This Is Your Life...

It was a night unlike no other and, very fortunately, largely forgotten by me. Well, not quite. I recall all too many details from that evening—of both things that were and things that weren’t. But happily, the sheer terror of that night in question has been wholly transformed into a comical, albeit dramatic, reminiscence of a certain life adventure of mine.

As far as putting things in my mouth and swallowing, or inhaling things through my nose with the objective of flying to the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter, I’ve pretty much been a good boy all these many years. I can honestly say that I never desired to trip on a hallucinogen to conjure up Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, or even Yogi Berra for that matter. Popping a pill in the hopes of being embraced by light has never been on my agenda, either. After all, encouraging one’s brain to boldly go where no neurotransmitter has gone before is just as likely to erect a prophet fellow whose name begins with “M,” and a corresponding hallucinatory fatwa, which would be awfully scary.

This is a roundabout segue way into my hallucinatory story. It occurred in a hospital milieu a little over four years ago. Apparently, some thing or things within the medley of meds I was prescribed while vegetating in intensive care caused me to both see and hear things that didn’t actually exist—not a good thing—and, worse still, believe the doctors and nurses on duty wanted to cast me asunder in my hospital bed. My drug-challenged brain was further convinced that an all-encompassing conspiracy was afoot to drive me completely mad. You're nobody until you believe somebody's out to get you.

When my sorry excuse for a leg—thanks to a gnarled mass of tissue and massive blood loss—was undressed and then redressed on this fateful night, I watched a doctor employing a couple of slices of pizza in lieu of bandages to cover the gruesome thing. Pizza had recently been delivered to somebody on the premises. I saw that as well. And the vitals monitor—or whatever it was called— hovering above me no longer recorded blood pressure and heart rate, but instead a This Is Your Life…Nick Nigro facts and information crawl. Boy, were these hospital folks going through a lot of trouble to punish me for my earthly sins. Oh, yes, and they had definitely turned the heat up in my little corner of the world—it had to be at least 120 degrees. Also, I absolutely knew that if I pushed a button to give me pain medicine, which I desperately needed and was told to use, the medications would kill my pain all right.and me right along with it.

Could my eyes have been deceiving me all along, and my brain taken a bizarre and Byzantine detour into the shadowy Land of Paranoia? Well, to make a very long story short, the next morning when I received family visitations, I informed my father that they had to get me out of the hospital and toot sweet, because my life was in imminent danger courtesy of a malevolent staff out to do me bodily harm. Now, this little exchange really shook the old man up, and not because he sensed murder in the sterile ether. He was in pretty bad health at the time, and hardly needed to see his son so physically wracked, but this out-of-the-head addendum was more than he could bear.

It was my mother who eventually clued me in that I was, in fact, hallucinating, and that not a single one of these ghastly things happened, or were happening, to me. I was literally seeing ominous handwriting on the wall and on the ceiling, too. However, once I received this most welcome reality check, the extreme fear and runaway paranoia, which totally gripped me, evaporated.

I was my old rational self again, yet nonetheless still seeing things that weren’t there, and occasionally hearing them as well. Despite the nasty medications playing dirty tricks on my brain, I could at least now separate the real from the unreal. And, trust me, the real was bad enough at the time and the worst was yet to come. Finally, as a footnote here, I apologized to an always patient and compassionate male nurse for accusing him of plotting my demise. He said, “No problem…it happens all the time in this place.” 

Old Meets New...

Tomorrow is Election Day. It’s an especially significant one here in New York City. Oh, not because of any particular person on the ballot, or some earth-shattering proposition that will radically alter our lives. No, tomorrow is the day New Yorkers vote with paper ballots for the first time in a general election, joining the vast majority of Americans in voting that way. All my adult life I have cast my ballots, as it were, in an antiquated machine with a big red lever that closed a shower-like curtain. In the privacy of the voting booth now, there were little black levers next to the names of candidates, which I pulled to cast my votes. Xs would appear upon my making these selections. The final voting act—pulling that large red lever again—both officially recorded my votes and, equally important, opened the curtain to let me out.

I must confess to being fond of the old machines, but can certainly see why their time has come and gone. New York City—the most renowned metropolis in the world—has got to get with the program and vote in step with the twenty-first century. Still, I have this lingering fear about what tomorrow will bring, and it doesn’t revolve around any worries of possibly soiling my ballot and disenfranchising myself. I will figure out the thing. After all, I have rather competently filled in ovals before, starting in the third grade or thereabouts. But it’s the mayhem that I presume will besiege the polling place that fills me with some dread.

From what I've experienced through the years, things are more often than not discombobulated in the vicinity of voters and voting, particularly when there’s reasonably high turnout. The paid volunteers who oversee this annual extravaganza are a diverse hodgepodge of locals with a median age of eighty-seven, I’d guess. I might also add that general crankiness and conspicuous hearing loss appear to be prerequisites for many of the positions. And then, of course, there are the voters from all walks of life and of all ages. When the aforementioned poll workers and the voting populace butt heads, it’s rarely pretty, and even less likely to be so this year with the new voting apparatus in place.

For a whole host of reasons, I have never been especially confident in the integrity of NYC elections. And it’s only partially because of the dedicated, but frequently hapless folks in charge of everything on the ground. It's the city’s Board of Elections, which turns over the whole shebang to this cross-section of regular Joes and Janes, that isn’t exactly on top of the really important things and the nitty-gritty. For starters: Who’s eligible and who’s not eligible to vote? For many, many years now, I’ve spotted dead people on the eligibility rolls—and some rather long gone at that—as well as folks who have vacated the hustle and bustle and crime and grime of Gotham for greener pastures, and who are now registered to vote elsewhere.

