds as I realized this is a remark by someone who really doesn't feel like talking to you.
He must have forgotten about it a few days later, when he was painting a patch of his garage as I walked by, and he said, "You know, Stevie, in the Army, we had the saying, 'If you own it, paint it'." I thought about asking him if he painted pickles in the Army, but just kept walking.
Meanwhile, getting older, kids were also becoming more tiresome, or difficult, or both.
In school wasn't so bad. There was order, and you were occupied.
But out of school, games were getting rougher, or abandoned altogether, for meaningless - what? I couldn't even put a name to it. Hanging around, on the street, on stoops, on bikes, ranking each other out, as it was called; doing nothing.
Talk was getting stupider. Younger kids aren't ashamed of what they don't know. Older, they want to fight about it.
"Your God can't take Hercules and Atlas at the same time," a Jewish kid named Scotty (improbably, but so)once challenged me.
"He can take everybody," I said, although I was not eager to explore anything at this level of idiocy. "He made everybody."
"He can't take Hercules, Atlas, and Superman at the same time," Scotty said, with an air of rigorous triumph.
"Maybe not," I said.
If Scotty was stupid, how about James Conley, who told me Superman was real, because he saw a Superman parade on TV?
"Didn't you see that on the Superman TV show?," I said. I knew the episode.
"They can't fake a whole parade," he said.
Or, relatedly, Robert Packus, who told me his brother was Superboy, because his brother told him so, and then raced down the street tearing off his shirt, into an alley from which he (presumably) flew away?
I started spending a lot of time alone.
I could throw a ball against a wall for hours. I would create a ballgame in my head, with two teams, 27 outs apiece. Sometimes they played two.
Walking alone, I could look at an old wire fence, say, buried in a hedge behind a building, and think, no one has ever seen this before in quite this way. That means it never existed this way before. It never will again. I'd stare, and work myself into a real state of Being and Nothingness, until I thought I'd pass out; if I hadn't already. Had I?
On the normal side, I drew, read, and wrote. But things were closing in on me. That's a funny feeling at age eight.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Day I Was Jewish
One case where the idea of not talking to strangers made sense was with religious people.
I found out one September. I was walking to the bus for school and a guy stopped me at 52nd and Lenox.
"Excuse me," he said. "Are you Jewish?"
If I was, I was a little early for Halloween, in my costume of a Catholic school kid.
"No," I said.
He looked relatively Jewish himself, with a yarmulke and a beard and all that, so you figure he would know the difference.
What did I care, though, and I turned to go, when he stuck out his arm like a bar and said,
"Wind my watch."
I was pre-bad language in my life, so it might have been the first time I accommodated a thought like, "What's with this crazy bastard."
Crazy people were common in Brooklyn 3, with the mental hospital, and were no worry, because they knew they were crazy, and knew you knew. All they had to do to be reminded was to glance at their pants, which they did not select themselves, and were stenciled with the words "Brooklyn State Hospital."
Non-hospital crazies were common, too, but were also little worry. They tended to be foggy and benign.
But a religious crazy person was a sudden puzzle. Where does the religion end and the crazy begin? No doubt they don't know. They just think they're religious.
So it's up to you to decide. In this case, I didn't have much time, so to speak. The guy was nuts and there was no one else on the street.
He still had his arm stuck out. I thought about grabbing his wrist and kicking his feet out from under him. Or whipping off the watch, throwing it, and running in the opposite direction.
But first, I thought, try the easiest thing. Wind the watch and see if that's all he wants.
So I did.
He looked at it, and at me, and said, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," I said.
I walked away, without turning my back completely. I made a left on Lenox, not the right direction, because I didn't want him to know my right direction.
That should have been enough crazy Jewish action for one day, but there was more that afternoon.
More craziness, but essentially the same thing, on the same block. On my way home from school this time, I'm stopped by a guy with a long beard, dressed in robes.
"Excuse me, " he said. "Are you Jewish?"
What is this, National Jewish Confusion Day? This guy is more Jewish than the other, by a lot, with the robes, straps, a scroll, and a pillow with Hebrew on it. What's he going to ask me, to fish him a herring?
Fool me twice? Forget that. So I simply say, "Yes."
"Good," he says, and starts moving. Not away: unpacking stuff.
He produces a yarmulke and puts it on my head. He takes a strap and wraps it around my arm. He opens his scroll, tells me to repeat after him, and starts reading.
Now what? I'm stalling for time while I figure this out. Meanwhile I have to speak Hebrew. Luckily I was good at accents, like a little Sid Caesar.
The guy is chanting; me too; and actually I am starting to enjoy the scene a bit, until I look up and see a bunch of my older brother's friends round the corner. Jewish kids.
They get a look at me in my regalia.
"Hey!," screams Mickey Kravitz. "He's not Jewish!"
Uh-oh. My rabbi looks quite alarmed, as the kids are running towards us, waving fists.
"See you," I say to the guy, whipping off my yarmulke and straps, and taking off in haste.
"You bastard! We'll kill you!"
Bigger kids, they are fast, but I am pretty swift myself, motivated as I am.
I tear up 52nd Street and take a right angle into the first alley I reach, to elude their sight; then another, and another. I hop an old wood fence and hide behind it.
Quiet for a while. I've lost them.
Now I have time to think, and realize what's happening.
It's September. Jewish holidays.
Religious Jews are out proselytizing: that was the p.m. guy. Regular Jews are out walking, and not working, and in fact are not allowed to work at all - not flip a light switch, not wind a watch. That was the guy this morning.
I found this situation quite ironic, but wasn't sure I could convey the humor of it all to Kravitz and crew. What they saw, or think they saw, was me in rather elaborate blasphemy on their faith.
So I sat there a while. I figured my mother would enjoy the story later - provided I arrived home alone, without a bunch of baying kids behind me. "What did you do this time?" was a question I heard enough already, without being chased home or converted.
I found out one September. I was walking to the bus for school and a guy stopped me at 52nd and Lenox.
"Excuse me," he said. "Are you Jewish?"
If I was, I was a little early for Halloween, in my costume of a Catholic school kid.
"No," I said.
He looked relatively Jewish himself, with a yarmulke and a beard and all that, so you figure he would know the difference.
What did I care, though, and I turned to go, when he stuck out his arm like a bar and said,
"Wind my watch."
I was pre-bad language in my life, so it might have been the first time I accommodated a thought like, "What's with this crazy bastard."
Crazy people were common in Brooklyn 3, with the mental hospital, and were no worry, because they knew they were crazy, and knew you knew. All they had to do to be reminded was to glance at their pants, which they did not select themselves, and were stenciled with the words "Brooklyn State Hospital."
Non-hospital crazies were common, too, but were also little worry. They tended to be foggy and benign.
But a religious crazy person was a sudden puzzle. Where does the religion end and the crazy begin? No doubt they don't know. They just think they're religious.
