The Final Chapter

Nowadays, the obituaries are chock full of so many personalities who were—once upon a time—young. It’s downright unsettling. Men and women who were in their prime when I was a boy are passing away. I wasn’t a hockey fan, but I knew of Rod Gilbert, who died this week at the age of eighty. I knew he was a future Hall of Famer and distinctly remember his hockey card with the bright green backdrop.

During my youth, my favorite pastime was the American pastime at the time: baseball. It seems like a day doesn’t go by without a former baseball player—an athlete whom I rooted for or against—dying or getting diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Recently, I read where J.R. Richard, Rennie Stennett, and Dick Tidrow passed away. James Rodney Richard struck out over three hundred batters in 1978 and 1979 and had a major stroke the next year at the age of thirty, which prematurely ended his career. Rennie Stennett went seven for seven in a game, a record that still stands. And when Dick Tidrow pitched for the Yankees in the mid- to late-70s, my older brother imitated his distinctive windup and mannerisms while playing stickball. These little snippets of memory were so fresh because—honestly—it seemed like only yesterday when Richard, Stennett, and Tidrow were professional baseball players plying their trades.

Several weeks ago, an aunt of mine passed away two months shy of her 101st birthday. From the Spanish flu to COVID-19, her life began in a picturesque mountain town in Italy, Castelmezzano, before she emigrated to the shores of America in 1926 at the age of six. She lived through the Great Depression and then World War II—"the war to end all wars,” World War I, didn’t quite live up to its billing. Eventually, my aunt labored as a seamstress in New York City’s thriving Garment District for decades until her retirement in 1985. She collected a Social Security check for thirty-five years, an impressive feat in and of itself.

My aunt’s hobbies included walking, cooking, and baking. She made homemade pasta, meatballs, and tomato sauce called “gravy”—an Italian thing. The woman produced cakes and pastries that were uniquely hers like Graham cracker crust chocolate pudding pie, cream puffs filled with vanilla pudding, and oatmeal cake with two cups of sugar—one white and one brown. Strange, though, when people pass away, their lifetime of accumulations don’t go with them. Upon her death, my aunt’s spice closet was brimming with every imaginable spice, including multiple bottles of the same ones. Some bottles were unopened. As her cooking acumen took a hit in her final years —it stands to reason—so did her spice use. Many of those spice bottles had lapsed expiration dates going back twenty years.

Cleaning out her spice cabinet struck me as emblematic of what’s in store for me and, yes, just about everybody else. I have all kinds of things that have meaning to me but won’t have meaning to anybody else. I won't have a presidential-like museum in which to donate my photos, bric-a-brac, and papers, including old test papers from St. John’s grammar school, Cardinal Spellman High School, and Manhattan College.

I know my aunt had every intention of using the three bottles of bay leaves in her spice closet. But the finite end—in store for all of us—had other plans. So, from this day forward, I am gradually divesting myself of many of my material possessions and assorted ephemera. I like the thought of me getting rid of me. There is more dignity involved in this do-it-yourself exercise. After all, in writing the final chapter, who better than I to recycle my high school trigonometry tests?

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

It Is Goodbye

(Originally published 8/31/18)

Recently, I thought of an essay that was published in my Manhattan College Commencement program. Its anonymous author, a 1929 graduate, eloquently expressed the melancholy of the achievement and what it augured. He ended his piece as follows: “The moon grows pale and drops down and down. The shadows encroach further and further. The breeze sighs mournfully. A subway train rattles away into the distance. I sit alone on the Chapel steps. It is goodbye.”

Last week an old friend, neighbor, and fellow Jasper passed away. Mere words cannot do the man justice. Suffice it to say, Richie was a one-of-a-kind personage—a true original—whose likes will never be seen again. When I was growing up in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge, he was a ubiquitous and enigmatic presence on the block. He had the X-factor.

Riche was considerably older than those who hung on his every word and relished time spent with him. But his inimitable personality and audacious spirit added layers of color to the childhoods of those who experienced him up close and personal. You just had to be there.

Richie was the guy who taped oak-tag signs to his father’s dark brown Ford LTD that read “Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians” and “Bob Hope in Car.” He would then drive around the neighborhood with his youthful entourage. We would watch people stare, often gasp, and occasionally laugh. On a whim, Richie might ask, “Do you want to give the fist?” I don’t exactly know the origins of this peculiar pastime, but it involved shaking fists from the moving car’s windows at unsuspecting passersby on the street. It was harmless fun that—on the very same thoroughfares today—would probably put one’s life at risk.

