Pictures

I hated having my picture taken and I was totally impatient when others wished to stop the action of any event to record it by snapping those pictures.  Or sabotaging an intimate affair with one thousand watts of filming lights.

The reason I so dislike posing for pictures are the same reasons and excuses as every other woman uses as objections.   My hair is a mess.  I look too fat.  I don’t have my make-up on.  I look too fat.  My clothes are wrinkled.  I look too fat.  I’m very busy.  I look too fat.  I come terrible in pictures.  I look too fat.  Out of one hundred pictures of myself I rarely find one that I like.  Does anyone view a picture of themselves that can live up to the image they have in their mind’s eye?  I doubt it.  None of us really knows what we ourselves look like.

Despite all of my objections, Jim, has gone on snapping pictures throughout all the years we’ve been together.  Admittedly, I am an enabler having bought my husband every camera he’s ever owned as a gift for some occasion.  We’ve run the gamut from a Kodak 110, eight millimeter movie camera, super eight, camcorders,  thirty-five millimeter, Polaroids (for those naughty pictures you hide from the children), our first, second, third and fourth digital (they keep improving) and several in between that I have surely forgotten.  Don’t forget the throw away cameras that had hit a height for a few years.  You need these because you don’t want to bring the new (expensive, big) camera on vacation.  So despite all the equipment you might own, lots of those vacation pictures are taken with a throw away.

We have a trunk load of pictures in scrap books and hundreds if not thousands on my computer.  Family wedding pictures from my Mom and Dad’s wedding to the last of my daughter’s to marry.  With my wedding album prominent among these.  All in the trunk.

 A tin type of my Grandmother at about twenty years of age, wearing a severe black dress and a long locket around her neck, rests on a living room shelf.  My son once dated a girl from India who was spending Christmas day with us.  She studied the picture of my Grandmother for a long time.   The polite young lady was amazed.  Apparently, she had seen a picture just like it, with the exception that it was her Grandmother captured on a tin, in a severe black dress.  Her hair swept up in a  bun, as my Grandmother’s was.  No matter the two pictures were taken years and countries apart.  She was struck by the similarity.

Despite my objections of having to stop and pose at different moments in life, these many years later I love seeing the captured images.  Love ones frozen in time, young, smiling and laughing.  My children passing through every stage of life.  My oldest, Crissy in that tall paper crown made in kindergarten that proclaimed that she was now five years old.  My son, Jimmy, proudly sticking out his chest on  Halloween to show off the black bat I’d sewn on his gold polo shirt.  He was batman that year.  And my baby girl Kyra, sitting on a big pumpkin, at the head of the driveway.  She wore an oversized beret, with her little hands folded in her lap, she watched the world go by.

Maybe the biggest surprise of all, when I look back at these pictures, was me.  I was beautiful and curvy NOT fat.  Fat denotes something unpleasant.  I don’t care if someone is three hundred pounds they are not fat unless they are mean and malicious.  Now, with a less critical eye, I see what my husband, who so wanted to take pictures of me saw.  I see a young wife and mother whose hair was a mess because she was playing with her babies.  I see a woman who didn’t need make-up.  The bloom of happiness flushed her cheeks.  Being busy meant she was cooking, decorating, and setting the table for all those she loved, husband, children, family and friends.  He captured all these things and more.

Now, I allow more pictures taken of me then ever before.  I still am not pleased with the results.  You never lose that bit of vanity that drives us.  But I know my children and grandchildren  will love having these reminders of me in the future.  Today when some says, “Say Cheese,”  I grin and bear it.

Summer Time Memories

Summer time on Long Island conjures up different images for every person. Lazy days on the beach tanning winter white bodies. Rotating periodically, as if on a barbecue spit, avoiding those dreaded uneven tan lines. The smell of coppertone drawing a smile while picturing the exposed, and pale baby butt, on an old-fashioned billboard. Cigarette smoke drifting on the salt air breeze. Teasing even though you may have quit the habit years ago.

Burning hot sand. And on those more crowded beach days, hopping from blanket to blanket in order to attain that most perfect spot where you would spread out your own blanket. No one seemed to mind unless you sprayed them with sand. Those were the days before one needed a folding chair to be comfortable at the beach, or a helping hand to scramble up from the blanket to get back to your feet.

The sounds of waves crashing on the shore line and the screams of teenage girls being dragged into the cold surf by muscular young men. Children squealing every time they are splashed and running in and out of shallow water. All these sounds cannot be mistaken for anything other than the sounds of summer.