So it's up to you to decide. In this case, I didn't have much time, so to speak. The guy was nuts and there was no one else on the street.
He still had his arm stuck out. I thought about grabbing his wrist and kicking his feet out from under him. Or whipping off the watch, throwing it, and running in the opposite direction.
But first, I thought, try the easiest thing. Wind the watch and see if that's all he wants.
So I did.
He looked at it, and at me, and said, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," I said.
I walked away, without turning my back completely. I made a left on Lenox, not the right direction, because I didn't want him to know my right direction.
That should have been enough crazy Jewish action for one day, but there was more that afternoon.
More craziness, but essentially the same thing, on the same block. On my way home from school this time, I'm stopped by a guy with a long beard, dressed in robes.
"Excuse me, " he said. "Are you Jewish?"
What is this, National Jewish Confusion Day? This guy is more Jewish than the other, by a lot, with the robes, straps, a scroll, and a pillow with Hebrew on it. What's he going to ask me, to fish him a herring?
Fool me twice? Forget that. So I simply say, "Yes."
"Good," he says, and starts moving. Not away: unpacking stuff.
He produces a yarmulke and puts it on my head. He takes a strap and wraps it around my arm. He opens his scroll, tells me to repeat after him, and starts reading.
Now what? I'm stalling for time while I figure this out. Meanwhile I have to speak Hebrew. Luckily I was good at accents, like a little Sid Caesar.
The guy is chanting; me too; and actually I am starting to enjoy the scene a bit, until I look up and see a bunch of my older brother's friends round the corner. Jewish kids.
They get a look at me in my regalia.
"Hey!," screams Mickey Kravitz. "He's not Jewish!"
Uh-oh. My rabbi looks quite alarmed, as the kids are running towards us, waving fists.
"See you," I say to the guy, whipping off my yarmulke and straps, and taking off in haste.
"You bastard! We'll kill you!"
Bigger kids, they are fast, but I am pretty swift myself, motivated as I am.
I tear up 52nd Street and take a right angle into the first alley I reach, to elude their sight; then another, and another. I hop an old wood fence and hide behind it.
Quiet for a while. I've lost them.
Now I have time to think, and realize what's happening.
It's September. Jewish holidays.
Religious Jews are out proselytizing: that was the p.m. guy. Regular Jews are out walking, and not working, and in fact are not allowed to work at all - not flip a light switch, not wind a watch. That was the guy this morning.
I found this situation quite ironic, but wasn't sure I could convey the humor of it all to Kravitz and crew. What they saw, or think they saw, was me in rather elaborate blasphemy on their faith.
So I sat there a while. I figured my mother would enjoy the story later - provided I arrived home alone, without a bunch of baying kids behind me. "What did you do this time?" was a question I heard enough already, without being chased home or converted.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Eggies On Those Afghans
"Eggies on" something was similar to "Chips on" something in kids' legal code in Brooklyn 3, but it was acquisitive rather than compensatory.
It had exclusively to do with food.
Your friend comes walking out of the luncheonette with a bottle of RC, for instance. You say, "Eggies on that soda." He is now obligated to give you a sip.
Eggies on that ice cream, that sandwich, that pretzel, those Afghans (pistachio nuts). We were hungry.
Of course, like taxes for adults, you could get out of eggies if you were smart or stingy.
All you had to do was say "No eggies" first, to preempt any claim. That was for the smart and quick.
For the stingy, stung by an eggies claim, there was saliva.
"Eggies on that soda." Oh, yeah? So, Lee Mark Shimpkin drops a big clam into the bottle, and gobs all over the top of it.
That's alright. You'd have to be crazy to drink off Lee Mark's lips anyway. Crazy or dying of thirst, literally, and death is probably preferable.
The truth is, eggies claims were usually made between friends. It was sort of a street way to ask for a sip or a share. We generally did not ask for things, and never used words like share. Tough guys.
It had exclusively to do with food.
Your friend comes walking out of the luncheonette with a bottle of RC, for instance. You say, "Eggies on that soda." He is now obligated to give you a sip.
Eggies on that ice cream, that sandwich, that pretzel, those Afghans (pistachio nuts). We were hungry.
Of course, like taxes for adults, you could get out of eggies if you were smart or stingy.
All you had to do was say "No eggies" first, to preempt any claim. That was for the smart and quick.
For the stingy, stung by an eggies claim, there was saliva.
"Eggies on that soda." Oh, yeah? So, Lee Mark Shimpkin drops a big clam into the bottle, and gobs all over the top of it.
That's alright. You'd have to be crazy to drink off Lee Mark's lips anyway. Crazy or dying of thirst, literally, and death is probably preferable.
The truth is, eggies claims were usually made between friends. It was sort of a street way to ask for a sip or a share. We generally did not ask for things, and never used words like share. Tough guys.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Chips On That Ball
If you ever threw a ball onto a roof, or hit one up in stickball, that was the end of that ball, and time for a new one.
Even though you knew where it was, and it was a good, live ball, and rubber balls were a major expense, it didn't matter. Retrieval was ill-advised, as roofs were forbidden terrain.
Of course, in private houses they were inaccessible. You might get a homeowner to throw a ball back from a yard. If they liked you. Which was unlikely. No adult liked any kids playing ball by their house. You sure didn't even want to tell an adult you got a ball on their roof. That means it could have been their window.
Apartment house roofs could be reached, but this was as close to felonious behavior as a kid could get.
We all understood the rationale. No one could see you up there. A kid on a roof meant trouble.
Every once in a while, a crazy kid would start a fire on a roof. Young lovers would get caught up there. Kids threw bottles (non-deposit) and rocks down onto look-out-below.
Cops hated people on roofs more than anything. My father had a brother and friends on the job. I knew from trade talk that when cops arrived on a scene of trouble, one would emerge from the squad car eyeballing the street, and the other the roofs. The roofs were considered the bigger threat. A psycho up there is harder to see, chase, or shoot.
Once in a while, though, you had to take a chance. Say you hit it up there, and it wasn't your ball. If the owner of the ball had the presence of mind to holler "Chips on that ball" on its way, you are financially responsible. If you don't have the coin to replace it, you are either entering a debate (You found that ball; It was half-dead anyway), or going on a vertical journey.
The bad part, besides what is already described, is that one of the kids in the game might decide to have fun as you are sneaking up, and start shouting "Hey, super!," hoping to alert the caretaker of the building. "Kid going up that roof!"
This usually didn't happen, as it would bust up the game, but it might, if everyone was tired of playing anyway.
The good part - if no one rats you, and you have a safe trip - was that there were usually a number of good balls up there to come back down with.
If you are lucky, and the super isn't standing by the front door waiting for you, you hit the street with a trove of treasure.
