My Stories

The following stories I’ve written over the years about my childhood in New York. They are from my first book “Memoir” Einstein Place and Other Stories. I hope to be writing some new ones in the near future. Enjoy and comments are always welcome.

What is it about those times that haunt me – fascinate me – call out to me? It’s been forty five years since growing up in Smithtown, Long Island.

It was the tumultuous sixties and we didn’t even know it. We were too busy playing baseball, riding bikes, fishing, getting into mischief and building go-carts out of rusty, discarded lawn mower engines.

We were like extras in a B movie that ended abruptly. Looking back, all I have is a mental movie filled with disparate images.

Visual fragments, snap shots, vague hazy pictures of baseball cards, comic books, BB guns, sling shots, stick ball and army men. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, moon landings, lazy days at the beach, JFK, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, Mickey Mantel, Willie Mays, the New York Yankees and all my friends who grew up with me in Smithtown, Long Island during the decade of the sixties.

These stories are my way of holding on – capturing and sharing those unique remnants of childhood one last time.

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Holy Family High School 1966 – 70 – Dedicated to the Memory of Harry Bickmann

I was very disappointed as I started high school. All my neighborhood friends were going to the local public High School in Smithtown and I was to attend Holy Family Catholic High School in Huntington – about 20 miles away.  I wanted nothing to do with Catholic high school but had no choice – I took the entrance exam and even though did very poorly was accepted and placed in the low achiever class or what everyone called the dumb class. I was placed in class number fifteen.  There were a total of sixteen classes with the only difference between class fifteen and sixteen being the language we learned.  Spanish was taught to group fifteen and French to sixteen – we were all equally stupid according to the nuns and lay teachers and were treated accordingly.
At first, I didn’t realize every student that took the test was accepted, no matter how badly he or she performed.  Holy Family was a big new school and needed lots of warm young bodies to pay the mortgage back to the Diocese.  We were the charter ninth grade class of 1966.  There were no grades ahead of us, which had its benefits compared to public school. We would always be the senior class even in ninth grade. I wasn’t at all pleased about leaving my neighborhood friends for another school or the prospect of making new friends.  No amount of begging or arguing changed my parent’s minds – I was going to Holy Family Catholic School and that was final.

Catholic high school was a whole new world for me.  Students wore uniforms and stern looking nuns in long black habits roamed the shiny locker lined corridors in search of any infractions of the school rules.  If a girl had her plaid dress hiked even slightly above the knee it was first a stern warning and then off to the Principle’s office if it happened again.  Guys absolutely could not let their hair grow over their shirt collars although with long hair the style of the decade, we kept the nuns very busy – busting us for long hair on a daily basis.  It got to the point where they softened their stand on the hair rule.

The bus trip to Huntington was more of a daily excursion – taking as long as an hour to get to school some days.  I started to make new friends during those long bus rides.  Friends that eventually pulled me away from my rougher neighborhood crowd. At first I kept to myself because I quickly noticed that many of the kids on the bus knew each other from other neighborhoods or had attended Catholic primary school together.  I didn’t know anyone except Michael Scriber who lived behind me on Maple Avenue.  He was a brainy geek who sat in the front of the bus so he didn’t count.  I soon got acquainted with a few kids from the ‘dumb’ class who also rode my bus.

We took our role as dumb kids seriously and wore it like a badge of honor.  Harry Bickmann and Pat Coyle were both in Group Sixteen and neither wanted to attend Catholic school either, but were in the same boat as I – they were given no other option.  I quickly developed friendships with Harry and Pat who in turn introduced me to some of the other kids from their respective neighborhoods. There was Gordon Sherland, Eddie Warren, Linda Draghi, Liz Biccina, Kathy Hershe and Jim Morressy who all attended Catholic primary together.  It wasn’t long before I was included in the silly antics on the back of the bus.  The back of the bus was where the action was – where the cool kids sat and devious plans were hatched.  We even sneaked smokes by lighting up under the seat, taking big drags and quickly blowing smoke out the window when the bus driver wasn’t looking.  It actually got to be fun riding the bus to school. .  In fact…it was one of the best parts of my day.  There was always enthusiastic talk about the latest bands, songs and singers.  All the girls were crazy about the Beatles – especially Paul McCartney.  The guys liked John Lennon, George or Ringo, The Dave Clark Five, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones.

We all had to listen to Pat Coyle and his exaggerated surfing exploits.  Day in and day out he incessantly bragged about rip curl, hanging five, catching big waves and the great surfers of the day.  He was like a broken record and everyone got tired of his redundant, embellished stories that he told loudly for all to hear.