Forty-one years ago this month, Richie, my older brother Joe, and I traveled to Boston to see the Red Sox in Fenway Park. Believe it or not, this was a monumental adventure for a fourteen-year-old boy and for our fearless leader—eleven years my senior—as well. We scrupulously planned the trip in an age before the Internet as if we were going around the world in eighty days. Money was pretty tight. By the end of the two-day journey, our coffers were nearly depleted. In fact, Richie loaned me five dollars along the way, which I agreed to work off at a future date by washing and waxing his car.

During those two days in Beantown, we ascended the Bunker Hill Monument, trod the grounds of Harvard University, and toured Old Ironsides. We also saw a game at Fenway alongside a grandfather affectionately known as “Pops,” who was quite shaky on his feet, and his doting grandson. Sitting next to me, Pops was concerned that I might be a “California rooter” and antagonistic towards his beloved Sox. I assured him that I was a Met fan from New York who wouldn’t be rooting for the Angels.

Two short weeks later—with the same cast of three—Richie plotted a fun-filled encore to the summer of 1977: a jam-packed day trip that commenced at the Brigantine Castle on the Jersey Shore. This haunted amusement was incessantly advertised on local television back then and Richie wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It turned out to be much ado about nothing and we promptly headed south to nearby Atlantic City—in its pre-casino days—and finally to Philadelphia. There we checked out Liberty Hall and that cracked bell. Our nightcap—the icing on the cake—was a game at Veterans Stadium. The Phillies versus the Braves in that cookie-cutter monstrosity lasted fourteen innings and ended near midnight.

Upon our return to the Bronx, Richie was noticeably drowsy behind the wheel of his beloved Mustang. We had, after all, left home at six o’clock in the morning. To give him a much needed break, seventeen-year-old Joe, who had just gotten his driver’s license, offered to take over for a spell. Allowing an inexperienced driver such an opportunity in the middle of the night—and in the middle of what seemed like nowhere—was hardly a slam-dunk decision, but an exhausted Richie ultimately relented. He would turn over the reins for fifteen minutes, he said, and take a brief catnap. After a two-hour snooze, Richie arose from his slumber and we were ever so close to home.

These memories are just snippets from decades of them. But they are reminders that life is fleeting and, really, about moments. And when time draws to a close, the moments to remember are the freest ones—simple, innocent, and absent of drama. Richie…it is goodbye.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

What $1.30 Used to Buy

(Originally published on August 14, 2013)

Exactly thirty-nine years have passed since my father took my two brothers, a friend, and me to Shea Stadium. It was the afternoon of August 14, 1974, five days after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. But I’d hazard a guess the Watergate scandal and the historic changing of the guard in Washington were not on my radar. Baseball—and only baseball—was.

The Mets were saddled with all kinds of injuries in 1974, including star pitcher Tom Seaver’s ongoing battle with nagging sciatica in his left hip. He was uncharacteristically struggling and, when all was said and done, my revered idol went 11-11 on the year and my favorite team, an unimpressive 71-91. (The Mets had won the National League Pennant the year before.) Still, it was an exciting afternoon as we plopped ourselves down wherever we darned pleased in the far reaches of the upper deck—grandstand seats for $1.30 a pop and closer than anyone else in the ballpark to the airborne planes taking off and landing at nearby LaGuardia Airport. As a boy, I always loved those loud, periodic interruptions, particularly the spitting sounds of the planes’ engines that drowned out the stadium din for a fleeting moment. It was part of the unique and unrivaled ambiance of attending a game at the “Big Shea”—and even added spice to listening to home games on the radio and watching them on TV.

Courtesy of today’s ready access to information, I discovered that the Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers three to two on that day, scoring two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to pull it out. Normally, I remember details like this, but I have no recollection of the game itself or that Tom Seaver was the starting pitcher. Tug McGraw got the win in relief. I have this faint memory, though, of my father insisting we leave an inning earlier to avoid the post-game parking lot’s traffic snarl. Attendance was 33,125. It was one of his hang-ups, which I can appreciate now having inherited his “I really and truly don’t like driving and excessively fret about things like traffic” gene. Nevertheless, this early departure meant that we missed a thrilling, come-from-behind, bottom-of-the-ninth inning victory. (Thrilling for me, I should add, and not my die-hard Yankee fan and Met hating father.) I imagine we were listening to the game on the car radio as we headed back home. I’d wager, too, that I was simultaneously ecstatic at the win and disgusted at having missed it live and in person.