If he is, and quick begging for mercy doesn't help ("They made me!"), you need those balls to pitch at him to unblock your pathway out. Ping-ping-ping, balls ricocheting off the big guy, then a couple of quick feints from you, then out the door, and run like hell.
You might yell to your friends, "The super!," though this is really unnecessary, to any observant parties. You all run, and by a block away laugh, though you will make like John Dillinger for a few days. This week's games will be somewhere else.
Even though you knew where it was, and it was a good, live ball, and rubber balls were a major expense, it didn't matter. Retrieval was ill-advised, as roofs were forbidden terrain.
Of course, in private houses they were inaccessible. You might get a homeowner to throw a ball back from a yard. If they liked you. Which was unlikely. No adult liked any kids playing ball by their house. You sure didn't even want to tell an adult you got a ball on their roof. That means it could have been their window.
Apartment house roofs could be reached, but this was as close to felonious behavior as a kid could get.
We all understood the rationale. No one could see you up there. A kid on a roof meant trouble.
Every once in a while, a crazy kid would start a fire on a roof. Young lovers would get caught up there. Kids threw bottles (non-deposit) and rocks down onto look-out-below.
Cops hated people on roofs more than anything. My father had a brother and friends on the job. I knew from trade talk that when cops arrived on a scene of trouble, one would emerge from the squad car eyeballing the street, and the other the roofs. The roofs were considered the bigger threat. A psycho up there is harder to see, chase, or shoot.
Once in a while, though, you had to take a chance. Say you hit it up there, and it wasn't your ball. If the owner of the ball had the presence of mind to holler "Chips on that ball" on its way, you are financially responsible. If you don't have the coin to replace it, you are either entering a debate (You found that ball; It was half-dead anyway), or going on a vertical journey.
The bad part, besides what is already described, is that one of the kids in the game might decide to have fun as you are sneaking up, and start shouting "Hey, super!," hoping to alert the caretaker of the building. "Kid going up that roof!"
This usually didn't happen, as it would bust up the game, but it might, if everyone was tired of playing anyway.
The good part - if no one rats you, and you have a safe trip - was that there were usually a number of good balls up there to come back down with.
If you are lucky, and the super isn't standing by the front door waiting for you, you hit the street with a trove of treasure.
If he is, and quick begging for mercy doesn't help ("They made me!"), you need those balls to pitch at him to unblock your pathway out. Ping-ping-ping, balls ricocheting off the big guy, then a couple of quick feints from you, then out the door, and run like hell.
You might yell to your friends, "The super!," though this is really unnecessary, to any observant parties. You all run, and by a block away laugh, though you will make like John Dillinger for a few days. This week's games will be somewhere else.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Home Team
What set Earth apart as a living planet was air, light, water, and baseball.
In spring, baseball came like buds on the trees. It stopped in fall like colorful leaves.
In the meantime, it was all around, every day.
It was on TV, the radio, in newspapers, gigantically. Everybody talked about it. Kids played it.
Baseball equipment was one of the first things you saved for in life. I had hand-me-down stuff, but I looked forward to buying my own glove someday. That would be great, like buying a suit or a car.
Good gloves were modeled after major league players' and had the player's signature etched in them. You wanted a good guy, not some stiff. That was as important as the fit.
You could pick a player from any team. That was considered sophisticated and genteel. It didn't have to be a player from your own favorite team.
In my case, it couldn't be from my own team, because my team was the Mets, and they didn't have any guys good enough to name a glove after.
The Mets were lousy, but beloved. Neither word is too strong.
The Mets were sort of a replacement team for the Dodgers, who left Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1957.
The New York Giants left for San Francisco at the same time. Both teams were in the National League. New York went from being the only city with two National League teams, to having none.
New York still had the Yankees, which counted, kind of. But the Yankees were from the slow league, the American League. They won a lot of games and championships and were famous, but dull.
New York needed a National League team and got one, the Mets, beginning the 1962 season.
The Mets were made up of players the other teams were willing to give up in a draft, a funny word for getting rid of garbage. Of course, we did not think of the Mets in these terms. We thought about potential.
It didn't matter that they lost more games their first season than any team ever had: a lot more. We were happy to have them. The newspapers called them the Amazin' Mets. That was purposely ambiguous, jokingly so, because they did not mean amazingly good.
Their legacy team, the Dodgers, were also not very good, for a long part of their history. Their nickname was the Bums.
The Bums thrived on daffiness and fatalism, both major traits in Brooklyn at all times.
One game, the Dodgers had two guys sliding into a base where a third guy was already standing. This is not supposed to happen.
It took the Dodgers decades to get good, and that really only happened because they were the first team to hire black players - reason enough to like them.
The Mets, sadly, did not have players like Jackie Robinson, black or white. They had players like Choo-Choo Coleman, black and white.
It didn't matter. We rooted hard for Choo-Choo, and all the Amazin's.
A nice part of having two teams in town - two very different teams - was being able to dislike the other one close up.
The Yankees were good, in fact the best, but thought who they were, so forget them.
For some reason, the Jewish kids I knew liked the Yankees. I couldn't reckon out why. At least it made things more varied when we'd choose up a game, and pretend to be our favorite players.
It was hard to have a favorite Met player based on merit. I liked Warren Spahn, a pitcher who was once great, but by then old, in his forties. I liked him for his history, and his exotically plain name, but also because he looked exactly like Satch from the Bowery Boys. But this didn't make you want to be him.
In 1965, the Mets brought up a guy named Ron Swoboda. He was young and athletic, though raw. He used to get hit in the head by fly balls from time to time. He was known as Rocky, I think for those catching abilities, and maybe that noggin.
He was cool. "Swoboda" was a good baseball name. He was from Baltimore, and had a Chinese grandfather.
His first year, he hit 19 home runs, great for any Met, but phenomenal for a rookie.
I wrote him a letter predicting his place someday in the Hall of Fame. That reflected my enthusiasm rather than measured judgment, but he seemed to appreciate it. I got back an autographed photo. I'm sure I still have it.
In spring, baseball came like buds on the trees. It stopped in fall like colorful leaves.
In the meantime, it was all around, every day.
It was on TV, the radio, in newspapers, gigantically. Everybody talked about it. Kids played it.
Baseball equipment was one of the first things you saved for in life. I had hand-me-down stuff, but I looked forward to buying my own glove someday. That would be great, like buying a suit or a car.
Good gloves were modeled after major league players' and had the player's signature etched in them. You wanted a good guy, not some stiff. That was as important as the fit.
You could pick a player from any team. That was considered sophisticated and genteel. It didn't have to be a player from your own favorite team.
In my case, it couldn't be from my own team, because my team was the Mets, and they didn't have any guys good enough to name a glove after.
The Mets were lousy, but beloved. Neither word is too strong.
The Mets were sort of a replacement team for the Dodgers, who left Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1957.
The New York Giants left for San Francisco at the same time. Both teams were in the National League. New York went from being the only city with two National League teams, to having none.