“Let me tell you about this wave I caught Sunday?  I was sitting on my long board deep in the swell at Fire Ireland when all of a sudden this huge monster wave rolls up behind me, so I immediately jump up and rip into the curl like I was one with the wave man and then it crashes over me and I totally wiped out.  It was awesome, so freaking cool man.”

He never quit until we started mocking him and making up stories about surfing and imitating his voice and inflections.  That shut him up for awhile – but every so often he slipped and went back into his surfing sermons only to be stopped in his tracks with a resounding “here we go again dude!”

I eventually developed friendships with Pat Coyle, Gordon Sherland, Eddie Warren and Harry Bickman.  It didn’t take long for me to ignore the neighborhood scene and get caught up in my new catholic high school friends and activities.  From high school on, I stayed on the periphery of the neighborhood scene and lost touch with some of my Colonial Oaks friends although Johnny Bosco, Mike Smith and I still remained close throughout the decade of the sixties.

I found myself dividing my time between the neighborhood crowd and high school friends.  I even tried including some of my better childhood friends like Mike Smith in my High School activities but it was a bad and uncomfortable fit, so I eventually stopped trying and found myself drifting further away from the old gang.

I also had a part-time job at the Drive-Inn Theater that kept me busy after school and on weekends.  It wasn’t long before I fell out of the loop and favor with many of my early childhood chums.

I don’t have many vivid memories of high school other than the long rides on the bus, smoking in the bathroom, horsing around in study hall and assorted dances and sock hops in the big gym.  We did have some big named bands play at our school like the Classics Four and Billy Joel – the entire school came out for these big events.

I wasn’t the greatest student although I secretly enjoyed English and History. I didn’t let on though.  I had to live up to my role as one of the dumb kids.  I just squeaked by in my classes, although especially enjoyed Sister Katherine’s English class.  Reading had always been my escape for me being the chubby, redheaded kid.  I loved the Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, Chronicles of Narnia and of course, my comics.

Johnny and Mike were still my best friends from the neighborhood, but Eddie Warren “Steady Eddie” a knick name he earned because he was smart and focused on his goal to become a doctor – soon became my best Catholic school friend.  Don’t ask me why?  He was in the smartest class and I was relegated to the loser group of lost causes, but we hit it off.  Eddie lived at the edge of the housing development behind mine, so he was close by as well.  It was just a matter of crossing Maple Avenue and cutting through a patch of woods to get to the back of his house.  Eddie loved music and played lead guitar all through high school.  Grades came easy to him even though he took the most difficult classes while I struggled by with Study Hall, Business Math, History and English. Geometry and Algebra were like exotic foreign languages to me, but Eddie cruised through them helping me whenever I asked.  As ninth grade rolled by I spent more and more time with Eddie either at his house or mine.  We listened to music in his room for hours or he practiced his guitar while I listened on. Eventually Eddie started a band with Pat Coyle on drums and we spent many afternoons and weekends just playing music.  I played the trumpet but hated the instrument and my music teacher, who always poked me in the gut with a pencil to get me to hit the high notes.  I just jumped in singing and playing tambourine whenever I knew the lyrics.  ‘A Louie Loui – Ohhh Ohh – me gotta go’ or Gloria G L O R I A – Glo oo ria!!’ A ba ba ba ba ba aran – bababa baba baran!’  All the garage bands played the same songs with simple chords and lyrics.  Eddie’s band was no different and practiced the same few songs over and over putting our own unique sound to them.

Eddie and his band actually got good enough to play at a few high school and church dances.  I felt privileged being friends with the guys in the band and helped them set-up and break down after gigs.

Eddie didn’t have any trouble meeting and dating girls. He was a lean, handsome (smart) guy with a big smile and straight black hair that curved across his forehead along the line of his eyes.  It constantly fell into his eyes but he threw it back with a quick almost rhythmic turn of his neck.  I on the other hand, struggled in the dating department. Braces were added to the pink complexion and chubby frame, husky as Mom reminded me combined with the red hair and a stupid label. Girls didn’t seem to come running to Pinky back then.  Although, I did go on the occasional date – my childhood romances were awkward and short-lived.

Our local Catholic Church St. Patrick’s, sponsored dances every Friday night called Youth Council.  Many of my friends from the bus went to the dances that eventually became a big social event for both neighborhood and Catholic high teens. Only a few of my street pals came to the dances.  They didn’t think church functions were cool and only made casual appearances to see what was going on – for the most part my ‘other friends’ hung out at Smithtown Pool Hall, the stores behind Colonial Oaks or went to their own dances at the public school. It was a constant dilemma trying to decide who to spend time with those High School years although I felt more included and accepted with my new high school pals who didn’t make fun of me as much for being chubby or having braces.
Harry Bickman, Pat Coyle, Gordon Sherland, Eddie Warren and I met an hour or so before Friday night youth council in the woods behind Miller’s Pond.  Each week it was someone else’s turn to convince an older brother or friend of legal drinking age to buy us a few bottles of Ripple, preferably Pagan Pink.  There was usually an older brother willing to purchase a few bottles of the cheap wine if the price was right.  Sometimes we just stood in front of the liquor store and asked strangers to buy it for us. One way or another we usually made it back to the woods in time to pass the bottles around until they were empty and make our way laughing and walking the entire mile to St. Patrick’s Church.