Another thing that makes summer time special for me are clams, mussels, crabs and other seafood that might bite your toes when you are wading in the bay. I return the favor by either digging for them in the mud, or buying them at the fish store; cooking them up at home, and devouring every tasty bit.

Clams in particular bring me memories of times very long past. My mother standing at the kitchen sink shelling clams to place on a platter with lemon. One for the platter and one for her to slurp down right there. Naturally I got every third. You needed a lot of clams to get a dozen to the table.

One time my Aunt Butchie and I went down to Fulton Fish Market, way downtown Manhattan, to purchase a bushel of clams. She was visiting and the plan was to cook them all up, every which way, the next day. She was due to return home to an army base in the south and she was really missing seafood.

After much flirting by and with the bay men (she was really hot looking) we brought the bushel home and placed the clams on ice in my grandmother’s bathtub in her fourth floor apartment. (where else would you store a bushel of clams in a small apartment?) My mother and I still slept in the sixth floor apartment. My father had passed on about two years prior and my mother was not ready to give up the apartment. So my sister slept on the fourth floor with grandma and I with my mother upstairs.

That evening, the same day of the bushel of clams purchase, my mother and I had retired to the sixth floor and sat together watching tv. Out of the blue, mom turned to me, “Boy I could sure eat some clams right now, how about you?” That’s all it took. I was embarked on the great clam caper. It was very late. We knew everyone would be asleep downstairs. I was not to wake a soul. In my pajamas, with grandma’s key in hand, like a ninja, I snuck down the two flights of stairs with no thought to whom I might meet in the public hallway.

With great stealth, I slid the old, brass, Yale key in the lock, pushed the front door open and slid inside. Fortunately, the bathroom was just to the left of the front door. My instructions were very explicit. Don’t turn on any lights. Stash a couple of dozen clams in the bag I was carrying with me, back out of the bathroom; relock the front door; run upstairs with the bounty. I was certainly up to this. I was a tough city kid and we had lemon upstairs.

What this kid didn’t know was clams open up in the dark. As soon as I put my hand in the tub the entire bushel started snapping closed, loudly. It scared the hell out of the tough city kid. I screamed my bloody head off. Everyone in the apartment woke with a start. Grandma with hammer in hand came running and switched on the bathroom light to find me with one hand in the tub and paper bag in another. The house was in an uproar. Needless to say, she was not pleased.

So much for stealth and the Grand Clam Caper. But priceless as one of my many memories of Summer.

Stop and Smell the Roses

Lilies standing almost five feet tall, boasting the most incredible raspberry shade, are visible from my kitchen table.  They began growing in this border flowerbed, about five years ago.  At first it was a lone stalk that I don’t remember planting.  Now it has the company of about four others.  Each stalk makes about six or seven flowers, and each of these blooms, approximately seven inches across, is long-lived.  Every afternoon, during the flowering season, as we sit there at the table drinking our coffee, I get to admire  these wonders. Although I have many different lilies in the yard, these raspberry aliens are surely the most beautiful.  Perhaps I think that about each of the varieties as they appear.  You see, they take turns coloring my yard.

It occurred to me how much joy flowers bring to our lives.  Not just these lilies but all flowers of different shapes, sizes  and in an array of colors that can only have been conceived by a superior being.  Some with a scent so strong, one small bloom can fill the house.  Think  Hyacinths.  Others so subtle that you must bury your nose in their center to catch a whiff.  Be careful of the bumble bee.

 I have a dear friend who works diligently on her lovely back yard.  She digs deep into the rich soil, on her hands and knees,  planting perennials (flowers that come back every year).  She also puts in sweet, delicate, pale, starbursts, and decidedly, garish, in your face, annuals.  They are all thrilling.  The frequent visits to she and her husband’s  home are always fun events.  The couple needs no enhancement, aside from their company to entice you back, yet I have to admit her artistic touch, and care to the arrangement of the gardens, add a great deal to one’s pleasure and comfort.

I remember growing up in Manhattan.  Living in a sea of concrete and asphalt.  The only flowers you came across were those an occasional homemaker would have in a pot on her fire escape.  The lone tree on our block was puny, but guarded jealously by the people who lived on the first floor.  God help a kid that would think of climbing it.

My grandfather, Louis, on my father’s side lived until I was about five or six years of age.  His wife, my paternal grandmother, Maria, died in her early forties from a broken heart after one of her sons was killed in an accident.  He fell from a fire escape while rough housing with a friend.  Louis was left to raise his other four sons.  There was no woman in his life until my father brought home his girlfriend, my mother, Rosalie.  Four years after my mother and father were married they brought me home :).