New York still had the Yankees, which counted, kind of. But the Yankees were from the slow league, the American League. They won a lot of games and championships and were famous, but dull.
New York needed a National League team and got one, the Mets, beginning the 1962 season.
The Mets were made up of players the other teams were willing to give up in a draft, a funny word for getting rid of garbage. Of course, we did not think of the Mets in these terms. We thought about potential.
It didn't matter that they lost more games their first season than any team ever had: a lot more. We were happy to have them. The newspapers called them the Amazin' Mets. That was purposely ambiguous, jokingly so, because they did not mean amazingly good.
Their legacy team, the Dodgers, were also not very good, for a long part of their history. Their nickname was the Bums.
The Bums thrived on daffiness and fatalism, both major traits in Brooklyn at all times.
One game, the Dodgers had two guys sliding into a base where a third guy was already standing. This is not supposed to happen.
It took the Dodgers decades to get good, and that really only happened because they were the first team to hire black players - reason enough to like them.
The Mets, sadly, did not have players like Jackie Robinson, black or white. They had players like Choo-Choo Coleman, black and white.
It didn't matter. We rooted hard for Choo-Choo, and all the Amazin's.
A nice part of having two teams in town - two very different teams - was being able to dislike the other one close up.
The Yankees were good, in fact the best, but thought who they were, so forget them.
For some reason, the Jewish kids I knew liked the Yankees. I couldn't reckon out why. At least it made things more varied when we'd choose up a game, and pretend to be our favorite players.
It was hard to have a favorite Met player based on merit. I liked Warren Spahn, a pitcher who was once great, but by then old, in his forties. I liked him for his history, and his exotically plain name, but also because he looked exactly like Satch from the Bowery Boys. But this didn't make you want to be him.
In 1965, the Mets brought up a guy named Ron Swoboda. He was young and athletic, though raw. He used to get hit in the head by fly balls from time to time. He was known as Rocky, I think for those catching abilities, and maybe that noggin.
He was cool. "Swoboda" was a good baseball name. He was from Baltimore, and had a Chinese grandfather.
His first year, he hit 19 home runs, great for any Met, but phenomenal for a rookie.
I wrote him a letter predicting his place someday in the Hall of Fame. That reflected my enthusiasm rather than measured judgment, but he seemed to appreciate it. I got back an autographed photo. I'm sure I still have it.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Talking To Strangers
Like many things I heard, I held in low regard two of the most common bromides taught to kids to keep us safe in public.
"Don't talk to strangers" was one. The other, related, was "Don't take candy from strangers."
What nonsense. Who is a stranger, after all? Everyone you don't know? Everyone you know was once someone you didn't.
Out on the street, you might eyeball 200 people a day. They all live around here. So they're probably alright.
Are they strangers because I don't know their names?
Well, guess what, I don't want to know their names.
But if they talk to me, I am going to talk back. What am I, an imbecile? Are they going to outwit me into doing something I don't want to do? There was not a single outwitting candidate around, that I had ever seen.
The warning about candy I considered more heavily, but only because I misunderstood it.
I didn't realize it was a follow-up to the first warning, that someone might use candy - like talk - as a lure to abduct you.
I thought it was a warning against being poisoned.
I knew there were a lot of adults who didn't like kids. "Hey, you kids! Go play where you live!," was perhaps the single most common comment from adults to children you could hear. Who knows how many times you heard that, screamed from an apartment window above your game.
So, I didn't know. Maybe the next step for a window-screamer like that would be to come outside with a bowl of candy they secretly stuck with poison, give, go back upstairs, and watch you drop dead on the street.
This I considered possible, so I did keep it in mind to at least check out any candy given by strangers: scrutinize it, don't just pop it down.
It was not a frequent issue. I can remember only once in my life being offered candy on the street.
It was from an old guy named Ice Cream Cone Joe. I knew him, so I wasn't too worried. He had no reason to kill me.
It was a piece of chocolate. It was wrapped in gold foil. I took it and said thanks.
When he looked away, I looked it over. No pin-pricks from a syringe? No problem. Now eat it before it melts.
"Don't talk to strangers" was one. The other, related, was "Don't take candy from strangers."
What nonsense. Who is a stranger, after all? Everyone you don't know? Everyone you know was once someone you didn't.
Out on the street, you might eyeball 200 people a day. They all live around here. So they're probably alright.
Are they strangers because I don't know their names?
Well, guess what, I don't want to know their names.
But if they talk to me, I am going to talk back. What am I, an imbecile? Are they going to outwit me into doing something I don't want to do? There was not a single outwitting candidate around, that I had ever seen.
The warning about candy I considered more heavily, but only because I misunderstood it.
I didn't realize it was a follow-up to the first warning, that someone might use candy - like talk - as a lure to abduct you.
I thought it was a warning against being poisoned.
I knew there were a lot of adults who didn't like kids. "Hey, you kids! Go play where you live!," was perhaps the single most common comment from adults to children you could hear. Who knows how many times you heard that, screamed from an apartment window above your game.
So, I didn't know. Maybe the next step for a window-screamer like that would be to come outside with a bowl of candy they secretly stuck with poison, give, go back upstairs, and watch you drop dead on the street.
This I considered possible, so I did keep it in mind to at least check out any candy given by strangers: scrutinize it, don't just pop it down.
It was not a frequent issue. I can remember only once in my life being offered candy on the street.
It was from an old guy named Ice Cream Cone Joe. I knew him, so I wasn't too worried. He had no reason to kill me.
It was a piece of chocolate. It was wrapped in gold foil. I took it and said thanks.
When he looked away, I looked it over. No pin-pricks from a syringe? No problem. Now eat it before it melts.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
We Welcome Fab Four
Our dad ran the print shop at Pan Am - a pretty big job. They generated a lot of paper at the biggest airline in the world.
Along with all the other copying, they created a memo packet each morning that amounted to a daily newspaper. Trucks ran it out to LaGuardia and Idlewild every weekday. The Pan Am building itself was a town, going up instead of out.
So, father - who had started working for the company at age 16 - knew (and cared) a lot about the place.
One winter day, he came home with a record album in a Pan Am bag. "Ever heard of these guys?," he asked.
It was four guys called The Beatles. They looked strange.
Never, we said.
"You will soon," our father said.
They were from England, which we associated with wars, not music. But apparently they were popular there, and coming to America. They would be flying on Pan Am.
They would be on the Ed Sullivan Show, our father said, and if they became as popular in America as in England, it would be good publicity for Pan Am, having carried them.
That seemed strange to us, that Pan Am would care about publicity from flying four guys in weird suits and haircuts, but our father said so.
"Listen to it and see what you think," he said.
They didn't look like musicians. Musicians had straight teeth and hair piled up high. Like the Everly Brothers. That's who we liked.