If a dead man walking, or current resident of Paducha, Kentucky, showed up to vote in my Bronx precinct tomorrow, the odds are that a ubiquitous table manned by three volunteers would not suspect foul play. But, fortunately, nothing like this ever happens in real life.

Old Psychos Never Die...They Just End Up on Facebook

It's hard to forget the certifiable screwballs who have come in and out of our lives. That is, the men and women we would have nominated as the most likely to appear on a 48 Hours segment, or be oft-mentioned by the dulcet-toned Bill Kurtis on American Justice.

Recently, a personal favorite of mine emerged from the memory graveyard and showed his mug on Facebook. This is the definitely the darkest side of social networking. I’ll call him "Wayne," after John Wayne Gacy, because it wouldn’t really surprise me if he’s got a few bodies buried in his suburban Tarrytown, New York backyard. Wayne’s wall is open to the public, and I live in perpetual fear that this crackpot might one day friend me. You see, I got to know this Wayne character for a brief spell in my college years, but I never considered him a friend and, I know, he didn’t consider me one. But none of this matters in the Facebook universe.

It’s kind of hard to explain Wayne to those who have never met the guy. However, for those who have had the distinct pleasure, they will appreciate what I am about to say. Born and raised in the Bronx, Wayne gushed and gushed some more, which was unusual in and of itself. He also uttered a mother lode of “golly gees” and “oh geezes,” which were regionally way out in left field. In fact, it was this faux folksiness that initially clued me in that something was rotten in the State of New York. That is, when starkly contrasted with Wayne's periodic eruptions of rage and foaming-at-the-mouth tirades against virtually everyone who didn't look or think like him.

“There’s nothing like a cold one!” I heard Wayne say on more than one occasion. He could be the king of clichés and unctuous corn in one breath, and a blithering loon in another, particularly after having had one cold one too many, which was often. Merely seeing this man’s visage a quarter of a century later, courtesy of his profile photo and picture album, is unsettling. Foremost, let me pay old Wayne a compliment: He’s aged remarkably well over the years. He looks not far removed from the madman I remember so well with his red drinking face and 1970s mustache. Go figure: This very strange man has a wife and three kids now, and is holding down a bureaucratic accountant's job.

Wayne’s derangement once found him threatening me with bodily harm because his kid sister was dating an Italian guy, and I was therefore responsible for making off with, and making out with, all of his kind's young women. Apparently, he also didn’t approve of the size and shape of my nose (way, way too big and pointed), believing that I must therefore be a secret member of the local temple and, of course, have a controlling hand in both the media and, yes, total world domination.

Wayne's bizarre antics are actually quite legendary. He’s perversely touched countless lives in the old neighborhood. Virtually everybody who knew the guy back when has a Wayne story or two (or three or four) to recount. Reminded of that Wayne character from the old neighborhood and its bar scene, one woman summed him up rather succinctly. “He was scary!” she said. Indeed he was. And now the man’s back in a twenty-first century guise, and untold people are cowering in fear of his possible friend requests and, worse still, ending up in his Tarrytown backyard commingling with the earthworms should they refuse.

The Straw Man Cometh...Goeth...and Cometh Again...

I finally got around to reading Straw: Finding My Way, Darryl Strawberry’s memoir of a very, very interesting life lived so far. As a devout Met fan from the Strawberry era, as it were, I will admit to, a quarter of a century ago, being held spellbound by the man’s enormous talent and seemingly unlimited potential—he was "the black Ted Williams," after all. But courtesy of a precipitous descent into drug and alcohol abuse, and, while we are on the subject, spousal abuse, too, the Straw Man rather dramatically short-circuited his highly touted career prospects. He once put a gun to his wife’s head.

I think it’s fair to conclude that Strawberry hit rock bottom not too long ago, or at least something resembling the bottom. For a guy who apparently had it all as a hot young professional athlete with a sky's the limit future, an awful lot of bad turns have occurred in this man's life. In addition to his well-known and oft-reported addictions, Darryl was diagnosed with colon cancer and prescribed intensive chemotherapy. The cancer then recurred and required another go-around of treatments. A kidney of his was removed along the way. Whereas once upon a time he was tossing one hundred dollar bills out of his limousine window—so he says—Strawberry subsequently found himself broke and paying alimony and child support to two understandably unsympathetic ex-wives. He also spent eight months in jail for violating his repeat-offender parole as a serial drug user. And the gifted athlete, who we were certain would break Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record, ended up living in his then-girlfriend’s, and current wife’s, parents’ basement somewhere in the Show Me State of Missouri—a markedly steep plunge, I'd say, for a nine-time Major League Baseball All-Star and renowned celebrity.

Even though I recollect reading about the particulars of Strawberry’s fast and furious retreat from glory, the recurring relapses and general mess of his life eventually blended all the sorry minutia together. What was a real shock at first, and major disillusionment surrounding all that could have been, just ceased to be after a while. Still, I rooted for the Straw Man. From my perspective—and many others outside of the callous sports-writing fraternity, which clearly loathed the guy—there was always something likeable and outwardly sincere about Darryl. I had long hoped the better Straw would win out in the end, and perhaps it has—well, at least he thinks so. Hence, this book.

However, as I read this memoir of his, the surprises just kept on coming. You know, Darryl’s next relapse and the next one after that. As the timeline inched closer and closer to the present, I got a bit worried. After all, his straight and narrow pathway is a relatively new one. I would very much like to believe that his last setback was just that—his last. The deeply religious Straw sees the Lord as the wind beneath the wings of his myriad trials and tribulations, including his jail sentence. He believes the dreadful series of events in his life were all part of the curriculum—an absolutely necessity to get him where he is today.