Pat Coyle’s inability to hold his Ripple became legend in a short period of time.  After just a few sips from the community bottle he’d start laughing and getting very silly. Don’t get me wrong – we all enjoyed the buzz and got stupid on occasion – with Pat it was like a scene from a well-rehearsed play.

“Ripple! Yea Ha! Riiiiiiiiiiple – I love this stuff. Let me have another sip of that Riiiiiplllllllle?” It got to the point where he acted like he had a buzz before we even started drinking so Gordon hatched the grape juice scheme. One night we filled an empty bottle of Ripple with grape juice and topped it off with Pagan Pink Ripple for color and taste.  When Pat showed up for our Friday evening Ripple ritual we made sure he got his fill on the grape juice.  It wasn’t long before he was hammered.  “Rippple – you gotta love that Ripple – laughing, giggling and stumbling all the way to the dance with us snickering to ourselves.  Pat never lived that night down and we didn’t let him forget it on the bus or at school.  Whenever one of us bumped into him all we had to say was Ripple and his face got red and we’d bust out laughing.  He knew he was a lightweight in the drinking department and Pat took the jokes and kidding in stride. He was a good-natured Irish kid and great fun to be around.

We planned camping and canoe trips for summers..

“Dinty Moore Stew! Do we have enough Dinty Moore for the trip?” Gordon screamed over his shoulder from the driver’s seat of his white ‘68 Chevy. “You know how hungry we get climbing Balsam Mountain after a long drive.”  Next to fishing and playing baseball, camping was my favorite thing to do those summers between 1966 and 1970.  I went camping with most of the Ripple gang during those years but Gordon, Eddie and another friend from school, Mike Conte, were by far the best campers.  They took camping more seriously than the others who just saw it as another opportunity to drink Ripple and get silly. We on the other hand graduated to blackberry brandy.  According to Mike it kept you warm on those cold Catskill nights.

We piled into Gordon’s Chevy after a trip to the IGA for supplies.  Tossed our tents and sleeping bags into the truck along with assorted camping gear and groceries and were off to the Catskills. After a three-hour drive to Balsam Mountain we parked the car at the entrance of a hiking trail – divided up the gear and food between us and tried to make it to the lean-to at the top of the mountain before dark.  The three-sided wooden lean-tos were the best part of camping at Balsam and eliminated the need to pitch tents.  They were roomy and kept us dry if it rained.  On one memorable camping trip I had a terrible sty in my left eye from a sinus infection and looked like the young Cyclops.  Eddie, Gordon and Mike made fun of it the entire hike up the mountain.  I laughed it off hoping it would pop and the swelling go down.  We arrived at the open rustic cabin at dusk – organized our things and rolled out the sleeping bags.  There was a loft at the top of the lean-to that I called to be my sleeping spot.  After some argument from the others I claimed it for the night.  We dined on jumbo cans of Dinty Moore stew and cookies washed down with blackberry brandy. Talk about healthy eating.  We had a raging fire going so Gordon decided to take a leak on it to put it out. Big mistake! Within seconds of his pee hitting the flames the worst smell imaginable hit the air gagging us and causing everyone to run from the camp.  Gordon roared with laughter, kept on peeing and told us it wasn’t so bad.  Eventually the fumes cleared and we walked slowly back to camp and got settled in for the night.  I climbed up into my loft above the lean-to.  It was a moonless windy night with a slight drizzle falling as we fell asleep.  What must have been a few hours later I heard a noise by the fire and in a quick startled motion sat up and slammed my eye into the beam of the lean-to busting the sty wide open.  A stream of thick yellow pus poured out from my eye as I screamed in pain.  The other guys woke up and looked up at me in horror at what must have been a disgusting site. Puss and blood dripping down my dirty face.

“Did you see someone by the fire – did ja?”   All three of them said no.

“I could have sworn I saw someone in dirty blue overalls on the outside of the lean-to.”

“What happened to your eye – you look like you got hit with in the face with a baseball bat.”  Gordon said.

“It’s my sty – I hit the overhead beam when I heard someone outside the camp.”