Needless to say the sun rose and set on this little girl.  Only having had men in his life for so many years, Louis did the only thing he knew  to do with a little girl.  He bought me flowers!  Huge bouquets of flowers.  I still recall his taking me by the hand, walking me up to a push cart on 106th Street and Lexington Avenue; filling my arms with flowers.  My mother would laugh so hard when I brought them home.  There were so many that they over flowed several vases in the apartment.  Thus began my love affair with flowers.

After my grandfather passed away I don’t remember having real flowers in our apartment.  Later when it was just my mother, grandmother, sister and I, there really wasn’t extra money for fresh flowers.  However, my grandmother always loved pretty things and every so often she would buy plastic flowers (no silk in those days) to sit on a dresser in her bedroom.  Plastic lasts a long time before they fade and need to be replaced.  Once in a while grandma bought pussy willows to herald in Spring time.

I imagine as a child, and then teen, I didn’t miss  having flowers in my life.  Flowers that rural and suburban people kind of take for granted. There influence is an intangible.  Flowers that grow wild on the sides of the highway, but not up through concrete.  I guess I didn’t notice the lack of color on a summer day.  Young people have other things on their mind and perhaps its fortunate to not notice what you don’t have around you.

But now I am one lucky girl.  I am surrounded by the beauty of my flowers and the luxurious beauty of the blooms at my friends’ and children’s houses.   I never refuse a gift of flowers, whether they are purchased from a florist, 7-11, supermarket, or side of the road.  Whether they are plucked from a vacant lot, or its a dandelion offered from a child’s hand.  They always make my day.  Remember to make someone’s day!

Wedding II

Wedding receptions are grand celebrations, although they have changed a bit over the years.  When my mother married on December 7th, 1941, she had a football wedding.  That didn’t mean it was held on a hundred yard field or a pig skin was prominent during the affair.

A football wedding was a party in honor of the bride and groom held in a rented hall.  The bride, her mother, and sisters,  if she was fortunate enough to have any, carried fresh-baked rolls up from the bakery.  Hundreds of them.  On the night before the wedding they made tons of cold cut sandwiches, wrapped them tightly in wax paper, and prepared buckets of salads.  A good friend would carry all the food to the reception and place about 30 of these sandwiches, salads, etc. on each table of ten guests.

The wedding party, bridesmaids,  would also wrap confetti (sugar-coated almonds) in bits of tulle, tie a tiny tin wedding ring onto the tulle and stuff it all in a small plastic high-heeled shoe.  This was the favor that every wedding guest would receive for a memory of the happy event.  Not at my mother’s wedding, but when I was finally born and old enough to attend a wedding I loved getting these favors.  I thought they were the most beautiful and delicate things.  Later they made them out of China.

The groom was responsible for red wine, beer, and pitchers of soda.  Always dessert was a tiered wedding cake with a tiny bride and groom embracing on the top tier beneath a plastic arbor, and  the ever-present cookies.  Children were always invited to weddings.  In those days, it would have been a true insult to ask parents to leave their kids home.

Now for the reason it was called a football wedding.  When it was timed to eat everyone would take a sandwich from the pile, if they got a meat they didn’t want they would yell out, “I got a salami for a roast beef.”  If the yeller got a taker,  he would re-wrap the sandwich and it would go sailing across the table, or to the next table, or across the room.  No punting though.  This all happened much more than one would expect.  Perhaps they just liked throwing the sandwiches around.  It was always done with good humor, clapping, and laughing.

Although they followed all the rules, my Mother and Father’s wedding was not as joyful as it should have been.  While she dressed in her beautiful wedding gown,( a long ivory satin, slip, gown with a heavier satin, coat dress atop.  The coat had puff sleeves to just below the elbows, then tightened to the delicate wrist.  It closed with small pearl button from beneath the bust to the waist, then split open, fell to the floor, and ended in a long flowing lace trimmed, train in the back.  I still have this gown and its aged to a rich cream), something was happening that changed her life and the life of everyone she knew.

My Mother was just putting on her head-piece and veil when they heard yelling in the streets.  People were frantic.  Men and women were running and shouting.  The Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor.  We were caught unaware on a peaceful Sunday.  So many Americans were killed; our ships sunk right in the Harbor.  The USS Arizona went down with over 1000 hands onboard.    President Roosevelt had declared War!