Apparently, though, the Beatles liked them, too. That's what we found out when we listened.
They sang like the Everly Brothers. Those kind of harmonies. Except louder.
It was all loud, but we liked it. Every song on the record was good.
Soon, you started hearing the Beatles on the radio. The two songs they played the most were the ones we liked the least. But they were as good as anything else on the radio, or better.
Before you ever heard them on the radio, you would see bumper stickers on walls, saying "The Beatles Are Coming." Who?, kids asked. We knew, but failed to generate much interest when we explained they were a music group from England who were flying on Pan Am.
When they arrived in New York, two days before the Ed Sullivan show, they were met and interviewed at Idlewild by a mob of reporters and photographers. The Pan Am logo was behind them, on the wall above their heads. Job well done, somebody.
Along with all the other copying, they created a memo packet each morning that amounted to a daily newspaper. Trucks ran it out to LaGuardia and Idlewild every weekday. The Pan Am building itself was a town, going up instead of out.
So, father - who had started working for the company at age 16 - knew (and cared) a lot about the place.
One winter day, he came home with a record album in a Pan Am bag. "Ever heard of these guys?," he asked.
It was four guys called The Beatles. They looked strange.
Never, we said.
"You will soon," our father said.
They were from England, which we associated with wars, not music. But apparently they were popular there, and coming to America. They would be flying on Pan Am.
They would be on the Ed Sullivan Show, our father said, and if they became as popular in America as in England, it would be good publicity for Pan Am, having carried them.
That seemed strange to us, that Pan Am would care about publicity from flying four guys in weird suits and haircuts, but our father said so.
"Listen to it and see what you think," he said.
They didn't look like musicians. Musicians had straight teeth and hair piled up high. Like the Everly Brothers. That's who we liked.
Apparently, though, the Beatles liked them, too. That's what we found out when we listened.
They sang like the Everly Brothers. Those kind of harmonies. Except louder.
It was all loud, but we liked it. Every song on the record was good.
Soon, you started hearing the Beatles on the radio. The two songs they played the most were the ones we liked the least. But they were as good as anything else on the radio, or better.
Before you ever heard them on the radio, you would see bumper stickers on walls, saying "The Beatles Are Coming." Who?, kids asked. We knew, but failed to generate much interest when we explained they were a music group from England who were flying on Pan Am.
When they arrived in New York, two days before the Ed Sullivan show, they were met and interviewed at Idlewild by a mob of reporters and photographers. The Pan Am logo was behind them, on the wall above their heads. Job well done, somebody.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Radio
We probably already felt it, but from radio stations we knew that teenagers were a big thing.
Teenagers were almost adults (independent; tall), but not serious. They had money, from allowances or jobs, but didn't have to spend it on food or housing, or give it to school or church; therefore they could have fun with it. This is where the radio came in.
There were radio stations for adults, of course, and for news, and sports, but the loudest and liveliest were for teenagers. WINS, WABC, and WMCA were the big ones.
Teen radio was full of commercials: for cola, clothes, Clearasil, concerts, batteries, cameras, the Navy, the Daily News, Palisades Amusement Park, Thunderbird, and much more. One learned from Thunderbird's ad that it was The Word, and that the price was thirty twice. Lots of ads had good jingles, which could blur the line between ads and songs.
That reinforced the point that everything was for sale. Of course, the songs themselves were for sale, at record stores. The Hot List changed every week, so it kept listeners spending money to keep current and cool.
Everything was a brand. Every station had a swingin' name for its announcements for time and temperature. The DJs had nicknames or names that sounded like nicknames. They even had team names. WMCA was the Good Guys. WABC was the All-Americans.
And you were branded, too. You were a Cousin of Cousin Bruce Morrow. You were Kimosabe to Danny Dan Daniels, the Tall Talented Texan.
As a kid, I didn't care too much about the reasons why. I didn't have money to buy anything. I didn't covet anything. I just enjoyed the tumult of it all. It was a sonic Mad Magazine, something entertaining that your parents didn't like, which of course lent appeal. And even though it seemed to be a lot about spending money and getting things, itself it was free, and fun, all day.
Teenagers were almost adults (independent; tall), but not serious. They had money, from allowances or jobs, but didn't have to spend it on food or housing, or give it to school or church; therefore they could have fun with it. This is where the radio came in.
There were radio stations for adults, of course, and for news, and sports, but the loudest and liveliest were for teenagers. WINS, WABC, and WMCA were the big ones.
Teen radio was full of commercials: for cola, clothes, Clearasil, concerts, batteries, cameras, the Navy, the Daily News, Palisades Amusement Park, Thunderbird, and much more. One learned from Thunderbird's ad that it was The Word, and that the price was thirty twice. Lots of ads had good jingles, which could blur the line between ads and songs.
That reinforced the point that everything was for sale. Of course, the songs themselves were for sale, at record stores. The Hot List changed every week, so it kept listeners spending money to keep current and cool.
Everything was a brand. Every station had a swingin' name for its announcements for time and temperature. The DJs had nicknames or names that sounded like nicknames. They even had team names. WMCA was the Good Guys. WABC was the All-Americans.
And you were branded, too. You were a Cousin of Cousin Bruce Morrow. You were Kimosabe to Danny Dan Daniels, the Tall Talented Texan.
As a kid, I didn't care too much about the reasons why. I didn't have money to buy anything. I didn't covet anything. I just enjoyed the tumult of it all. It was a sonic Mad Magazine, something entertaining that your parents didn't like, which of course lent appeal. And even though it seemed to be a lot about spending money and getting things, itself it was free, and fun, all day.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Big Questions, Short Answers
There was a question in my mind about parents and children, and how you were different between your mother and your father.
Mothers seemed to have a lot more patience. Maybe because they had us in the first place. Maybe because they spent so much more time with us.
Our mother seemed immune to puzzlement from weird observations and misplaced notions, of which we provided plenty.
One morning, my mother was combing my hair for church. The radio was on, as it always was. WNEW, which played Frank Sinatra, and like that.
The record began to skip. It went on a bit. Finally the host broke in and apologized.
"Wow, he really gave it away now, didn't he, Mom?," I said.
"He sure did," my mother said.
I am quite sure she had no idea what I was talking about, that until that minute, I thought all music on the radio was played and sung live.
After all, the guy said, "And now, here's Frank Sinatra singing 'Here's That Rainy Day'," not "And now, here's a record of Frank Sinatra," etc.
Nor did she care.
Our father, on the other hand, seemed to fret about things we said and questions we asked that made plenty of sense to us, but swerved around his comprehension, somehow.
"Hey, Dad," I said one day in the car. I was riding in the front seat with him, just the two of us out on some weekend errand.
I was contemplating the car's hood ornament, a largish, silver airplane.
"How did you get that airplane on your car?," I asked.
"They put it there," he said.