We all slept nervously for the rest of the night as I lay in my loft my head throbbing with  a constant dull pain.  Fortunately it felt better when I got up in the morning. At least the pressure was off my eye from the sty draining. I spent the morning trying to convince the guys I saw something, so they made up the story of the Mountain Whoople who roams the Catskills in search of food and campers.  They kidded me all morning.

We spent the day hiking around the top of the mountain and after lunch decided to climb to the top of the ranger’s fire tower.  My claim to fame that weekend besides seeing the Mountain Whoople and busting my face wide open was taking a dump from the top of the fire tower.  I climbed the metal ladder to the roof of the tower and dropped my pants and hung my white butt over the side. I was like a bombardier in a B-52.  I took aim and dropped my load hanging from the top rail of the tower.  Gordon, Mike and Eddie completely died from laughing so hard.  In fact, we laughed all the way down the mountain – I laughed so hard my face got swollen from the busted sty.  I didn’t care – we were camping.

Although the neighborhood kids didn’t call or come around the house as much during high school but I still managed to spend time with some of my closer buddies.  I still loved to fish and play baseball.  I stayed connected more sporadically but didn’t drop them altogether – we  had too much history for that to happen.  Fishing excursions, casual meetings at the stores and baseball games at Maple Avenue Park kept alive the friendships forged over the past seven years alive.  I always found time to visit Mike and Johnny even if it was to catch up on childhood gossip.

There were other summer adventures with the high school crowd such as the great Delaware Water Gap Canoe Trip.  Someone decided (Harry I think) that we should all go canoeing down the rapids of the Delaware River.  It wasn’t long before the plans were made and Harry, Gordon, Eddie, Dennis, Dave Reaser and I were buying supplies and driving to the canoe rental and launch point on the river.
We had sleeping bags, camping food (that meant lots of Dinty Moore Stew), hot dogs, marshmallows, beans, soda and beer.  Harry bought four cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and loaded them into our big red cooler.  The food and other supplies were distributed evenly into  three canoes.  Harry was over six-foot with a stocky build.  He played football on the high school team and weighed in excess of two hundred pounds.  When he settled into the back of the canoe and  placed the cooler in the middle it sunk low into the water.  Add husky Pinky to the front of the canoe and you have the equivalent of a ‘low rider’ canoe..  Harry said it would be ok as long as we didn’t rock the canoe or make any drastic moves – I thought differently – especially knowing we had to navigate a series of white water rapids before getting to the camp site.

The morning started off fine.  The sun was shining and the river was calm. We paddled lazily down the tree lined river every once in awhile pulling up to the other canoes to talk or pass around beers, snacks and soda.  Dennis had to take a leak so he stood up in his canoe with Eddie relaxing in the back and before he knew it he was in the water.  First casualty of the day. We all laughed – Dennis and Eddie changed shirts and we were off again towards the first set of rapids.  As we approached the white water Harry said that no matter what happened I was not to lose the cooler of beer.  He expressed his concern about our precarious situation in the water and that we must stay calm, keep the boat steady and move straightforward through the rapids.  I just nodded from my kneeling position in the front of the boat with my back to him.  The other two boats made it through with no problems and cheered for us from the calm water on the other side of the white water.  We took a deep breath, entered the choppy waves and paddled like crazed maniacs through the white churning froth. “We made it!” I screamed. Whew!  I felt a wave of relief pass through my body when Gordon yelled to us we had only passed through the easy rapids and Skinner’s Falls was up ahead and was much worse.  Fear…that’s all  I felt, pure paralyzing fear.  Harry stayed upbeat and tried to convince me we could do it.  After all, we made it through the first test and could do it again.  He also reminded me about the cooler full of beer.

“Don’t loose it Pat! I’ll take care of everything else you just stay with the cooler.  The rest of the trip will suck if we don’t have beer. Everyone is counting on you.”

That’s all I needed to hear as we paddled towards Skinner’s Fall’s.  Don’t loose the beer.  The hell with your body – just don’t let the beer sink to the bottom if we capsize.  I was beginning to understand Harry’s priorities – it scared me but I took a deep breath and paddled directly into the middle of the churning white foam.  I could see in the distance the other two canoes had successfully made it and were cheering from the clearing in the woods at the end of the falls.  They had already beached their canoes and were watching us navigate the falls which was like being in a huge blender set to puree. We weren’t a third of the way down when we capsized.  The mad paddling was futile – we were going in.  The canoe was heavy and too low in the water  to make it through – this became very obvious to both of as the first wave of cold water slammed into the side of the boat.

