The School Bag Three

Yesterday, I took the subway into Manhattan. An affable Charles Manson-looking guy, and woman who was HIV positive, were panhandling at different times. Both played the grateful part, with the latter exiting the train with a loud “Thank you, New York!” With the Statue of Liberty looming large in the damp and blustery distance, I met a friend in Battery Park—our old stomping grounds. Along with yours truly, he was one of the “School Bag Three,” a trio from the old neighborhood who attended the same Catholic grammar school and high school. And when we began our secondary education in 1976 on the other side of the Bronx, school bags were still the in-thing. I got mine—a black one—in an area luggage store. In the 1970s, Kingsbridge was replete with mom-and-pop stores that specialized in just about everything anyone needed. From luggage to hosiery to deli sandwiches—pets to art supplies to pork—a shop existed within walking distance on the main thoroughfares of W231st Street and Broadway under the El. Nowadays, it’s an unsightly mishmash and unpleasant reminder of what once was.

Interestingly, the school bag—which was quite utilitarian in transporting books, notepads, and pens from Point A to Point B—became increasingly passé in the waning years of the 1970s. One member of our threesome nevertheless soldiered on with his red-and-white CSHS-insignia school bag for all four years. By senior year, its handle had fallen off, but he dutifully carried on with it under his arm. The three of us were something of a spectacle, I guess, as we returned home festooned in our polyester sports jackets, gaudy ties, and school bags at our sides. Suddenly, old-fashioned school bags were the accoutrements of nerds. My older brother was embarrassed that I clung to mine until my last year at CSHS, when I at long last retired it due to intense wear. Ginger, our new pup and addition to the family, ultimately teethed on the legendary bag. It went out with a fitting bang.

By the way, the moniker “The School Bag Three” came to pass when I christened a JPEG shot of the three of us at Christmastime 1978. Unfortunately, we aren’t carrying our school bags in the picture. One of my regrets is not having any photos in my high school uniform, which for the boys back then was a jacket, tie, and dressy pants of their choice. The colorful mix and matches were a special snapshot in time.

Anyway, that was then and this is now. Suffice it to say, the School Bag Three of 2018 aren’t nearly as spry as they were when they stopped in Bill’s Friendly Spot after an unpleasant school day for a “delicious egg cream.” At least that’s what the sign outside read along with an image of the famous frothy fountain pick-me-up. In fact, I—who sport a prosthetic knee—am the most ambulatory these days, with my mates saddled with assorted maladies that impede their walking in the here and now.

Yesterday, I was reminded, too, of a peculiar teenage prediction of mine regarding one of us. As fifteen-year-olds are wont to do, we were cavorting in my concrete backyard some four decades ago. For some strange reason, I proclaimed then that so-and-so would live to be fifty-seven. He will turn fifty-six this month and he is not doing very well. Of course, we were just having a grand old time and mouthing oddball and unpredictable stuff in an age before smartphones. At least my prophecy wasn't recorded! Of course, it's all gallows humor and I know full well that any one of us could drop between now and then. And, really, fifty-seven sounded pretty old once upon a time. As a teen, I couldn’t conceive of being that age. My father was in his forties when I was in high school. Nevertheless, I’m closing in on that unholy number—fifty-seven—and don’t relish being a Teenage Nostradamus or, for that matter, dead as a doornail.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)