"How did they know you work at Pan Am?"
"They didn't."
"Then why did they put it there?"
"They just did."
For some reason, apparently, he did not feel like explaining to me the process by which some people got an emblem of the place they worked put onto the hood of their car, and some didn't. My next question was going to be how come Mr. Levine, our neighbor who owned a fruit company, didn't have an apple or something up there. I let it go.
I guess the car was a dangerous place for him to be with me. There was no Mother to intercept the inevitable daffy question.
One day we were driving past Holy Cross cemetery, a large fixture in the neighborhood.
I viewed, and considered with some depth, the various markers of the graves.
Even driving by, from Brooklyn Avenue, you could see some massive statues: angels, crucifixes, in heavy gray stone.
I knew there were plenty of small markers in there, too. I asked,
"Dad, how do they decide what kind of marker you get on your grave?"
"What?," he asked.
"How do they decide whether you get a big one or a small one?"
"It depends how much money you have," he said.
I reared back my head, aghast.
Money? After all that talk in church about helping the poor, and the least of my brothers, and the last shall be first, and the rich man getting to Heaven like a camel through the eye of a needle? You get the religious honor of a big monument in death depending on how much money you made in life?
I did not realize, of course, that somewhere between my straightforward question and my father's simple answer lay a big chasm.
My supposition was that the grave marker was bestowed, as a judgment - a report - of the way you lived your life.
It did not occur to me that they were items of purchase.
My father's supposition was that I had at least that much sense.
Neither of us spoke for the rest of the ride. Me, out of shock and stupefaction, my religious beliefs riddled to the core. My father, I guess, from confusion, or relief.
Mothers seemed to have a lot more patience. Maybe because they had us in the first place. Maybe because they spent so much more time with us.
Our mother seemed immune to puzzlement from weird observations and misplaced notions, of which we provided plenty.
One morning, my mother was combing my hair for church. The radio was on, as it always was. WNEW, which played Frank Sinatra, and like that.
The record began to skip. It went on a bit. Finally the host broke in and apologized.
"Wow, he really gave it away now, didn't he, Mom?," I said.
"He sure did," my mother said.
I am quite sure she had no idea what I was talking about, that until that minute, I thought all music on the radio was played and sung live.
After all, the guy said, "And now, here's Frank Sinatra singing 'Here's That Rainy Day'," not "And now, here's a record of Frank Sinatra," etc.
Nor did she care.
Our father, on the other hand, seemed to fret about things we said and questions we asked that made plenty of sense to us, but swerved around his comprehension, somehow.
"Hey, Dad," I said one day in the car. I was riding in the front seat with him, just the two of us out on some weekend errand.
I was contemplating the car's hood ornament, a largish, silver airplane.
"How did you get that airplane on your car?," I asked.
"They put it there," he said.
"How did they know you work at Pan Am?"
"They didn't."
"Then why did they put it there?"
"They just did."
For some reason, apparently, he did not feel like explaining to me the process by which some people got an emblem of the place they worked put onto the hood of their car, and some didn't. My next question was going to be how come Mr. Levine, our neighbor who owned a fruit company, didn't have an apple or something up there. I let it go.
I guess the car was a dangerous place for him to be with me. There was no Mother to intercept the inevitable daffy question.
One day we were driving past Holy Cross cemetery, a large fixture in the neighborhood.
I viewed, and considered with some depth, the various markers of the graves.
Even driving by, from Brooklyn Avenue, you could see some massive statues: angels, crucifixes, in heavy gray stone.
I knew there were plenty of small markers in there, too. I asked,
"Dad, how do they decide what kind of marker you get on your grave?"
"What?," he asked.
"How do they decide whether you get a big one or a small one?"
"It depends how much money you have," he said.
I reared back my head, aghast.
Money? After all that talk in church about helping the poor, and the least of my brothers, and the last shall be first, and the rich man getting to Heaven like a camel through the eye of a needle? You get the religious honor of a big monument in death depending on how much money you made in life?
I did not realize, of course, that somewhere between my straightforward question and my father's simple answer lay a big chasm.
My supposition was that the grave marker was bestowed, as a judgment - a report - of the way you lived your life.
It did not occur to me that they were items of purchase.
My father's supposition was that I had at least that much sense.
Neither of us spoke for the rest of the ride. Me, out of shock and stupefaction, my religious beliefs riddled to the core. My father, I guess, from confusion, or relief.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Nina, The Pinta, And The IRT
Our mother was a powerful person, controlling all facets of daily life, except whatever small aspects we could hide from her, or were naturally private. These did not amount to much.
Our father had power, too, but it derived from outside the house, where he spent most of his time.
We figured he did a lot of work out there, because when he left in the morning, he smelled fresh (shaving cream) and looked sharp. When he came home, something had obviously took the mickey out of him: wrinkled clothes, loose tie, immediate beer.
He seemed all right, though, and would stand in the kitchen with his beer talking to our mother while she finished cooking dinner.
The fact that he could even get to this job mystified me.
He took the bus on Clarkson and Utica Avenues in the opposite direction from everything I knew. I knew Clarkson Avenue, Lenox Road, Linden Boulevard, Church Avenue, Snyder Avenue, Tilden Avenue, Beverly Road. The library was on Beverly Road, a pretty far walk, and I didn't know anything beyond that.
In the other direction, I didn't know a single thing. Not even one street. He went that way because that's where the subway was.
The subway was a gigantic mystery. He tried to take me on it once. It didn't work out. I didn't like the noise or the smell or the fact that it was underground.
Underground? How do you know when to get off? I refused to get on, and that displeased him. I didn't mind the swat I got as he dragged me back upstairs. At least I was still alive and aware of my surroundings.
He also had the ability to drive a car. That was good, but I really admired his capacity in knowing where things were.
He knew how to get to Flatbush Avenue, Prospect Park, and Manhattan Beach, places we drove to regularly, but not frequently, so how did he remember? I sure didn't.
Every once in a while we would go to a different beach. Riis Park. He knew that, too. Or somewhere new. Shea Stadium. Are you kidding me? It was an hour away with a thousand turns. He never even asked for a second opinion.
Columbus was a famous guy, so I could see it was considered a valuable skill to know how to get places. Some day I would, I figured, though it might be by bus, for me.
Our father had power, too, but it derived from outside the house, where he spent most of his time.
We figured he did a lot of work out there, because when he left in the morning, he smelled fresh (shaving cream) and looked sharp. When he came home, something had obviously took the mickey out of him: wrinkled clothes, loose tie, immediate beer.
He seemed all right, though, and would stand in the kitchen with his beer talking to our mother while she finished cooking dinner.
The fact that he could even get to this job mystified me.
He took the bus on Clarkson and Utica Avenues in the opposite direction from everything I knew. I knew Clarkson Avenue, Lenox Road, Linden Boulevard, Church Avenue, Snyder Avenue, Tilden Avenue, Beverly Road. The library was on Beverly Road, a pretty far walk, and I didn't know anything beyond that.