“You get the beer!” was all I heard as we hit the frigid water. I must have turned and grabbed the cooler as an involuntary response to keep Harry from killing me later.  I sank like a rock but kept moving down the river.  In what must have been only seconds but seemed like an eternity, I felt a big hand grab the back of my shirt. I was holding my breathe as my hands clutching that damn cooler for dear life.  We somehow were pulled down the rapids by the force of the water, the guys were in the water immediately salvaging our gear.  Harry had the canoe by one hand and me by the other. Nothing really mattered at this point – the beer was saved and we made it to the campsite for the night.  Fires were lit and clothes dried as we sat with cold beers in our hands recounting the experience for Eddie, Dennis, Gordon and Dave.  It didn’t take much to be a hero back then.

High school ended abruptly – yearbooks were signed and best buddies made pledges that we were friends for life no matter where it took us. Camping trips got less frequent, high school pals went off to college and I stayed home and commuted to a local technical college. I was in the dumb class with a mediocre average and didn’t think I could get accepted in a prestigious school like the others.

I stayed in touch with Eddie Warren until he went off to Medical School in Mexico. Something happened to “Steady Eddie” while he was there.  He was supposed to get married to a girl we both dated but he eventually won over. That fell through after she went to see him and he broke it off.  She came home heartbroken.  The next thing I heard he is back home and extremely depressed.  So depressed and troubled that he eventually took his own life.

We’ve all grown up and fulfilled our various destinies, Gordon’s my Dad’s accountant, Harry sells real estate in the Pocano’s, Pat Coyle is a mail carrier and Mike Conte is a horse trainer.  Pinky…the dumb chubby kid teaches college.  (This was written 7 years ago and I am aware Pat is now living somewhere in South Carolina and Harry is now deceased)

Fact is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Friends

A morning doesn’t go by that I don’t glance over at the cheaply framed photograph of Johnny Bosco and me on my bedroom dresser amidst the religious symbols, statues, cards and assorted family snapshots.  Vivid memories wash over me every time I look at that dark skinned Italian boy and I standing proudly in our blue suits and white ties with white carnations pinned to our lapels. We smiled for the camera with no thoughts of the future beyond fishing and getting out of our uncomfortable suits.

Johnny Bosco and I received our First Holy Communion at the little brick Catholic Church in Smithtown almost forty years ago. Nuns in their black habits shuffled methodically around the basement auditorium sticking white carnations in our lapels and straightening the girls’ crooked white veils.  They lined us up, at the foot of the wooden stairs in that musty basement, girls on the left – boys on the right, in preparation for the procession around the chapel.

Sister Mary Catherine moving quickly from child to child, adjusting carnations skewed ties and wrinkled veils, making frantic last minute preparations for the first communion ceremony.

“Hurry up children! Be quiet and line up straight. Stop pulling at your ties. Girls, leave those veils alone.  I want you all singing and standing up straight during the procession. Remember…God is watching!”

Mom peeked down the church stairs as Johnny and I pulled nervously at our white clip-on ties.  She cupped her hand to her mouth and yelled,

“Patty! Make sure you fold your hands like Sister Mary Catherine taught you  (folding her hands one over the other) when you go up for communion, remember not to let your teeth touch the Eucharist.”

The hymn we sang while solemnly walking in procession still rings in my mind when I think of that special day so many years ago.

‘Ave, ave, ave Maria, ave ave Maria eea……’  Every time I hear the Ave Maria I’m transported for a few brief moments to that early spring morning in 1960.

Johnny and I wanted the whole thing to be over so we could go fishing after mass.  Dad pulled us aside after the ceremony and took pictures of us in front of the tiny brick chapel.  He sent me a copy of that old color photograph when my son Adam received his first communion almost ten years ago.

That old photograph stayed buried in the bottom of a drawer until recently, when I discovered it in a stained brown envelope while moving into my new apartment.  It has much more meaning since the divorce, in fact… little things I once took for granted or overlooked are more precious and important now that I’m single and accepting middle age.

I had another very special childhood friend by the name of Mike Smith. We explored every inch of the woods behind our neighborhood, Colonial Oaks and shared endless childhood escapades. Mike and I were in the same class for the first three years we lived in Smithtown. We sat together in the back of the big yellow school bus, laughing hysterically while teasing the bus driver we nicknamed Chiquita Banana.  Don’t ask me why – I think it had something to do with the big, wild, flowered hats she wore.

Mike, Johnny and I were like brothers.  Riding bikes, playing ball, camping out under makeshift tents, shooting bb guns and, of course, playing army in the thick woods behind our neighborhood.

If I close my eyes and concentrate, all of those wonderful sounds, sights and experiences of my youth come back to me so clearly.

I see Mike riding his metallic silver Stingray bike with the high handlebars popping wheelies every few yards. He could hold his front wheel up while riding all the way down our street. Always with that shit-eating grin plastered across his round freckled face.