December 7th, 1941, the day that would live in infamy.

The wedding went on as planned.  Sandwiches were eaten, wedding cake was sliced and favors were handed out.  But not many felt like dancing.  The young men all huddled, talking about going down to enlist in the morning, as did the young groom, my Father.   The pretty young women were afraid, and the older people who had lived through World War I cried.  My Mother in her lovely wedding gown knew that her new husband would be off to join up that very week.

As young men will do, since the beginning of time,  they talked excitedly about where they would go, and what they would do to those dirty SOBs.  Patriotism ran high.

Many of those young men didn’t come home from the War they so eagerly enlisted for.  But many did.  My Father, Petey (as my mother called him) did, and so did my Uncle Christy, his brother.

They were surely Heroes – all those that came home, and all those that didn’t.   Thank you, now and forever.

The Wedding 1

An intrinsic part of all cultures is how they celebrate their marriages.  The how, when and where of the wedding ritual very often gives us an indication of what is important to the bride and her family.  In America we all know and accept that the groom has little imput into the traditional wedding, even when he is footing the bill for it.

New York Italians are not the only ethic group that have over the top weddings.  If you boast any ethnic background and are from New York then chances are you rank right up there with the Italians for ostentatious.  I have seen bridal couples, when announced, rise out of the center of the dance floor in a smoke-filled elevator to enter the reception room.  A stage that extends out into the room with the couple locked in an embrace, and another happy pair being carried in by the bridal party ala Cleopatra are a few of the grand entrances that I’ve witnessed.

One time I was invited to a Jewish wedding ceremony at a temple in Queens.  On either side of the Huppah (wedding canopy) were two pedestals each holding a potted, full, garden sized, rhododendron bush.  These plants were so big that when the mother of the groom generously gifted me with one to take home, two people carried it and we could barely fit the bush into our car.  Upon arriving home we sat this virtual tree in the middle of the kitchen table thereby rendering the table useless for anything else.  Not even a glass could be placed on the table alongside the plant.

At this same wedding – we were given hor d ourves as soon as we entered the building so we shouldn’t be hungry while waiting for the huge cocktail hour.  After the one and a half hour cocktail hour which had banquet table after table of food, carving stations, caviar stands, fruit, cheese, crackers, and if you didn’t want to get up, servers to bring you hot things on a stick.  Some people never get up at these events, but I promise you they get as much as everyone else.

This was just the warm up for dinner – chicken, beef or fish.  Then the Venetian hour with cakes, cookies, liquors.  Then of course just before you put your coat on to go home, bagels so you shouldn’t be hungry on the ride home, and the newspaper.

Italian weddings are similar to this, some differences are, fountains.  There must be fountains splashing in every lobby, vestibule and nook.  There is usually so much water in the air that my normally curly hair is out of control in one half hour.  The frizz brings my hairdo to three times the size it was when I left the house.

Another difference is shell-fish and seafood.  You would be talked about if the cocktail hour did not offer calamari, scungellis, mussels and clams fra Diablo, baked clams, clams on the half shell (we’re big on clams) shrimp at least three different styles, scallops (with or without bacon) and then the other norms, pasta, carving stations and stuff on a stick.

Again this is the warm up for dinner, chicken, beef or fish followed by the Venetian hour.  Cakes, sundaes, cookies and liquors.

Did I mention that Champagne, Wine, hard liquor and naturally Diet Soda flow freely at both affairs.

To be continued……

The East River

When you think about living by a River the picture that comes to mind is probably Huckleberry Finn on the Mississippi, or perhaps natives living on the banks of the Amazon River.  In comparison the East River is a weak assed River, but I lived one block from it for eighteen years.  I knew it was the most beautiful River in the world.

Except for about one and a half years during which I resided on 178th Street in the Bronx, I have always lived fairly close to a large body of water.  The East River in Manhattan, The Verrazzano  Straights in Brooklyn, The Great South Bay kissing Long Island.  These are all pretty impressive bodies of water.  Now it just might cross your mind that The East River can’t hold a candle to the other two, but New York’s largest Maritime disaster happened right on the East River  in 1904*.   Hell’s gate swirling and boiling at the north end of the River has claimed many lives.

When the sun sparkles off the East River it appears tranquil  and inviting.  In reality,  the currents and eddies are treacherous .   Very few people are strong enough to swim across from the Manhattan side to one of the many islands that border the East Bank.  If you were capable of doing the swim ( few people are) you would have a heck of a time trying to climb out.  The banks are steep and rocky.  Today the River is much cleaner than when I was younger thanks to the later efforts of government and their environmental controls. 