Suffice it to say that 1974 was a vastly different time for the world in general and baseball in particular. We traveled from the Bronx to Shea Stadium in Queens on the game day—a twenty-five or so minute ride—and purchased tickets at a ticket booth for $1.30 each. An in-law of mine recently ventured to the new Yankee Stadium—the House that Ruth Didn’t Build. He spent $75 for tickets that were far from the best seats in the house and spoke of the stadium runways being more like shopping malls than the hot dog and beer-smelling passageways—with the sticky concrete floors from copious concession spillages—that we both recalled so fondly. (I’d add to these evocative olfactory memories the urine and urine-masking deodorants from the stadium’s bathrooms.) A trip to the ballpark used to be foremost about the game of baseball and rooting for the home team, not going on an expensive shopping spree and dining on Penne a la Vodka and exotic-flavored rice pilaf during the game in an upscale eatery.

The game has been remade by an uber-corporate mentality that has completely refashioned the baseball brand to suit the times and the ever-waning attention spans of its customer base. It’s hardly the affordable family game that it once was, and it’s not the American pastime anymore. What is? Major League Baseball is marketed as an event—a happening. The game on the field is secondary to all the glitzy, technological distractions and the unrelenting clamor. And, to add insult to injury, there are the A-Rods who make mega-millions of dollars and cheat on top of that, rendering records suspect at best and often meaningless.

The simple pleasure of attending a baseball game at Shea Stadium and sitting in the upper deck in the summer of 1974—even if my impatient father ruined the denouement for me—is gone with the winds of time. There will never be another outfield featuring the likes of Cleon Jones, Don Hahn, and Rusty Staub. I’m happy, though, to have been a youthful fan in an era when the bottoms of my PRO-Keds sneakers got all sticky as I exited the ballpark, and I when didn’t have to pass by the Hard Rock Café and Wholly Guacomole on the way out.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Benchwarmers

While sitting in sliver of parkland known as Van Cortlandt’s Tail yesterday morning, I bore witness to something rather unpleasant. I’ve reported from this sprawling sea of benches before, this noisy location overlooking busy Broadway and the Number 1 elevated subway line. Not too far south from this Shangri-la is another slice of park—crescent shaped and much smaller—with benches that abut the heavily trafficked Major Deegan Expressway, I-87. In my youth in the 1970s and 1980s, the place was affectionately known as the “Bum Park.” In other words, it was oft populated with unsavory sorts with an excessive thirst for the grape or some such thing. Just to keep the local geography in order, the Tail is the “Bum Park North.” I appreciate that these monikers are not politically correct nowadays, but we are entitled to a little black humor every now and then—to laugh to keep from crying—without getting chastised or cancelled by some holier-than-thou snitch or triggered crybaby with too much time on his or her hands.

Okay, back to my sighting. There’s this fellow that I see around a lot, a skinny dude about forty or so, I’d guess, but he could be younger or older. I feel genuinely sorry for this man who regularly rummages through garbage cans for discarded cigarette butts with enough puff left in them. He’s always smoking, perspiring, and bleary-eyed. I’ve long wondered what his tale of woe is. Mental illness? Drug abuse? Both? Is the guy homeless? In any event, he’s a veritable pinball, stopping to sit on benches on Broadway, in the Tail, and in nearby Van Cortlandt Park proper. Stop and go is his modus operandi as this peripatetic wanderer abruptly moves on to pillage the nearest garbage cans for cigarette remains before venturing to his next sit-down. It’s a recurring cycle that I've witnessed over and over. He never speaks with anyone, which is fine by me, but does an awful lot of nervous flitting. And although his attire looks relatively respectable from afar, the guy’s not very sanitary. Now, more than ever, when I plop down on an area park bench, I contemplate all who came before me.

From where I sat yesterday morning, this growing concern of mine assumed Code Red significance. For I saw this mystery man drop his pants and defecate on the sidewalk. He then wiped himself clean with a plastic bag. Well, today, I returned to the scene of the crime, as it were, and cut short my stay. It was hot, humid, and uncomfortable, but the impetus of my early exit from the Bum Park North was an approaching benchwarmer. No, it wasn’t yesterday’s Man of the Hour, but a woman whom I’ve previously encountered there. I hadn’t seen her in a while and, honestly, didn’t want to see her this morning or any other morning for that matter. She’s a disturbed individual who says strange things in an unwarranted and unwelcome hostile manner. Whether this lady is just making batty small talk or looking to pick a fight is often hard to decipher.