“Whatcha doin Patty? Wanna ride bikes to the stores? I pinched two cigarettes from my mom’s pack – we just need some matches.  Let’s grab a pack at the Deli and smoke’m in the woods behind the IGA.”

Mike said in his high pitched nasal voice touched with that Brooklyn accent. “Or we can go to our tree fort in Spooks Pond, nobody will catch us there,” he’d say in a mischievous tone.  His mom smoked Raleigh’s and mine smoked Lark’s.

I hated the taste of both brands but smoked them anyway to be cool, at least I thought.

Damn!

I can’t  believe Johnny is dead! John and his wife Nancy were asleep in their bed when a man, broke into a basement window in their home. The murderous intruder stole silently up the steps to their bedroom. First he shot John in the head at close range. Then he killed  Nancy.

Mike died a few years before Johnny.  He ran his own business repairing foreign cars. He was always great with engines!  Mike built countless go carts and mini-bikes from discarded lawn mowers.  I can still see him crouched in one of his wooden go carts, flying down the street with feet propped on a two by four where he mounted recycled rubber wheels – as his hands clutched a frayed rope trying desperately to steer the crazy contraption.

Nobody is quite sure why Mike died.  Mom hinted that he may have committed suicide.  Mike apparently had marital problems and was living in his shop.  One cold night he started up a car, closed the garage doors and went to sleep in the back seat.  He never woke up.  My sister Mary Ann told me his youngest son placed a toy matchbox car in the coffin before it was sealed shut like the ones we played with as children. I couldn’t make the funeral to say goodbye. We’d somehow fell out of touch. Although I always meant to visit him whenever I was on Long Island.  I never did.

I still can’t believe the boys I played army with – the boys I rode bikes with – my two best childhood friends are dead.

Johnny and Mike were my blood brothers.  We even cut ourselves with a pocketknife and performed the ritual of exchanging blood from our fingers.

“You’re not serious Johnny!”, Mike gasped – eyes bulging out of his round head as he watched Johnny cut his index finger with his black handled Boy Scout knife. “Don’t worry Mikey!  It’s sharp as a razor blade and it won’t hurt much – come on, let me cut your finger so we can be blood brothers – Patty…you’re gonna do it with us aren’t ya?” “Sure!” I said,  “It doesn’t hurt much, does it Johnny?”  “Naww! Ok… let’s press our fingers together and clasp hands.  There – brothers for life!”

The faded picture of Johnny and we stands out on my dusty bedroom dresser a constant reminder of my childhood friend – my blood brother for life!

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Dancing Shoes

Shoes were always a major problem for me growing up. I don’t know why shoes were a big issue for my mom – but they were!  When I was about twelve; all my friends wore black pointy shoes with two-inch heels, just like the Beatles. They were called Beatle Boots.  Mom hated them and forbade me to buy shoes with a point or heel. She called them dancing shoes.

She raved on and on about it whenever the subject came up,

“Dancin shoes…they look like dancin shoes.  With those thin soles we’ll have to buy new ones in two weeks as hard as you play.”

When it came time to buy a new pair, I talked Mom into letting me go to Penny’s Department Store to purchase the shoes.  She made it very clear that I was not to come home with pointy shoes.

“If you come home with dancin shoes I’ll send you back so fast it ‘ll make your head spin,” she said, as I left out the back door of our Colonial style home.

I learned many years later that when I left, Mom immediately called Penny’s department store and ordered the shoe salesman not to sell me pointy sh  oes.  No matter what, he was to help me find practical school shoes that would last.

I walked the mile to Smithtown cutting through the woods and strode confidently into Penny’s.  The shoe section was tucked in the back of the store.  I walked quickly to the racks like a man with a mission.  After examining a variety of footwear I came across a pair of black shoes that had a slight heel with a little bit of a point to them.

‘Could I get away with these?’ I asked myself.

The salesman approached apprehensively and asked if he could be of assistance.  I showed him the shoes I liked and he immediately tried to talk me out of them.

You don’t want those son…you need something more sturdy and durable.  How about these desert boots?   He held them up to his face, smiling ear to ear like he was doing a TV commercial.

I stuck to my guns with the persistence of a soldier in battle.

“Yes! These are the ones I want! -  How much?” I asked pulling a crumpled twenty-dollar bill out of my pants pocket. I made him sell me the shoes.

They were a little tight for my feet but certainly the style of the day.  I could finally be cool wearing these I thought.  I tried convincing myself Mom would be happy with my purchase but something gnawed at me all the way home. It was getting dark as I walked with shoebox in hand down the maple lined road.  As I entered the side door my mother stood with arms folded like a drill sergeant in the glowing florescent light of the kitchen.  When I opened the box and pulled my shiny new black shoes out of the tissue paper Mother gasped, then sighed.