My girlhood friend, Susan and I, spent  many hours on the paved West bank.  We would walk through Jefferson Park and cross the East River Drive (FDR Drive) by way of a zig zagged foot bridge.  From that drop off point you could walk North or South to other foot bridges going to Ward’s and Randall’s Islands, or sit on benches to enjoy the cool breezes coming off the water.  One of those islands across the expanse  was known for the mental hospital which occupied much of the island.  The grounds were kept beautifully around the hospital.  Rikers Island, where prisoners are still housed,  is also on the East Bank.

By 1962 the water traffic was a mere shadow of what it once had been, but on occasion the circle line would come chugging by.  Susan and I would  jump up and down waving at the people on the festive boat.  We always shouted at the top of our lungs, “You are now passing by East Harlem, East Harlem!”  People out for a days sail would acknowledge our shouts, call and wave back.   At that point, around 112th Street, the river is fairly narrow from West to East shores. There was no difficulty hearing someone from boat to shore.  We were always proud of where we lived and announced it to the world.  I still love having been born and raised in East Harlem.

Sometimes I would join my next door neighbor, Louise, and her mother Nunciata for a picnic on Randall’s Island.  It was a good walk from 116th Street, but we were easily up to it.  One of the things Nunciata would bring for lunch was spaghetti pie.  It was fabulous, fried spaghetti held together with eggs and imported parmesan cheese.  To this day I cook it up myself and always think of those moments on Randall’s Island.

Nunciata was a hardened woman who had gone through the second world war in Italy.  Her first 4th of July in the United States she came running into our apartment frantic.  She believed we were being bombed when the fireworks began blasting.  It took some time for my Grandmother to assure her we weren’t in any danger and it was a celebration.  I remember how she shook with fear and the tears flowed from her eyes. 

Some years later Nunciata was strolling up on third avenue when an agile young would be bag snatcher grabbed her purse.  Apparently he was no match for a woman who had lived through so much.  They had a short tug of war, she lifted one high-heeled foot, kicked him in the chest knocking him to the ground.   Nunciata shook her fist at him and then cursed him out in Italian.  She told him what she thought about his Mother, his Father and all his ancestors.  That teen was lucky he escaped with his life.  Every thief should meet up with someone like this resilient lady.  Justice on the spot can be very effective and surely less expensive when it comes to straightening out errant teens.

*When the twin-paddlewheel steamboat General Slocum departed Manhattan for Long Island Sound on the morning of Wednesday June 15, 1904, the 1,300-plus passengers on board expected nothing more than a relaxing day trip. The itinerary called for a short ride up the East River to Long Island’s Locust Grove, where the travelers would eat, drink and play to their heart’s content before being ferried back home. It’s safe to say that swimming was not one of the planned activities, as the mini-cruise called for participants to wear their Sunday best, and few early 20th century New Yorkers knew how to swim, anyway. But just minutes into the excursion a fire started below deck, and before long flames engulfed the boat, forcing the passengers into the water.

In the new book, “Ship Ablaze” (Broadway), historian Edward O’Donnell recounts the General Slocum story, a tragedy that took the lives of 1,021 people—mostly women and children. Initially, the fire and subsequent horrors were viewed as a simple, albeit catastrophic, accident. But when survivors reported the alarming disrepair of the boat’s safety equipment, it became evident that corporate greed, corruption and negligence were to blame for the casualties. Within a week, grand jury hearings were underway to determine culpability, but the victims’ families would get no satisfaction. The decisions and actions that led to the second-deadliest incident in New York’s history went almost entirely unpunished.

Coney Island 1955

My father loved Coney Island.   More specifically he loved Washington Baths, a public pool to the west of the famous Steeplechase rides.   It was New York City’s largest Salt Water Pool; filled and filtered directly from the Atlantic Ocean.  Washington Baths was located between Neptune Avenue and the  Coney Island Boardwalk.

Once you paid your entrance fee you had use of all the facilities until dusk.  Your admission entitled you to use of picnic tables cemented into the concrete, handball courts, speed bags, punching bags.  Attempts at uneven parallel bars, rings, shuffle ball, bocci and basketball courts, complete with the appropriate size and shaped balls.  Separate men and women’s steam rooms and sun decks where people laid out naked, nude, without a stitch of clothing on.  (Shocking) Lockers and small private dressing rooms (that were always cold and damp), hot and cold showers, and a snack stand selling the best greasy fries stuffed into a cone shaped cup.  OMG they were the best whether you were hungry or not.