But really, Darryl Strawberry’s had a heaping helping of not especially good stuff happen to him in this life, and he’s come out of the meat grinder standing pretty tall (he’s 6’6” by the way). He’s now a commentator on ESPN, has founded an organization devoted to children with autism, and just recently opened up a restaurant and sports bar in his old Queens stomping grounds. No doubt, the Straw Man’s been humbled with all that’s happened to him along life’s long and winding road, but his hubris and penchant for braggadocio have not been wholly tamed.

I know a few recovering alcoholics who cannot help but boast about their former capacities to drink all comers under the table, and who don’t seem particularly ashamed of their past antics as they recount their war stories. And Darryl displayed more than a bit of this showboat air while chronicling the purported horrific episodes in his life and times. As a parting salvo, may I just offer this one simple piece of advice: For openers, don’t point any more guns at women’s heads…and the rest should come pretty easy.

The Index Card Kid Grows Up

I knew this kid in high school. He was, to put it mildly, goal-oriented. Now, I believe a little of that sort of thing goes a long way. And one didn't have to be Columbo to surmise that he came from a family with extraordinarily high expectations for him, and that his goal preoccupation was inbred. This classmate of mine always carried around an index card that listed his current school schedule, along with the grades he was shooting for in each one of the courses. His goals were extremely precise, too. He didn’t work with wide parameters like 90-95 or 92-97. No, he simultaneously established the bar exceptionally high and was highly specific. He anticipated grades like 98.2 in AP English and 97.5 in AP History, and nothing less would do. Grades that fell short of his stated goals were deemed failure.

I had long wondered what became of this kid. Like me, he’s an adult man now closer to fifty than forty. I came from a family that didn’t require index cards, or even a less formal brand of goal setting. While I grew up in a mostly benign atmosphere, there was nonetheless this underlying feeling that if any one of us achieved something, it wasn't much of an achievement. After all, it was us that we were talking about. Permit me to paraphrase comedian Jackie Mason here: “I make this observation with all due respect.” Really, though, there should be a happy medium of some kind between the index card and indifference, which is, I suppose, the quintessential parental tightrope.

Anyway, I long suspected one of two things happened to the Index Card Kid in his adult incarnation. He either imploded altogether from the intense pressure, and ended up on skid row as a pathetic alcoholic or cokehead—working at the Olive Garden between rehab stints—or he became an ultra-successful lawyer or doctor.

Courtesy of the world getting smaller and smaller, I’ve uncovered the answer to that intriguing mystery. Happily, it is the latter life course. Evidently, this formerly young person has hit the jackpot with the goals on his adult index cards apparently reached and even surpassed. From all that I’ve gleaned, this man certainly knows what he’s doing in his field. And I’d feel comfortable accepting his opinions and relying on his judgments in his profession. Still, I get this uneasy feeling that the Index Card Kid, now the Index Card Man, would not be much fun to talk with, or socialize with, unless, of course, you too are an Index Card Man or Index Card Woman.

Often What They Know...Just Ain't So...

A quarter of a century or so ago, the first nail salon opened its doors in my old neighborhood. Believe it or not, the concept seemed very, very strange back then. Locals were perplexed with the notion that a business entity could survive, let alone thrive, cutting, painting, and scraping dirt out of people’s fingernails. A manicure biz standing on its own two hands seemed at once foreign and far-fetched. Who pray tell would pay real money for simple services they could do for themselves with a ninety-nine cent nail clipper and two-dollar bottle of nail polish?

Flash forward to the present and these very same salons are ubiquitous, and nobody questions anymore their business potential or legitimacy. Gone are the days when a relative of mine speculated on what was really going on in these places—these fronts for all things nefarious. “They must be selling drugs,” she said with absolute certainty. Why...there could be no other explanation. Indeed, all those smiling and unfailingly polite Korean women, patiently sitting at their stations with scissors and nail files at the ready, were obviously up to no good. This very same member of my family has since christened other businesses, which she cannot quite comprehend, as drug dens, prostitution rings, or yet to be determined portals of mischief and debauchery.

The alarming component here is that there are so, so, so many people, akin to my blood relation, who absolutely know so, so, so many things—countless things, as a matter of fact, which just aren't so. And these all-knowing folks are not content to limit their wanton speculation to local businesses. No, many of our neighbors, in the very places where we live, assume the roles of judges, juries, and executioners with the flimsiest of evidence at their disposable.They know who among us is naughty, and who among us is nice, just like Santa Claus, and often based on idle gossip and hearsay.

That aforementioned kin of mine has more than once decreed what neighbors she feels lead the right kind of lives, and noted with utter disdain whom she deems the bums and ne'er-do-wells. Journalist Edgar Watson Howe once said, “What people say behind your back is your standing in the community.” I fear he was right.

Yes, Virginia, There Is Life After High School...

It being the thirty-year anniversary of my high school graduation, I am sadly reminded of a reality program on TV Land called High School Reunion. The show brings together a smorgasbord of classic archetypes from prior high school graduating classes. Only now these former teens are pushing forty. And trigonometry is a distant memory. In fact, the High School Reunion stars have lived for two decades in various adult incarnations and, naturally, acquired ample psychological and other baggage along the way.

Granted, it’s part and parcel of human nature: We desire recognition in some demonstrable ways for being wholly unique individuals who possess special qualities and talents. But I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone of sound mind would willingly embrace unflattering attention, perverse publicity, and the opportunity to appear like utter nincompoops for fifteen minutes of fame? But, apparently, it happens all the time.