As I was making like a tree and leaving the Tail before this character was in earshot and could engage me in conversation, she took note of my sudden departure. My plan was to vanish before this paranoid woman deduced that I was leaving because of her. When she glared my way, though, I knew she had put two-and-two together, that I was, in fact, calling it a day because of her—and she internally fumed! It’s always amazed me that certain types of people feel entitled to rant and rave to anybody and everybody—and nobody has the right to move on until their show of shows is over.

Fortunately for me, there was this senior citizen in the Tail—who often stops there on the last leg of her journey to her apartment building—whom the crazy lady appeared to know. She had found an audience of one and the distraction worked in my favor. So, that’s a little taste of life in the big city on a dog day of summer 2021. It isn’t always pretty and is frequently quite sad. But sometimes it helps to be on the outside looking in—to detach from the reality of the reality. Everyone’s got a story and many don’t have happy endings or beginnings and middles in many instances.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The “Clem Nouri Rule of Polite Society”

(Originally published on 10/28/15)

Some three decades ago I had a professor in college named Clement Nouri. I remember thinking what a great name that was. It was kind of like the Old West meets the Old World or some such thing. Anyway, the course he taught was rather excitingly called “Business Policy,” and a considerable portion of our grade was based on class participation. Still, the very same people—class after class after class—did the lion’s share of the participating. Really, this was the case, I found, in primary, secondary, and higher education alike. Many of the eager participators in these class discussions did so because they were intellectually curious and desired learning from their more scholarly teachers and professors. But there was also a fair share of said participators who, I fear, liked the sound of their voices above all else, especially in college.

Anyway, in this “Business Policy” course, Dr. Nouri insisted that one and all participate in the class discussions. An oft-repeated catch phrase of his, which has stuck in my brain all these years later, was: “How ‘bout others?” In other words, Dr. Nouri was importuning the “Silent Majority” in the classroom to be heard—come on: anybody other than the usual suspects. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now: My old professor’s three-word question has real legs and can be applied in all kinds of venues and situations outside of the classroom. In fact, I silently ask, “How ‘bout others?” time and again as I go about my daily business. Just yesterday, what I have dubbed the “Clem Nouri Rule of Polite Society” danced like sugarplums in my head.

It came to the fore while I was in a neighborhood drug store—Rite Aid, formerly Genovese, and I hear soon-to-be Walgreen’s—and waiting on a long line, the handiwork of an oblivious woman with out-of-date coupons for starters, questions about the current chain’s flier, and—in general—treating the cashier like she was in a private audience with the Pope. “How ‘bout others?” I internally intoned as the line grew longer and longer and longer. And, at long last, when she actually purchased something and received her change, it took another seeming eternity for her to gather herself together, which, of course, she did at the checkout.

Later in the day, I was in a Chinese take-out establishment with a very small counter to put it mildly in which to place an order. When I entered the eatery, a woman was in the process of placing her order. Straightaway, I could tell she was a pain in the butt but nonetheless patiently waited my turn as I always do. But, alas, after placing her official order—with every “I” dotted and “T” crossed—she didn’t budge. Apparently, she was intent on watching her food being prepared—and asking further questions and making assorted demands—throughout the process. How ‘bout others? I had to at long last shout out my order over this inconsiderate boob, whose elbows were resting on the countertop and spread out a la Charlie Brown ruing his lot in life on the backyard brick wall.

Finally, have you ever been at a party or social event where some blowhard holds court the whole time? Of course you have. And no matter what the topic of conversation, he or she invariably hijacks it. On these occasions, it is high time that all of us vocally and unapologetically enunciate the simple but oh-so-just “Clem Nouri Rule of Polite Society”: “How ‘bout others?” No more suffering in silence.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

August Company

Considering what other parts of the country have endured this summer, New York City’s weather has been rather benign with no extended heat waves and only an occasional monsoonal rain. I’m noticing, too, more and more locals wearing masks outside again. Yes, the Delta variant has turned back the clock somewhat. But despite the media’s sky-is-falling hype, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the vaccinated are pretty much good-to-go. Mayor Bill de Blasio, though, recommends that we wear masks indoors when around another person, even if we are both vaccinated. That’s going to encourage people to get a shot.