There was a sun parlor in the women’s building that had a glass ceiling and about one hundred individual mirrors each with a small shelf in front for make-up, bobby pins, combs.  The entire room was painted a fresh butter yellow on top and lime green on the bottom.  Come to think of it, many areas at Washington Baths were painted these two colors.   After a day at the pool with our respective families my counterpart, Helen, and I would take forever putting our wet hair up in pony tails, and as we got older adding a hint of lipstick and mascara , while we chatted away like only little girls can.  My uncle Christy, her father, Paul, and my dad, Pete,  would say the same thing every time we emerged from the inner sanctum to the elevated promenade surrounding the pool,  “You two pineapples look the same as when you went in.”

These Saturday trips to Washington Baths were so looked forward to every summer from the time I was about five until my father’s passing in 1959.  Our gang Italian and Greek from East Harlem, dad, mom, grandmother, sister, uncle, various young aunts and friends, would meet up with the Brooklyn Greek gang, dad, mom, kids, cousins, uncles, aunts and friends, at the sunny side of the pool at the agreed upon time.

The Tsaldarius clan lived in Brooklyn.  We traveled on the New York City subway system from 116th Street in Manhattan to the last stop on the BMT Stillwell Avenue, with several changes in between.  Besides the requisite towels, bathing suits and sweaters we also carried several shopping bags of sandwiches, and a green leather portable radio (weighing about six pounds because of the six D batteries you needed to run it).

This pool is where we all learned to swim.  My father would have me hold him around the neck and lie across his back.  Then he would swim to the deep center of the pool where a fountain splashed filtered water.  Here he would slide me off his back and give me a push back to the side we had just come from.  In the most ungraceful like fashion I windmilled my arms and kicked my legs through the water with him floating beside me.  I can still remember his words of encouragement.  “Come on, you can do it.  I’m right here.  Keep those legs kicking!” 

It was a great time – we made a huge clan.  At lunch time we would parade to the picnic tables and the shopping bags we brought merged with Paul and Dorothy’s bags.  All the waxed paper wrapped sandwiches were dumped out.  No one worried about who made what.  Peppers and Eggs, potatoes and Eggs, Tuna Fish, Salami, Baloney, Ham and Cheese on fresh Italian bread all made that morning before the migration.  Sodas bought at the snack bar and ooooo those big fries to add to the calories.  Once in a while, for an extra treat, Helen, I, and the younger kids would get ice cream.  Not all the time.

We weren’t allowed back in the water until an hour after we ate, the excuse was we would get cramps.  In looking back we all ate so much we probably would no longer float.  That waiting hour was spent on the sand making mud pies and pretending they were cake or pizza – one track minds.  Then finally, what seemed like an eternity to me, we were allowed to shower the sand off and go back in the pool.

The day ended with an evening stroll on the Boardwalk.  Helen and I would get a ride on the whip and of course more potatoes (this time it was a knish) before the long ride home on the NYC Subway system. 

This is one of my favorite memories.

Horse Drawn Carts

It is amazing, even to me, that I am living in a world that has seen so many changes since I released my first kitten like squall in Doctor Lefts Maternity Hospital in the Bronx, to the present day sitting writing my blog on a computer in Patchogue, New York.

I was born just after the second world war.  Perhaps in the age of innocence.  The disparity between the rich, middle class and poor was not as great as it is today.  While we never even aspired to be rich, middle class was attainable.  The gap between the poor, middle class and rich has widened considerably.  For too many middle class may be an impossibility.

When I was a little girl there were a few peddlers selling their wares and services from a horse-drawn cart.  Can you even imagine it?  The man who sharpened knives and scissors came down the street once a month ringing his bell.   Housewives would run down the long flights of stairs and wait while he used his grinder to sharpen the blades.

There was the peddler who shouted through the streets, “Onions, Potatoes””.  My grandmother would shout back, “How much for potatoes?”   Then I, the runner at six years old, would fly down with the twenty-five cent piece and retrieve the five pounds of potatoes for her.  I loved doing this because I would usually get to pet the old horse while I waited for him to bag the loose tubers.

Further up the street there were carts filled with more perishable goods, bananas, tomatoes, flowers, and the like, also displayed in horse-drawn carts.  These entrepreneurs only trotted up to the farmers market with their carts, and then back to the curbside, which they had already claimed probably with their fist.   The carts were loaded and arranged attractively with the appealing produce.  Crates were used to display the fruit and vegetables in bleacher style, stacked so you could see it all and limiting the detrimental piling up of the wares.