High School Reunion features casts of characters who once upon a time stood apart in their educational milieus. You know: the school jock, the haughty gal who thought she was better than everyone else, and the bully; the class clown, the nerd, and the teen Lothario. What’s particularly disconcerting about this show—and indeed so many others with similar reality premises—is that these real people are perfectly willing to ride emotional roller coasters and endure periodic meltdowns with the cameras rolling. And all of this melodrama is supposed to be swallowed hook, line, and sinker as real? Surreal, perhaps.

What’s equally unpleasant concerning this entire production is that the aforementioned classic archetypes appear to be stuck in time warps. The doofuses, bullies, and bitches, if you will, from high school have by all accounts not grown up, and are essentially still doofuses, bullies, and bitches intent on settling past scores and wallowing in very old and mostly petty grievances. And worth noting, too, is that these various ensembles consist of men and women whose life high points seemingly occurred when they were sixteen and seventeen in high school. The scary part is what is real.

Why not? Let’s all go on television and act out, swapping genuine emotions, human interactions, and relationships for flickers of fame and all-expenses paid trips to Hawaii or some such idyllic locale. Ah, yes, the class of 1988 does the Bahamas, and the teenage girl magnet, now a man of forty, practically bald, and with a noticeable paunch from one too many Budweisers and Dunkin’ Donuts is still getting the girls. Go figure. And that dreadfully toffee-nosed member of the school’s in-crowd, also forty, still loathes the wannabe popular girl, the loner, and just about everybody else for that matter. Beyond reality TV, there is very fortunately life after high school.

A Killer in the Family

Sorry to disappoint, but this essay isn't about my family. It's about a movie. Ah...the things one can unearth on YouTube. Once upon a time there was this television flick, which starred Robert Mitchum and a twenty-something James Spader playing a teenager. Called A Killer in the Family, it premiered in 1983. I remember watching it by pure chance and had no idea it was based on a true story.

The movie recounted the dramatic tale of convicted murderers Gary Tison and Randy Greenawalt, their escape from prison, and subsequent vicious and violent crime spree. To say that this small-screen production was simultaneously creepy and compelling wouldn't do it justice. I distinctly remember the station announcer chillingly intoning after each commercial break, "We now return to A Killer in the Family!" Shivers! This made-for-TV motion picture was quite intense and shockingly brutal—it really was. And I admit to being somewhat unnerved after watching it, and feared that Robert Mitchum and his weaselly accomplice, played by Stuart Margolin, Jim Rockford's "Angel," would invade my dreams.

I've long since forgotten what it was, but something—many, many years later—resurrected the memory of A Killer in the Family. I desperately wanted to see this movie again. I wondered if it was available on videotape, and whether or not it was ever shown in reruns. But no luck. Since I'd long since steeled myself to its gruesome unpredictability and horrific denouement—no happy ending here— I had to see it, at the very least, one more time. I had to know if it was as I remembered.

Decades passed...nothing...and then one pleasant autumn October day in 2010, I searched YouTube for A Killer in the Family, or as that announcer dramatically bellowed twenty-seven-years-earlier: A KILLER IN THE FAMILY! And eureka! Some generous soul had put the entire movie up, in parts, on the site!

For those of us getting a little long in the tooth, this cyber portal is a real godsend, resurrecting countless media moments from days gone by, which otherwise would have been lost to us forever. And so, I can now watch A Killer in the Family in its entirety, which I haven't seen in almost three decades. Will I be thoroughly discombobulated after seeing it, as I was a long time ago, or bored silly and unimpressed? After all, I'm an almost fifty-something, jaded man now. 1983 was then and this is now. It's time to find out.

Prescription Drug Free Zone

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that close to fifty percent of us take one prescription drug or more per month. That’s a heaping helping of perfectly legal drug use. Of course, many of these drugs are necessary and, in some instances, lifesavers. But exactly what percentage of the prescription drug-user population would be better off not taking them? I don’t really know, but would hazard a guess that it’s a not inconsiderable number.

During an unexpected and unwanted month-long hospital stay some four years ago, I was infused with all sorts of drugs, gradually getting weaned off of them as I recovered from a blood clot gone seriously awry. I left this Shangri-La with only one prescription on my person: for Percocet, an opiate painkiller. In the hospital, these benign-looking white tablets furnished me with my only warm and fuzzy interludes, short-lived as they were. The very same meds worked their magic the first couple of weeks after I returned home, too. The percs were my good buddies during very painful times. However, by the end of my first month in hearth and home—while still in pretty bad pain—the aforementioned warm and fuzzy interludes had gotten noticeably less warm and less fuzzy, and were accompanied by a nasty constipation on top of that. Shortly thereafter, even minimal relief from the pain disappeared altogether, but not that darn constipation, which tightened its grip on me.

There was little point in my continuing with this narcotic painkiller, which was no longer working for me. I didn’t cry out to my doctor for an alternative, either, and thus one was never offered. The epic constipation had, if nothing else, at least taken my mind off the phantom pains shooting through my missing body part with varying degrees of intensity. With the assistance of a cocoa-tasting, rabbit-food resembling product called Senekot, the brave soldier that I am grinned and bared the pain. Fortunately for me, I healed extraordinarily well with no cancer, diabetes, or any such thing to hinder my recovery. The phantoms of the night eventually left me alone, although they do reappear every now and again just to remind me of what was and can be again.

When I hear about people being addicted to the likes of Percocet and OxyContin—and the amounts that they consume, and must increasingly consume, to achieve their desired highs—it boggles my mind. Percocets may have been my foul-weather friends during life's lowest ebb, but they turned on me real fast, and I hope never to meet their acquaintance again. 