In the other direction, I didn't know a single thing. Not even one street. He went that way because that's where the subway was.
The subway was a gigantic mystery. He tried to take me on it once. It didn't work out. I didn't like the noise or the smell or the fact that it was underground.
Underground? How do you know when to get off? I refused to get on, and that displeased him. I didn't mind the swat I got as he dragged me back upstairs. At least I was still alive and aware of my surroundings.
He also had the ability to drive a car. That was good, but I really admired his capacity in knowing where things were.
He knew how to get to Flatbush Avenue, Prospect Park, and Manhattan Beach, places we drove to regularly, but not frequently, so how did he remember? I sure didn't.
Every once in a while we would go to a different beach. Riis Park. He knew that, too. Or somewhere new. Shea Stadium. Are you kidding me? It was an hour away with a thousand turns. He never even asked for a second opinion.
Columbus was a famous guy, so I could see it was considered a valuable skill to know how to get places. Some day I would, I figured, though it might be by bus, for me.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Table Money
Clap hands, clap hands
Til Daddy comes home.
Daddy has money
And Mommy has none.
Our mother used to sing this little ditty to her babies.
It was related to the well-known couplet about fathers working, but not all day and night, like mothers.
I wasn't sure these things were strictly true, or even remotely so, but it showed you should get your message out there.
You didn't hear fathers singing or rhyming about their situations, which I could see was a blunder.
As far as I could tell, our father didn't have more money than our mother. He had less.
He had change. When he came home from work, he emptied his pockets onto his dresser. There was a torrent of change, but no bills.
He had nothing in his wallet, because he did not have a wallet.
On the other hand, "Go get my purse," our mother would say when the beer man delivered, or the milkman collected, and it was filled with large coarse notes.
On weekends, going shopping to King Kullen or Sears, my mother had the money. If our father was going out alone, to the auto supply or hardware store, our mother gave him money.
Where would he get any money? Our mother went to the bank. It was closed at nights and weekends, when he was home.
He had a piece of paper called a paycheck. On Friday nights he handed it to our mother.
Our mother turned that into a lot of papers. She had a big, brown accordion file filled with envelopes, and typewritten letters, and sheets of papers filled with numbers.
Our father never touched this file. Every once in a while, when our mother was working with these papers on the table, she would call, "Eddie, come in here," and he would get up, sit with her, and talk.
He got out of a lot of work at that table, no doubt, so I'm sure he would not have beefed about the judgment about who works more hours, mother or father.
He might have felt differently about who had more money, if asked. But really, what would he care? His answer probably would have been, "We have our money."
Til Daddy comes home.
Daddy has money
And Mommy has none.
Our mother used to sing this little ditty to her babies.
It was related to the well-known couplet about fathers working, but not all day and night, like mothers.
I wasn't sure these things were strictly true, or even remotely so, but it showed you should get your message out there.
You didn't hear fathers singing or rhyming about their situations, which I could see was a blunder.
As far as I could tell, our father didn't have more money than our mother. He had less.
He had change. When he came home from work, he emptied his pockets onto his dresser. There was a torrent of change, but no bills.
He had nothing in his wallet, because he did not have a wallet.
On the other hand, "Go get my purse," our mother would say when the beer man delivered, or the milkman collected, and it was filled with large coarse notes.
On weekends, going shopping to King Kullen or Sears, my mother had the money. If our father was going out alone, to the auto supply or hardware store, our mother gave him money.
Where would he get any money? Our mother went to the bank. It was closed at nights and weekends, when he was home.
He had a piece of paper called a paycheck. On Friday nights he handed it to our mother.
Our mother turned that into a lot of papers. She had a big, brown accordion file filled with envelopes, and typewritten letters, and sheets of papers filled with numbers.
Our father never touched this file. Every once in a while, when our mother was working with these papers on the table, she would call, "Eddie, come in here," and he would get up, sit with her, and talk.
He got out of a lot of work at that table, no doubt, so I'm sure he would not have beefed about the judgment about who works more hours, mother or father.
He might have felt differently about who had more money, if asked. But really, what would he care? His answer probably would have been, "We have our money."
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Paper Bag Credit Cards
Credit cards did not exist in Brooklyn 3, but a there was a system of consumer credit by merchants based on paper bags and clothesline.
People needed to eat every day, but payday was once every two weeks, and sometimes by the end of the cycle the household money had run out, or even before the end, like at the beginning.
So the butcher, the grocer, etc. would hang you credit.
Come in and place your order. Tell the store you need credit. They add up your order and reach not towards the register, but for a small paper bag.
They write your name on the bag. They write the amount you owe. They hang it with a clothespin on a clothesline behind the counter.
It is revolving credit. There is room on the bag for more owing. But not that much. It is a small bag on purpose.
The owner's expectation is that you will make good on it by the end of the bag. You probably will, because if you don't, you will have to consult with the finance department, which is the owner telling you that your hung credit is dead. You do not wish to be told this when your family is hungry.
You also don't want it known by the neighbors. Chances are they have already seen that your bag has a lot of numbers on it, preceded by plus signs, and no minuses. It is shameful among the people, and also hurtful to your credit rating at other stores.
Some people, however, were hard to shame, or even cajole, and were good at extending credit for themselves. My grandmother was among the best. I suppose you could say worst, if you were an economist. But if you appreciated art, the best.
I was with her one day on Church Avenue. She had money for the bakery and the butcher, but was holding out on the deli, where we stopped for a small treat.
- This is going to be cash, isn't it, Mrs. Keane?
- Ah, no, Morrie. I think I need a little more credit today.
- Well, I was thinking about asking you to settle up some, Mrs. Keane. I mean it's getting a little heavy here.
- I haven't got it, though. Not today. Soon. Just this little purchase, and we'll settle up before you know it.
- Well, I'd like to know it, Mrs. Keane. I mean you owe us quite a bit on this tab here.
- Well, you know, Morrie. I'd rather owe it to you than to have to cheat you out of it.
In the face of such artful intransigence, not only does Ma not get screamed at, or even scowled at, she gets today's order on the line, too. Morrie knows that otherwise he does not see her for a while. And if he is to tell others about the day's dealings with Mrs. Keane, they will only laugh. So the shame factor is non-existent.
She is funny. Chances are Morrie laughs, at least later.
It's not about the money. It's a dance, a bit of theater on the street, in the middle of bland afternoon.
A day's tedium is shattered for a while. No worries. A laugh today. The money? Maybe tomorrow.
People needed to eat every day, but payday was once every two weeks, and sometimes by the end of the cycle the household money had run out, or even before the end, like at the beginning.
So the butcher, the grocer, etc. would hang you credit.