You purchased fruit and vegetables only in season.  They were selected individually and usually only bought two or three at a time.  The customer didn’t touch them but rather pointed to the peach or tomato they desired.  Since nothing was hot-house grown the produce bruised easily.  It was carefully protected by the peddler until it was purchased.

Shopping for food was a ritual that occurred every few days, therefore a pleasant relationship was formed between the women shoppers and their peddler.  Pleasantries were exchanged, and like today the smart cart owner would learn the language of the neighborhood.  Sometimes when it was a good customer, or the housewife  cute, the cart owner would suggest which was the freshest of his wares then push the not so choice to someone he didn’t know well, or hadn’t taken a shine to.  My grandmother with her beautiful grey eyes and diminutive size often got the best.  She was very proud of this.

Yes, the world has changed with its refrigerated trucks, supermarkets and grand warehouse stores.  The hot-house fruits and vegetables don’t taste quite as good.  I have purchased tomatoes recently that were so hard you could use them as soft balls.  Shopping is not a social event. We rarely bond with our produce providers.  Is that a good thing or not?

Do I long for those days?  Yes, having those family members, who have long since passed beyond the veil, close to me.  I miss them terribly.   But I do not miss spending an entire afternoon choosing food.  That time is better spent doing the things that make 2011 so great and creating memories for those I love.   Horse drawn carts and all they represent are cherished memories and they serve to remind me that all that has gone before was not the best or the worst that is to be.   There is still much more to come.   What an adventure this life is.

Across the Hudson

Palisades Amusement Park was across the Hudson River and a bit further West than the opposite bank from where I would gaze.   I was devastated when they closed it down.  As it was, the  Amusement Park was a downsized Seven Flags Great Adventure before there was a Great Adventure Amusement Park.

It had kiddie rides and big thrill rides.  Naturally,  the big thrill rides were mild when compared to what they now offer in the extravagant Parks of today.  The Roller Coasters didn’t turn you upside down or go backwards. They also didn’t do loop de loops.   But you still screamed your bloody head off when you plunged down that first big hill. They had a ferris wheel, not as big as Coney Island, but big enough for someone who has a dread of heights to start praying when it stopped your gondola at the tippy top.  Half the time I had my eyes closed when I rode those things.  I have no idea why I did that to myself, but I smartened up in time and stopped going on them.

Over the George Washington Bridge and then not too far South in New Jersey was this wonder of wonders, Palisades.  What made it so fabulous  for me was not the rides, which I just tolerated, nor the warm lemonade with the back stroking fly taking a swim.  It was neither of those two things.  The thrill for me were  the games of chance.

Those games gave you a  fairer shake than the come hither wheels of fortune that you  find at three-day carnivals which pop up on every open expanse bordering the highways of Long Island.  Thirty numbers on the wheel, each number divided by three or four nails, only the center one painted with a white line got you the super prize.  You would put one dime down on a number.  The game Barker would spin the wheel and there you have it.  Winner or Not.

I was still living at home when I won and brought home a doll.  My prize was beautiful.  A chubby faced doll with a buster brown hair cut including the full set of bangs.  At about 28 inches tall she was clad in a party dress, anklets, and black patent leather shoes.  What made her really so special was I had chosen a doll with sparkly, blue hair.  It matched her eyes and dress perfectly.

Oh, they had realistic looking dolls with brown, black or blonde hair, but as is my bent I just had to have the whimsical blue haired baby doll.  All for one thin dime I had won a fantasy.  Even as old as I was she drew me as if she had called my name.  I didn’t realize I wasn’t the only one in my family who would fall in love with her.

My Grandmother could not keep her hands off that doll from the first moment I brought her home.  I was about seventeen at the time and Grandma was in her late sixties.  There was just something about that doll that made you feel happy when you looked at her and I can only attribute it to the beautiful blue hair.  We almost had a tug of war over that doll, but my Mother intervened and convinced my Grandmother that it was my doll and she should stop being silly about it.

I decided that my doll would live in the room with my sister, Christine, and me.  (That room is a story for another day).  I sat doll on the dresser where I assumed she would stay.  However, every evening when I came home from work (Trade Bank and Trust Company) the doll would be sitting in the middle of my Grandmother’s bed.  Without a word I would retrieve her and put her back on the dresser.  The next evening when I returned from work the doll would be back on her bed.  Once again I would retrieve it.