Checkout Time

“When it’s your time…it’s your time.” This profound sentiment recently tumbled out of a man of the cloth’s mouth. He was consoling the grieving daughter of an individual who died rather unexpectedly last week. Uncharacteristically, the deceased had called on his GP several times in the weeks preceding his passing. The family was bewildered and angry at what they perceived as this doctor’s laissez-faire attitude and non-diagnosis of something very, very serious.

As this poor fellow’s vital organs slowly but surely ceased functioning, there was perhaps little that could have been done to save his life. Who really knows? Still, should we blithely accept the tired bromide: “When your time is up, it’s up?” If this is indeed the way things work, then everything from medical malpractice to drunk drivers causing the deaths of others is part of some larger ethereal plan. Why blame any of these folks for their actions? If they are lethally incompetent and irresponsible, expressly to make certain others check out on time, and not a moment sooner or later, they certainly shouldn't be punished or reviled.

Having come pretty close to being dead as a door-nail several years ago—fortunately, it wasn’t my time—I don't really fear this final act anymore. What I do fear is being in the shadows of my fellow world travelers shuffling off this mortal coil before me, and having to listen to more and more of the same illogical, simplistic, contradictory, and non-reassuring reasons for life and death. It's enough to put a man in an early grave.

Life's Wacky Packages

Once upon a time, I had a grammar school chum. And from my ten-year-old perspective at least, his parents were different. No, there wasn't a Heather Has Two Mommies issue there, or any such thing, which would have certainly raised eyebrows in the old neighborhood. They were, however, among a distinct minority. That is, their worldviews—what they expected of their children, and what they wanted them to be when they grew up—were, well, somewhat outside the mainstream.

Sometime in the mid-1970s, I remember being on my front stoop with Billy O'Hare (not his real name, by the way) and showing him my considerable collection of Wacky Packages. Now, I thought those stickers were quite cool and clever, and still think so all these years later. But ten-year-old Billy sniffed at the waste of time and money in acquiring such childish ephemera. He mentioned, too, that his parents didn’t approve of Wacky Packages and what they represented. What was that? Humor? Fun? Billy’s folks also didn’t sanction his watching The Three Stooges—too violent—despite program host "Officer" Joe Bolton gently reminding us each and every day that Moe, Larry, and Curly were merely acting, and not really poking one another in the eyes and blow torching one another's behinds. In other words: We should never try any such thing at home or in the schoolyard.

I suspect that Billy was the only kid in the Bronx's Kingsbridge instructed to answer his home telephone: “O’Hare residence. William speaking. May I ask who’s calling?” You would think Ma and Pa O'Hare were grooming their boy to be a valet or butler. But no, they weren't. No Wacky Packages, no Three Stooges, and the right and proper manners were floorboards in Billy's foundation. And while I'm generally a fan of atypical parents looking out for their boys and girls, taking great interest in them, and maintaining the highest hopes for their futures, there was something wacky, if you will, about the O'Hare's no Wacky Packages edict.

Today, I sincerely hope Billy understands that the more run-of-the-mill parents in the old neighborhood were completely innocent in permitting their youngsters to buy and trade Wacky Packages. Granted, there were many indictable parental actions from those bygone years. But allowing Wacky Packages in the home was not among them. And don't you think answering the phone like Mr. French, when you were just a little kid, was kind of silly and even a bit bizarre? "Hello" would have sufficed. Ah...but then you would have been just like the rest of us.

The Road to Validation

A question posed on a LinkedIn writers group thread asked: “Did you feel validated when published by a royalty-paying publisher?” It was a thought-provoking query for sure that unleashed a flurry of responses. Not surprisingly, the consensus answer was “yes.” However, the word “validation," to express the feeling of leaping over an important and very high hurdle in a mercurial business, seemed an interesting choice.

Nearly ten years ago, a business entity was willing to pay me real money to write a book. I didn’t have a say in the title, nor a say in the book's layout or design. It was all about writing—and that was fine and dandy. Once upon a time, this sort of thing meant a whole lot to me. For one brief shining moment after I got the job, I was on cloud nine. I was soaring like a Canada goose when my author copies arrived in the mail several months later. I believe I checked out every Manhattan Barnes & Noble store on foot to first see if The Everything Collectibles Book was available and then counted how many copies were on display. The Union Square location had six—and face out to boot. When the same publisher asked me back for another go-around and a new title, I felt uber-validated. For this meant the powers-that-be not only approved of what I had done, but that I wasn’t destined to be a one-hit wonder, either.

But such pure and innocent feelings of validation—that wondrous first time—faded with the passage of time. In fact, very, very quickly. I know now that validation must be frequently renewed and, also, that the validation bar keeps getting higher and higher.

Courtesy of today’s technology, increasing numbers of people are bypassing traditional publishers, along with the so-called validation that comes with it, and self-publishing their works instead. The self-published book versus the real book debate gets a bit contentious at times. Many published writers—validated, as it were—resent the tsunami-like inundation of materials that flood the marketplace and often blur the distinction between the legitimate and illegitimate. It seems that every time I visit my sister out on suburban Long Island, she shows me a novel penned by one of her professional friends or friends’ husbands—self-published, of course—with this distinction unmentioned.