“Oh Patty…what did I tell you!”

She immediately launched into a tirade and told me to go back to Penny’s and return the shoes.

“No ifs ands or buts. Just do it!”

No amount of convincing or pleading changed her mind. Dad drove me in total silence as I exchanged them for a pair of brown suede hush puppies.

What a trade off!

I never did get to buy a pair of dancin shoes and I never did quite “fit in” with the rest of the crowd.

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The Phone Call

I got the call on Saturday morning as soon as I walked into the house from my racquetball workout. It was Mom and she whispered in a serious voice she had something important to tell me. The tone of her speech was somber and I detected something was very wrong.

“Grandma is dead,” she said in a matter of fact yet somber way. “I don’t want you getting  upset and driving all the way to New York. She died peacefully and had a long happy life. There is really nothing to be sad about except that she will be deeply missed by her family.”

I couldn’t respond for a moment; it didn’t sink in. All I could think of was the little nursery rhyme she sang to us throughout our childhood.

“Oats and beans and barleyO, oats and beans and barleyO, some for you, some for me, oats and beans and barleyO.”

I visualized her wrinkled, smiling face and those puffy cream colored hands always folded with the large black rosary beads entwined between her fingers. I pictured her as she looked when I was a child growing up on Long Island. She prayed constantly all of her life and was the most devoted and spiritual person I had ever known. I could almost hear her calling me with that high pitched Brooklyn accent to come into the house as I played in the street with my childhood friends. A wave of memories rushed through my mind and I felt an overwhelming sadness and nostalgia at the same time.

I ignored her when she called until she bribed me with ice cream and cake. Grandma’s Surprise she called it. A scoop of vanilla ice cream on toasted pound cake The taste of that ice cream saturated crisp yellow cake, brought me running home every time.

“I’ll get a flight to New York”,  I said, “and yes, I want to be with the family for the funeral.” I said goodbye and hung up the phone. Grandma is dead, I said sadly to my wife and walked up the stairs to my studio and pulled out the old photo albums. I began rummaging through the old pictures of my childhood. They took on new meaning knowing an important chapter of my life had just ended.

Images of the old neighborhood flashed in front of me as I flipped through the old faded snap shots: Einstein Place, Colonial Oaks, Millers Pond, childhood friends, and all the relatives that came to visit us on Long Island from the city. Aunt Clara, Uncle Joe, Dad’s Mom Mimi and black and white photographs of me as a baby peeking over my carriage.  Mom looked so young and beautiful in those old pictures with her long red hair and optimistic smile. The fifties and sixties seemed like another lifetime, a different time in a different place.

My earliest memory of Smithtown was driving into the new neighborhood and noticing the dirt roads and just how completely different everything was from Brooklyn. That newly built barn styled house on the expansive corner lot seemed so big compared to the little plots in the city. We played red light green light, touch football, hide and seek, curb ball, giant step and made tents out of blankets for sleeping out behind the house.

It was the tumultuous sixties and we didn’t even know it. We were too busy playing baseball, riding bikes, fishing and building go-carts out of rusty old discarded lawn mower engines.

We were like extras in a B movie that ended abruptly with me still sitting alone in the theater.  Looking back at those times all I have left is a mental movie filled with disparate images.

My childhood buddy Mike Smith’s got an extra cigarette he stole from his mom’s pack, Kenny Hayes wants to shoot pool in his basement; his parents aren’t home and we can blast Jim Morrison’s “Light My Fire” while we play eight ball for quarters. Charlie Buitner has that new Pink Floyd album and a nickel bag hidden under his mattress, Don Nelson wants to go fishing to try out that Mitchell reel he got for his birthday. Kevin Campbell called about the ball game tonight at Maple Avenue Park, he says I have to catch. I hate being the catcher!

Fragments and snap shots are all I have, just visual fragments, vague ethereal images of baseball cards, comic books, BB guns, sling shots, stick ball and army men. Beatles, Rolling Stones, mowing lawns, lazy hot days at the beach, riding bikes, JFK, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, Mickey Mantel, Willie Mays, the New York Yankees and all my friends who grew up with me in Colonial Oaks on Long Island during the sixties.

I can still hear my dad whistling for us to come to dinner.  “Come and get your beans boys, come and get your beans.”

Through it all Grandma prayed. She prayed for her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, peace in the world, family members who had died and who knows what else. Like a religious statue in the corner of the living room, head tilted upwards, rosary beads moving rhythmically through her fingers she always devoted a part of her day to intense prayer. The world whirled around her and she never lost her spiritual focus or broke concentration.