This went on for about a month.  Finally, I asked Grandma, why she kept taking my doll.  The look in her eyes when she said in her beautiful broken english, “I don’t know, I just like her so much.  She is  simpatico.”

From that day forward the doll with the blue hair sat in the middle of my Grandmother’s bed.  She sat there until the sun finally faded her beautiful hair and party dress to shades of gray.  But even then her sweet face could make you smile. 

Even now I adore any sort of doll with a look of whimsy.  They make me smile.

Harlem House

There is continuous debate over the benefits and costs of social programs designed for the lower middle class and poor.  New York City has more than their share of  neighborhoods that house the economically depressed.  These areas are and have been called the slums, the hood, or the ghetto.  They go by such names as The Bowery, Lower East Side, Hell’s Kitchen, East and West Harlem, Bed Sty, Brownsville, The South Bronx, etc. etc.  As for area,  they consume much more of The Big Apple than the toney addresses of Central Park West and other small pockets of wealth dotting the city landscape.  

I cannot say for certain if social programs for  children and teens  have subsquently elevated their self-esteem.  How such a program may have changed their views of the world, or exposed them to joys they would not have had an inkling existed.  I cannot state  how a program like Head Start may influence their social skills, or if it affords them an equal footing in primary school with those who have been more fortunate.  Those more fortunate children whose parents were able to afford  nursery schools and pre Ks.  I can only relate how a social program enhanced my life.

Located on 116th Street between First and Second Avenues there was a building that was taken on for the purpose of operating a center where youngsters of the neighborhood could gather for free.  This was the Harlem House.  It was run by a husband and wife, Pete and Celia.  I remember for sure his name but I’m taking a stab at hers.

I was about twelve or thirteen when I began going to the Harlem House.  Pete was the jack of all trades there.  He played sports with the boys.  There was a real gym on the first floor.  He was in charge of all the sporting equipment, maintained the building, changed light bulbs and I assume washed floors.  Celia took care of registration, set schedules, supervised the instructors and kept the boys and girls separated.  Although, at the time, the couple appeared to be old to me, in retrospect I guess they were in their early forties.  Not so old!

Since we were never charged a fee to register and participate I can only assume it was a city run program.  The memories I took away from the Harlem House I reflect on with pure pleasure.  Sports, drama classes, art and music were subjects that my Catholic elementary school education did not include.  Our Lady of Mount Carmel put all the emphasis on the three Rs, reading, writing and arithmetic.

Now, dear reader, you must know that going to the Harlem House was not considered cool by the people I hung around with in the candy store, but I didn’t care.  I was hooked from the first time I went.  Even my best friend, Susan, would not go back after one or two times.  Again uncool.

Except for sports, which Pete ran, we had separate instructors for the different arts that we were exposed to.  Genuine artists instructed us in painting/sculpture, drama/theater, and music.  We could go without restriction to any class we signed up for.  There was no pressure and no judgement.

At the Harlem House I learned for the first time that physically handicapped people were just like me with the same dreams and desires.  I remember a beautiful young girl on my basketball team who was missing half her arm.  Except when we played basketball she wore a prosthetic.   She could dribble with her left hand and catch the ball and shoot baskets as good as any, and better than some with her one and one half arms.  No one had to tell me she wasn’t different.  I saw it for myself.  We played punch ball and dodge ball (which they no longer allow children to play because they might get hurt) without helmets or equipment.  We learned to play as a team.

For drama class I studied lines for a play I was to be in.   It was a chinese play and I was the nurse.  To prove to the audience that I was a nurse I wore a white blouse and an inverted silver box top on my head.  Since I had several lines in this play (I was only given the part because I begged for it after Susan, who originally had the part, stopped coming) I was on stage quite a lot.  My mother came to watch me at the sole performance.

My favorite class of all was sculpture.  We were taught to mold clay, how to keep it moist from day-to-day until our piece was completed, how to fire it in the kiln and then glaze it so it would keep forever.  If we were creating a head, the instructor taught us to emphasize muscle tone under the skin; how to breathe life into the piece.  We were shown pictures of beautiful works and she dissected them for us.  She gave her charges an appreciation of art. To this day I have two of the heads I created in sculpture class.

Where would I have ever been exposed to all these wonders without a place like the Harlem House?  Perhaps not until I was an adult moving amid the world beyond the small existence of the neighborhood.  Perhaps then it would be too late to readily change my opinion of things. I think you would be hard pressed to convince me that social programs are a waste of money.