But that aside, there are plenty of excellent self-published books in print and in the offing. And if a self-published author sells a couple of thousand or more books, a royalty-paying publisher is going to take note—you can go to the bank on that. Selling books via any avenue, traditional or nontraditional, is validation. I’d gladly swap my validation résumé for a self-published book selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

There's an unquenchable thirst for this elusive validation. From most writers’ perspectives, passing through a gauntlet of men and women much more inclined to say no than yes, and making it to the other side, is a crowning achievement. But once you’ve been there and done that, it feels more like a pat on the head than a blessing from on high. And so I continue searching for the next chapter and verse in my validation story.

Let's Go to the Videotape

Nearly two decades ago, while toiling in the vineyards of a place called Pet Nosh, an independent chain of pet food and supply stores in the Greater New York City area, a funny thing happened. A 101 Dalmatians VHS tape set in motion a series of unfortunate events that threatened to sully a reputation.

In the business world, it often takes years to nurture a reputation, and only seconds to cast away some of that hard-earned luster. For sure, this video episode put a small dent in Pet Nosh's reputational armor—and it didn't have to be. It was here where “the best laid plans of mice and men” intersected “the road to hell,” which, of course, was “paved with good intentions.”

It was a huge Pet Nosh promo for its time: a multi-page, full-color supplement included in numerous Sunday newspapers around town. The flier teemed with great buys on a cross-section of goods—something for everyone. And as the icing on the cake—while supplies lasted—a free 101 Dalmatians videotape would be awarded customers who spent over $25, or some such figure that I've since forgotten.

The horsefly in the ointment was that only a finite number of tapes were on hand. And happily, most customers didn’t ask for one, even when they exceeded the not especially high threshold to qualify for a tape. Still, these freebies didn't last very long at all. In fact, within only a few days of what was a two-week sale, the Pet Nosh stores had run completely dry of the giveaways. And even though the advertisement plainly stated, “While supplies last,” it didn’t look good. It was bad P.R.

I regret to say that more than a few of our patrons foamed at the mouth and went off the deep end because of this. This free videotape obviously meant the world to them, and they would risk heart attacks and strokes to get their hands on a copy. I was privy to one rather dramatic meltdown replete with a fusillade of F-bombs and not-so-veiled threats of violence—this R-rated theater courtesy of a customer whom I remembered as a quiet, unassuming sort. That is, a man who stood silently by, and said hardly a thing, while his wife did all of the shopping and transacting week after week after week.

This hot head ultimately took his case to a higher authority: the Better Business Bureau. The bureau forwarded us his missive, which nastily accused Pet Nosh of all kinds of chicanery and gross unprofessionalism. With the bossman’s consent, I drafted our reasoned response to this bully boy, whose mouth really needed to be washed out with Irish Spring. The Better Business Bureau promptly sent us his response to our response as this pointless back and forth continued. A reasoned argument made before a hyperventilating oaf is an exercise in futility—and very bad business policy. It was a big mistake venturing down this road.

And, too, the Better Business Bureau is not interested in adjudicating cases. This outfit’s mission asks of its member businesses complete capitulation to complaining customers, even if they feel they are in the right. Such gracious acts remove grievances from the public record. Despite this accuser of ours being a foul-mouthed little turd, if you will, it was foolish to get into a pissing match with the guy, even if we felt innocent of the charges.

Granted, it was naïve on our parts to expect “While supplies last” to be a potent enough disclaimer to ward off the wrath of the sometimes unforgiving, often suspicious public at large. In the final analysis, the aforementioned militant, and several of his equally aggrieved comrades, received their free copies of 101 Dalmatians. Multiple business and life lessons were, however, learned in the wake of this unseemly debacle. I've often wondered what the brute felt when he slipped his VHS tape into the VCR, and then hit the play button for the benefit of his children.

Happiness...Whatever You Want It to Be...

I find myself in wholehearted accord with Ebenezer Scrooge’s ex-fiancé, Isabel, who sang, “Happiness is whatever you want it to be.” You blew it, Eb...you really blew it. In fact, I thought I might just have achieved a moment of supreme bliss this very day—true happiness from my unique and arguably perverse perspective—when I stumbled upon a compilation of commercials from the late 1970s that aired on New York City local station WCBS-TV. The description of this video included an advertisement from a furniture chain called Frankart Furniture, which was scattered about the area in the 1970s. And I have been searching—wishing and hoping, and hoping and wishing—that the YouTube genie would one day grant me this rare find.

Alas, it was not to be. The commercial from yesteryear that would have supplied me with true ecstasy—where the head cheese Frankie Frankel goes toe-to-toe with salesmen who are “not up to Frankart standards”—was not in the mix. Life is fraught with such ups and down, I’ve discovered, but hope springs eternal. Tomorrow is another day

But it really is so: Happiness is whatever you want it to be. While this commercial mélange from the 1970s wasn’t exactly what I hoped for, it nonetheless titillated this nostalgia hound. A promo for crime reporter Chris Borgen! Wow! This spot alone brought me back to the grittier, crime-riddled days of my teens.

Ah, yes, riding the Number 1 train with my sister to see a movie in Manhattan called Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Beatty, and a woman is robbed at gunpoint along the way. She freaks out and runs off into a station wailing for help. I hope she got it. Everybody else in the subway car just sits there with poker faces, not one expression of shock or concern. But please, cut me a little slack here. I wasn't yet sixteen, and wasn't about to chase after a man brandishing a handgun. We all just wanted to get moving again, I suppose, and we did in due time. I don't remember any police officer questioning people on the train about witnessing the robbery, or asking us for a description of the perpetrator. By the way, I saw Heaven Can Wait as planned and thought it wasn't half-bad. 

Exiting on a High Note

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, of course. But I got there another way. For my one and only appearance in this hallowed hall, I was the guest of a stand-up comedian and rather good impressionist who had won two tickets by convincing a local radio talk show host that he was indeed the real Regis Philbin.