Oh, and the mayor has announced that we will soon have to show proof of a vaccination for indoor activities like restaurant dining, sitting at a bar, and exercising in a gym. How exactly is that going to play out? Seems to me that it will put unnecessary pressures on embattled small businesses, which is the last thing they need right now.

On Saturday, I patronized a pizzeria on a shadowy side street in the Financial District. The slices were $3.25 each and wouldn't pass muster for a children’s menu. They were served up by a personality-challenged counterman who uttered not a syllable during our transaction. Sadly, the slice of pizza price is finally outpacing the cost of a bus or subway ride, another indicator of the city’s decline. How, I wonder, will Mr. Personality in the pizza parlor enforce the future vaccination order for Wall Streeters and tourists desiring to sit inside with their microscopic slices?

I’d like very much not to think about politicians, let alone write about them, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my governor: the Luv Guv. The mighty have certainly fallen. Andrew Cuomo’s defense after the scathing attorney general’s report on his serial harassing was absurd. He presented a pictorial montage of his affectionate acts in public—hugging and kissing men and women alike. Just another demonstrative Italian guy. I can’t help but think about his father, Mario, right now. While the Tappan Zee Bridge shouldn’t bear his name, he was an honorable man without a whiff of scandal about him. What will Andy Boy do going forward? The knives are sure out, but Cuomo is so shameless, it’s anybody’s guess. De Blasio is absolutely relishing his nemesis’s demise and predicts he will resign and hopes, too, that he faces criminal charges.

A final note: After my recent weight watchers’ pizza lunch, I passed by Federal Hall in lower Manhattan. As always, the grand statue of George Washington proudly stood in front. Unfortunately, though, the historic locale was festooned with woke banners, including one with a “Womxm,” an intersectional term. Ridiculous, I thought, as I continued on my merry way. But then we are living in ridiculous times. I see where some professors at major medical schools apologized for using the terms “male” and “female.” And publishers are refusing to publish fiction writers who create characters outside their race, ethnicity, and gender. Novelists create, no? It’s an artform and the talented therein were—once upon a time—respected for going wherever their muses took them. I can create a narcissistic male politician with a penchant for harassing women character without having been one. Can’t I?

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Cream Sam Summers

(A summer reprise from 2011. Wow, I've been doing this blog for quite a while now. By the way, my e-novel, Cream Sam Summer, based in part on real characters from a very real and exceedingly colorful snapshot in time, the 1970s, is free along with its short-story prequel, The DeTestables.)

As a Bronx kid growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, I’d say that, generally speaking, parents were less concerned about their kids talking with strangers—and strange people as well—than are contemporary moms and dads. They didn’t automatically presume that every area oddball was a potential predator or axe murderer. So, we youngsters sometimes kibitzed with a few folks that were—in retrospect—not quite right in the head.

A family lived up the street from me that had been there for decades. Their home had considerably deteriorated with the passage of time. In fact, its ramshackle state was the nearest thing we had to a haunted house in the neighborhood. And the residents’ sorry backstory added to the allure, beginning with an alcoholic mother and father who physically and psychologically abused their two sons. While in a booze-induced stupor, the family patriarch got run over by a subway train, and the matriarch became a recluse, venturing out thereafter only under the cloak of darkness for a daily beer run.

It was the youngest son whom the local kids got to know when he was a man in his early- to mid-thirties, I’d guess. His given name was Mike, but most people called him “Red,” homage to his hair color and heavily freckled body. He also had a peculiar sub-nickname that endured for a spell, particularly among the younger set: “Cream Sam.” Red himself had coined the term, along with another, “Furter Sam,” which he claimed were real things. Rather innocently, we imagined them as variations of ice cream sandwiches and frankfurters, but—looking back with an adult pair of wary eyes—Red likely had something else in mind.

Red, a.k.a. Cream Sam, was regarded as “simple,” but largely harmless by older neighbors familiar with his tragic family history. During the Cream Sam Summers of my youth, we would often ride our bicycles past his place and, if he was outside, stop by for a chat, knowing all the while that this mysterious, rarely seen spooky lady lurked in the nearby recesses. I spotted her once out on the front porch. She was dressed in all black and was ghostly pale with a long shock of white hair styled like Grandmama Addams. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old at the time and, I must admit, the visual unnerved me. By then, Red's mom was a complete shut-in.