Come in and place your order. Tell the store you need credit. They add up your order and reach not towards the register, but for a small paper bag.
They write your name on the bag. They write the amount you owe. They hang it with a clothespin on a clothesline behind the counter.
It is revolving credit. There is room on the bag for more owing. But not that much. It is a small bag on purpose.
The owner's expectation is that you will make good on it by the end of the bag. You probably will, because if you don't, you will have to consult with the finance department, which is the owner telling you that your hung credit is dead. You do not wish to be told this when your family is hungry.
You also don't want it known by the neighbors. Chances are they have already seen that your bag has a lot of numbers on it, preceded by plus signs, and no minuses. It is shameful among the people, and also hurtful to your credit rating at other stores.
Some people, however, were hard to shame, or even cajole, and were good at extending credit for themselves. My grandmother was among the best. I suppose you could say worst, if you were an economist. But if you appreciated art, the best.
I was with her one day on Church Avenue. She had money for the bakery and the butcher, but was holding out on the deli, where we stopped for a small treat.
- This is going to be cash, isn't it, Mrs. Keane?
- Ah, no, Morrie. I think I need a little more credit today.
- Well, I was thinking about asking you to settle up some, Mrs. Keane. I mean it's getting a little heavy here.
- I haven't got it, though. Not today. Soon. Just this little purchase, and we'll settle up before you know it.
- Well, I'd like to know it, Mrs. Keane. I mean you owe us quite a bit on this tab here.
- Well, you know, Morrie. I'd rather owe it to you than to have to cheat you out of it.
In the face of such artful intransigence, not only does Ma not get screamed at, or even scowled at, she gets today's order on the line, too. Morrie knows that otherwise he does not see her for a while. And if he is to tell others about the day's dealings with Mrs. Keane, they will only laugh. So the shame factor is non-existent.
She is funny. Chances are Morrie laughs, at least later.
It's not about the money. It's a dance, a bit of theater on the street, in the middle of bland afternoon.
A day's tedium is shattered for a while. No worries. A laugh today. The money? Maybe tomorrow.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Our Other Mother
There was no such thing as divorce in Brooklyn 3. No kid ever lost a parent, nor got an extra one, that way.
Some kids got an extra parent through family, if a real parent got sick.
This happened with us.
Early in her marriage, our mother was hospitalized with polio. She had little kids. So her mother, Maryann Keane, stepped in.
Maryann lived a mile from us, with her husband, Patrick, in a fifth-floor walk-up, on the corner of Church and Brooklyn Avenues.
Maryann Lynch and Patrick Keane were from Ireland. Both came to America as children, fleeing poverty.
Maryann came alone, at age 16.
She'd had the misfortune to be born a girl, first child in a dirt-farming family.
"That's one for America," her father said when she was born, not male. He shipped her to New York as soon as it was legal.
There were boarding houses for such as Maryann. She went to work scrubbing floors in Manhattan.
On weekends, she went to dances for the Irish. She met a man - from Tuam, back home. He was good.
They married. Maryann was 24. Things were good enough that she stopped working.
She bore three children. She was thrilled with it and so was her husband.
Like herself, her husband was denied education as a child, thus choices later. Patrick worked digging ditches and pouring asphalt in the streets.
Their three girls slept in one bed. Maryann washed clothes by hand, in a tub with a washboard and wringer. By no means was there money.
But her husband was faithful, kind, and pious. Also, good-looking and fun. He played the accordion at parties on Saturday nights. Sunday mornings, he cooked breakfast for the family, before ushering at church.
Their girls were all spirited, smart and beautiful.
How much did she love Brooklyn? She loved the place entirely, she told me many times, in a brogue she never lost - jute-strong, song-sweet.
She'd built a life, against all odds, more solid, by a million, than the stone house she was cast from in Longford.
Presumably, to help a sick daughter raise children was no great burden, in her mind.
Maryann came to our house by bus each morning before our father left for work, and took the bus home once he returned. No need to bother him with driving, tired as he was. Some nights she stayed, if needed. On weekends she drove with her husband.
We children were small, and of course had all bonded normally with our mother, but there arose some confusion about the role of these two women in our lives.
Other kids saw their mothers a lot, and their grandmothers a little. With us, it was the opposite.
We referred to our grandmother as "Ma." Of course, our mother was Mom. But whatever a grandmother was, or was supposed to be, ours was more. Hence the splitting of the title.
I don't know if anyone tried to clarify the issue for us, or correct us. If they did, it didn't stick. We never referred to nor addressed Maryann as anything but Ma, our whole lives.
Some kids got an extra parent through family, if a real parent got sick.
This happened with us.
Early in her marriage, our mother was hospitalized with polio. She had little kids. So her mother, Maryann Keane, stepped in.
Maryann lived a mile from us, with her husband, Patrick, in a fifth-floor walk-up, on the corner of Church and Brooklyn Avenues.
Maryann Lynch and Patrick Keane were from Ireland. Both came to America as children, fleeing poverty.
Maryann came alone, at age 16.
She'd had the misfortune to be born a girl, first child in a dirt-farming family.
"That's one for America," her father said when she was born, not male. He shipped her to New York as soon as it was legal.
There were boarding houses for such as Maryann. She went to work scrubbing floors in Manhattan.
On weekends, she went to dances for the Irish. She met a man - from Tuam, back home. He was good.
They married. Maryann was 24. Things were good enough that she stopped working.
She bore three children. She was thrilled with it and so was her husband.
Like herself, her husband was denied education as a child, thus choices later. Patrick worked digging ditches and pouring asphalt in the streets.
Their three girls slept in one bed. Maryann washed clothes by hand, in a tub with a washboard and wringer. By no means was there money.
But her husband was faithful, kind, and pious. Also, good-looking and fun. He played the accordion at parties on Saturday nights. Sunday mornings, he cooked breakfast for the family, before ushering at church.
Their girls were all spirited, smart and beautiful.
How much did she love Brooklyn? She loved the place entirely, she told me many times, in a brogue she never lost - jute-strong, song-sweet.
She'd built a life, against all odds, more solid, by a million, than the stone house she was cast from in Longford.
Presumably, to help a sick daughter raise children was no great burden, in her mind.
Maryann came to our house by bus each morning before our father left for work, and took the bus home once he returned. No need to bother him with driving, tired as he was. Some nights she stayed, if needed. On weekends she drove with her husband.
We children were small, and of course had all bonded normally with our mother, but there arose some confusion about the role of these two women in our lives.
Other kids saw their mothers a lot, and their grandmothers a little. With us, it was the opposite.
We referred to our grandmother as "Ma." Of course, our mother was Mom. But whatever a grandmother was, or was supposed to be, ours was more. Hence the splitting of the title.
I don't know if anyone tried to clarify the issue for us, or correct us. If they did, it didn't stick. We never referred to nor addressed Maryann as anything but Ma, our whole lives.
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