After this man of myriad voices was turned down by a couple of ladies—attempts at real dates—he tried to entice his limited fraternity of male friends. Again, no luck. Time to tap into the acquaintances. In the early 1990s, I fit this bill—but don’t anymore—and accepted this chance of a lifetime to get to Carnegie Hall and to experience live and in-person a songster with whom I knew next to nothing about: Gene Pitney.

Actually, Pitney was mega-popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and something of a teen idol for a spell with bona fide hits to his credit: "Town Without Pity," "Only Love Can Break a Heart," and "Twenty-four Hours from Tulsa." He even recorded a memorable song for a memorable movie, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," although it wasn’t used in the film.

Anyway, Pitney gave a bravura performance that night in the hall and I became a fan. The man’s adenoidal tenor and vibrato proved quite compelling—a wholly unique singing voice if ever there was one. I know of no Gene Pitney sound-alikes—past or present.

In April 2006, Gene Pitney died suddenly at the age of sixty-six, only hours after a concert performance in Wales. He wowed those in attendance that evening and received a protracted, well-earned standing ovation. His manager found him in his hotel room several hours later. He was fully clothed and lying on his bed, with no evidence of any sort of death struggle or frenzied last gasp. A subsequent autopsy revealed that atherosclerosis caused his death.

When I read the account of his untimely passing, I couldn't help but feel that Pitney had somehow ideally departed this earthy plane. While still on the top of his game, the man delivered his special brand of art to appreciative fans and then, on this adrenalin-filled high note, peacefully exited life's stage. We should all be that lucky.

Special Memories

Since thirty full years have passed since my graduation from high school, I thought I'd elaborate on some of those very special memories, which I touched on in the previous essay. That is, memories of the not especially special special buses that chauffeured me to and from the place for four seemingly interminable years.

The special bus experience was unpleasant all around—an illuminating microcosm of the broader high school experience. As a bus pulled in close to the curbside, a select group of students—mostly brutes but some non-brutes, too—would literally attach themselves to its front and side doors. These brazen young fools sought to be the first ones in the bus when it came to a full stop and the doors opened. And right behind these fearless leaders of the wolf pack, a second tier of equally aggressive teens would jostle their way onto the bus, hurling articles—book bags, books, newspapers, hats, gloves, and pens—on top of as many seats as humanly possible. This daily onslaught was all about acquiring seats—not only for themselves but for their friends and acquaintances as well.

It was the accepted law of the special bus jungle that if somebody had an item of any kind on a seat, it was ipso facto saved. These bus rides were survival of the fittest tests—galootism run amok—where the weak among us more often than not stood for the duration of the trip from Broadway in Kingsbridge to Cardinal Spellman High School on the other side of the Bronx.

The buses, too, were packed like the proverbial sardines in a can; so, a seat was a cherished prize. It eased somewhat—for the twenty-minute or so ride—the all-encompassing misery of the school day ahead, particularly when the vastly overcrowded bus bended sideways and then back again as it careened around a dead man’s curve leading to the intersection of East Gunhill Road and Jerome Avenue and then repeated this extreme feat at another sharp turn onto Boston Road.

I am prone to wax nostalgic about many things from the good old days. But when I find myself fondly recalling the high school years, I resurrect these most special of memories and am promptly disabused of any and all warm and fuzzy feelings.

Up in Smoke

For all his good works in our company from September’s opening school bell to the Christmas recess, Sister Lyse took up a collection to purchase Father B a well-earned holiday present. Each one of us in her fifth-grade class was asked to pony up a quarter, or a little more if possible. I remember Sister Lyse announcing to the class what she had finally settled upon as the gift: Father's B preferred smokes. That's right: Sister Lyse's fifth graders bought the man sporting a Roman collar a carton of Marlboro's for Christmas, which I’m sure he appreciated on his fixed income. It was certainly more practical than a tie.

Fast-forward several years and it’s America’s bicentennial year, and I’m now a freshman in high school. The seniors in the school have a dedicated room of their own christened the “smoking lounge." It is a place for the school's fledgling adults to convene, should they wish to puff away on poisonous pleasures during their free periods. I distinctly recall passing by it on my way to a class. The room teemed with seventeen- and eighteen-year-old boys and girls; shadowy silhouettes of high school students who were difficult to distinguish through thick curtains of stagnant second-hand smoke.

The smoking lounge went up in smoke, if you will, a year later. It was no longer kosher in Catholic schools—or any other schools for that matter—to encourage, or even give the slightest imprimatur, to this dirty habit so blatantly bad for one’s health. But smoking on the "special buses," which ferried us to school and back, remained acceptable throughout my high school years. And although they would probably deny it, the powers-that-be turned a blind eye.

Interestingly, the special buses were actually New York City buses that were leased by the school. In other words, they weren't very special at all. And it was against the law to smoke on all New York City transit, even during the more libertine 1970s. Yet, we teens rode to school and back in a miasma of nicotine on overly crammed buses every single day. We reeked of the stuff at the start of each school day and end of each school day. Now that couldn't have been very healthy. 

Garden of Paradise

From the late 1950s through October of 1971, a rather expansive and diverse garden bloomed on the northwest corner of West 231st Street and Tibbett Avenue in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. My grandfather—and eventually my father—planted it in concert with several locals. There were fruit trees (fig, peach, and apple), vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants), and plenty of herbs (parsley, basil, and oregano). Marigolds, begonias, and sunflowers, to name just a few, added complementary colors to this vast field of green in a borough of mostly brick and asphalt. And courtesy of a makeshift well that tapped into Tibbetts Brook, which flowed undaunted beneath several feet of city landfill, the place never went dry. Employing a fifty-gallon drum with its bottom cut out, my grandfather knew exactly how to dig such a thing and make it work. These old timers from the old country knew how to do all sorts of things.