Fleeting memories pass through my brain like video sequences from MTV.

Mini bikes, go-carts, kids playing ball in the street, exploring the woods at the edge of the neighborhood and plotting mischievous schemes in the garage.

Colonial Oaks and our street Einstein Place was our own little world in the sixties, a safe haven sheltered from the social and cultural tensions of the decade.

Childhood burned a lasting imprint on my heart and mind and Grandma’s death reminded me of those precious times for a few brief moments after Mom’s phone call.

I can still hear her singing in that high pitched Brooklyn accent…

“Oats and beans and barleyO, oats and beans and barleyO, some for you, some for me, oats and beans and barleyO.”

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The Pine Tree

My sister Mary Ann and I 1962

I blinked and childhood was over!  One second I was a child living a carefree life and the next I’m shaving two days growth, staring in the mirror at a 55 year-old man with a thick white mustache, ruddy, weathered face and thinning red hair.

When I was 10 years old  my best friend Mike Smith and I were playing in the woods behind our neighborhood when we noticed a small pine tree growing off the narrow dirt path.  It was a beautiful little tree, full and very green.  It came up to my dirty knee patches on my dungarees.  There was something unique about that tree, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.

Look at that tree Mike!   There aren’t many pine trees in these woods.  I don’t remember ever seeing this one before.

“As much as we’ve walked this path I’m surprised we haven’t,”  he said.

“Let’s dig it up and bring it home. “ I said enthusiastically.

“No, you go ahead.  I’ve got to get home for supper.”

I rushed the quarter-mile home and grabbed  a shovel  and  pail out of the garage. Dad kept the garden tools organized neatly against the garage wall behind  two by four studs.

While heading back to the woods,  Mom popped her head out the side door.

“Patty! Dinner’s almost ready,” she yelled in her high pitched voice.

“Be right back Ma!”

I jogged back to the woods and dug the little tree up with great care, making sure I saved plenty of dirt from its roots.   Placing the little ball of dirt and roots into the old rusty bucket I struggled back with my heavy load.  When I arrived home I had to wash up for dinner so I left the shovel and pail containing my pine tree in the back yard.

“Why are your clothes so dirty?”  Mom asked as I ran through our little  kitchen.

“I dug up a pine tree and I’m going to plant it in the back yard.”

“That’s nice, now hurry up and get ready for dinner.”

“What are we having?”

“Your favorite! Spaghetti.”

Yes!

“Can I plant my tree after dinner?”

“We’ll see,” Mom sighed.

It was getting dark as I dug a hole at the corner of the yard where the garage and house came together.  I pulled the long green hose out from its holder and put some water in the hole before lowering my sparse little tree gently into the ground.  Once it was situated just right in the muddy hole, I threw the dirt back and patted around the base with the back of the shovel. I stood over the newly planted tree with a great sense of pride and accomplishment.

The pine tree grew up the side of the garage – In just a few years I could see the top of it from my bedroom window.  The scruffy green pine was too close to the house but Dad, being the sensitive father that he was, didn’t have the heart to transplant it.

Every so often I glanced over at it when I was playing in the back yard.  It made me feel good knowing something I had planted was growing so full, healthy and tall.  When I was a sneaky teenager I occasionally climbed out my bedroom window and shimmied down the tree to hang out with my friends at night.  It was a lot harder climbing up those flexible limbs than down. I even broke a few during those late night escapades.  It still grew though, and I always referred to it as “my tree”.  I found myself walking behind the garage just to check on it and watered it whenever the dirt around it looked dry.

We moved across town when I was seventeen and I had to leave the tree behind.  It was too big and full to dig up and take with us.  I never missed an opportunity to check it out whenever I went back to the neighborhood to see my friends.

“I can’t believe how big that tree has gotten Mike. Do you remember the day we found it?” I proudly reminisced to my old childhood buddy whenever I stopped by his house.  You could see my towering scrub pine peaking over my old house from his front yard.

One day in the mid-seventies, while visiting the old neighborhood I noticed the tree had gotten bigger than the house. In fact it was planted so close it looked as though it was going to fall over the garage.  I wondered to myself why the new owners never trimmed it back.  I was amazed just how big that tree had gotten.  It towered over the colonial styled suburban home like the vine from Jack and the Beanstalk.

That was the last time I ever saw my tree.

I went into the Army twelve years after planting it and after my discharge drove by the old house on Einstein Place to show my wife where I had grown up.

The tree was gone!

The house didn’t look the same. I got an empty feeling inside my gut and tried to explain what the tree meant to me, but it was difficult and painful.  The words sounded corny and foolish.

It was like a piece of me had been removed that day.

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