Sunday, March 4, 2012

The World Swirled

Two things most ubiquitous in life in Brooklyn 3 were baseball and newspapers.

In season, there were two home team baseball games a day. You talked about them til the next day's games. Every day we got 2 newspapers, the News and the Post, of the 7 or so available.

Now that I was a seasoned ballplayer, I was ready to take on the other thing, by starting a newspaper at school.

I wanted to learn to write with the same simple impulse I had to learn to play ball: to do something important well.

Writing was important because you could direct people's attention. You could teach them. Entertain them. Annoy them.

(My father to his brother Robbie one afternoon: "Did you read Breslin today?"

Robbie to my father: lips slightly pursed: "I wouldn't read him."

"What do you mean, you wouldn't read him? You mean you didn't read him? Or you don't read him?"

"I wouldn't read him."

My father knew - as I knew - that Jimmy Breslin made fun of cops. Uncle Robbie, NYPD.)

The world swirled, especially New York, so writers were important because they straightened it, or at least held it down for a minute so you could see it.

I saw the world turning and it pleased me.

Brooklyn 3 was now Brooklyn NY 11203. That was modern.

The Mets had a new stadium and it had mod panels on the sides, in team colors of blue and orange, suspended in mid-air on cables. It was hip and the Beatles would play there.

The Mass had been changed from Latin to English, so people could understand it. They turned the priest around on the altar so you could see what he was doing. They said you were allowed to eat meat on Fridays now and not go to hell. Bad news for fish sticks and pizza, but good otherwise.

LBJ was a funny-looking president, and not Irish, but he was doing good things, calling for a war on poverty, and talking about civil rights. It meant all people were equal.

My homeroom teacher in St. Catherine's, Sister Eugenia Joseph, told us that Spanish would someday be a common language in the U.S., and that she asked Father Grady, our pastor, and Sister Superior that we be taught it. It wasn't happening, so Sister was taking a class herself, and would teach it after school to anyone who wanted to learn.

The next day I brought in a notebook with "Espanol" on the cover and said sign me up. She hugged me and kissed me. Nuns were changing too. I asked if I could write a story about the class for a new newspaper I was planning and she put her hands on my shoulders and looked at me misty-eyed. I guessed I was on the right track.

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