One warm summer's eve, Red summoned a bunch of us into his garage, which he had fixed up as a personal bedroom of sorts, while the living quarters above it fell into increasing disrepair along with his aging mother. Red said he had something really big to show us that night. It turned out to be a one hundred dollar bill, which was worth something back then, and not a piece of currency we laid eyes on very often. How he came to have this bill in his possession is in the unsolved mystery file alongside the true meanings of "Cream Sam" and "Furter Sam."

Sitting on the seat of his gold-colored, three-speed stingray bicycle with a speedometer, my friend Frank snatched the bill from Red’s hand—an uncharacteristic act for him—and rode off into the night. With the bill raised high in the air, Frank pedaled furiously down the block and let out a few whoops and hollers for good measure. He returned it to Red after this brief exhibition, but the ordinarily genial Red was not amused and let us all know in no uncertain terms. Perhaps entering Cream Sam’s garage under the cover of night was unwise after all. Today’s more discerning parents might really be on to something.

With the help of a sympathetic neighbor, Red's dilapidated domicile was sold and he and his mother moved into an apartment not too far away. Upon the sale, considerable pieces of the roof were missing and the place had no working plumbing, and hadn't for some time. For sure, it was a hardscrabble life for Red. An older kid on the block once suggested that we never again refer to Red as Red, but other colors instead like Blue, Yellow, and Green when we encountered him on the street. If memory serves, I said, “Hi, Purple” to him on one occasion. Still, Red will always be Cream Sam to me, regardless of what game the man was playing all those years ago.

That '70s Summer

(Originally published 7/19/20)

It’s extremely hot today. The temperature is expected to near one hundred degrees Fahrenheit—a New York City scorcher in the midst of a bona fide heat wave. Once upon a time in the Bronx, I was undeterred come hell or high water. What now constitutes a long time ago, neighborhood kids went about the business of summer regardless of what the thermometer read or where the relative humidity stood. We played stickball on steamy asphalt without a cooler of bottled water on hand. In fact, there was no such thing as individual plastic bottles of water back then.

The contemporary Big Apple is being compared unfavorably to its 1970s forebear. In the mid-1970s the city was in the throes of a fiscal crisis—with bankruptcy a very real possibility—and rampant crime on top of that. I was a boy in those days and fondly remember that colorful snapshot in time, even if it was on the dirty and unsafe side. It still resembled old New York—the city my paternal grandparents settled in—with its mom-and-pop shops, Garment District, and the last of the automats.

Summer nights brought out stoop sitters en masse, who shared the increasing darkness with copious lightning bugs. I’ve spotted a smattering of those incandescent insects around this year, but nothing like the numbers in their heyday. Even the fortunate folks with air conditioners emerged on the warmest nights to spit the breeze. We youth played a game called “flashlight,” a.k.a. “flashlight tag,” immediately after sunset. No part of our days were wasted. I grew up in an outdoor world absent any uber-technological devices to endlessly stare into. So much was left to our imaginations.

When the heat was on, our local utility—Con Edison—often scaled back the power during the nighttime hours. Lights would flicker and ice cubes would partially melt and then refreeze. A cold drink was sometimes hard to come by and the poor excuses for ice cubes tasted foul. No air conditioning and sub-par ice cubes, though, were par for the course during the dog days. I called home an upstairs apartment. Seven of us lived in it with a solitary bathroom. I’m not complaining because The Brady Bunch had it even worse with nine people sharing one. They never appeared bothered by the heat, so I assume the Brady clan had some form of air conditioning.

As a kid, the heat of the summer was to be expected, endured, and celebrated as a welcome respite from the interminable school years. There were no air conditioners in my classrooms from kindergarten through college. I recall some days—particularly in the month of September—baking like a couch potato while learning my ABCs. But at least that was taught back in the day. There were few things more horrifying than hazy, hot, and humid weather in the fledgling days of a new school year.

My father always said that feeling the heat was in our heads. He wasn’t bothered by the melted, peculiar-tasting ice cubes, which he found no use for in his preferred brew. The old-school Italians grinned and bore it. Dinnertime in the dead of summer was not all that different than dinnertime in the dead of winter. In the hottest of hot weather, some adjustments were made vis-à-vis turning on the oven, but the frying pan continued to fry with the post office motto the wind beneath its wings.

That was then and this is now. I like having an air conditioner on days like today. And I’d rather not cook baked chicken and French fries this evening. Still, I miss the great outdoors in the heat of the night and heat of the day, too. Forty and fifty years ago, there were no safe spaces for us to hide in during the summer months and the recurring brownouts didn’t trigger any meltdowns either. So, please, let’s not compare the 1970s to 2020.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)