This sprawling "victory garden" actually sprang to life on somebody else’s property—land that was up for sale. A local realtor gave my grandfather and company the green light to plant on it with one proviso: Keep the place neat and clean. This sort of informal handshake wouldn't and couldn’t possibly cut it today. In essence, the garden’s days were numbered from the outset. Its demise could have come at any moment, without warning, and it subsequently did. Still, one and all in the neighborhood somehow assumed it would endure forever. It was so much a part our lives—an area fixture. Big parties were regularly thrown in the garden during summertime holidays and on weekends, while games of horseshoes were played in a makeshift horseshoe pit. The conscientious caretakers of this piece of earth not only converted a vacant parcel of urban terra firma into an oasis of green for more than a decade, but they also drank a brewery’s worth of beer within its confines.

When, in the name of progress, the garden was plowed under in 1971, it was a body blow to an awful lot of people, including the nine-year-old me. Written by neighbors, a short obituary even appeared in the local paper, the Riverdale Press. It was headlined: “Bulldozers Plow Under Garden of Paradise…Last Kingsbridge Farm.”

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate the abiding garden ambiance even more. The mere fact that it survived for as long as it did, relatively undisturbed during the tumultuous 1960s, is remarkable in and of itself. Only a patchwork fence surrounded the place. And, too, empty lot after empty lot in the area were being developed.

I have mostly piecemeal memories of the garden and some pictures. But the photographers back then weren’t especially interested in posterity. They weren’t, for example, zeroing in on the well, the garden’s underground water source, nor were they snapping shots of the various shacks that were haphazardly constructed to accommodate tools, seeds, and such. In retrospect, these were all rather incredible things in a Bronx neighborhood.

On occasion, certain odors resurrect memories of the old garden. Smell memory. A combination of high summertime humidity, tomato plants, and the scent of marigolds do the trick every time. Talk about atmosphere! What I wouldn’t give to chow down on a couple of hot dogs and sample a few cold ones at a weekend barbecue amidst this leafy, aromatic sea of Bronx green, a sanctuary that is no more and will never be seen again. The bulldozers did indeed plow under a garden of paradise.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

I Love the 1980s...or Do I?

There’s something very special  to me about the 1980s. I was a spry, callow fellow back then—an innocent college grad with, as they say, my whole life ahead of me. Surely, this was the time to boldly go somewhere…anywhere.

Fast-forward a quarter of a century. Once upon a time, I was listening to 1980s pop music on New York City's local radio stations and then, presto, it’s now. How on earth did that happen? The 1980s were a time when the Twin Towers tranquilly loomed in lower Manhattan; a time before snowballing technology and job outsourcing; a time before laptops, cell phones, and iPods wholly occupied the masses. Culturally speaking at least, there is no denying the 1980s were a less complicated time. Personally, this decade found me on life’s launching pad—ten, nine, eight, seven—but I didn't quite blast off.

I suspect feelings of missed opportunities, of entirely too many wasted days and nights, is why I often hark back to this decade, the one where The Equalizer strutted his stuff every week. It is why certain 1980s pop songs strike such resounding, on-key chords with me. I am taken to, in one real sense, vastly simpler times. You know, when so, so, so many things seemed possible—I wouldn’t dare say all things. When, at least, there was no sense of urgency and those awful sensations of time imminently running out. Ah…to be young again…in the 1980s.

But now, courtesy of YouTube, and the ever-advancing technologies that weren't around in those bygone days, I return to the 1980s when I am so inclined. I regularly resurrect the sights and sounds of that optimistic decade. It was a great time to be alive. But I suppose a fair case could be made that it wasn’t especially great for me. I really love the 1980s…or do I?

Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Not very long ago I attended the funeral service of a man who surpassed the century mark—quite an achievement. He was an extraordinarily talented and accomplished man in life—an artist, musician, and engineer. At his Mass of Christian burial, the local priest made passing mention of his impressive life resume, but it was pretty much a rerun of past services I have attended for decidedly different people.

Because he rarely attended church during the living years, the officiating priest didn’t personally know the guest of honor. He therefore received talking points from the decedent’s family, plugged them into a one-size-fits-all eulogy, and presto! Being in my late forties now, I don’t appreciate being treated like a fifth grader. From my adult perspective, these bon voyages are often inanely unsophisticated, with priests envisioning such silly scenarios as the deceased meeting his dead wife in heaven. In the case of this 100-year-old man, she naturally greeted him with the burning question, “What took you so long?” 

I think we merit better send-offs than this. Religious dogma, with its simplistic certainty, withers in the head winds of an unfathomable universe. Ironically, this unfathomable quality alone is enough to make a case for intelligent design of some sort. It's at least a spiritual foundation to build upon. So why not expound on this enduring mystery, which is really and truly beyond human comprehension? You know: why we live, why we die, and the reason for it all? Being told that when I shuffle off this mortal coil I’ll be hooking up with my dead relations doesn’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Imagine renting a banquet hall for a family tree that could wend its way back to the Cro-Magnons.

Men and women of the cloth, come clean: There’s a whole lot you don’t know. And I think you know that, because I believe that you are smarter than fifth graders (most of you anyway). Furnish the former living with farewells they deserve—with words befitting their unique, mystifying, and incredibly brief journeys here on the third rock from the sun.

Walking Papers

A friend of mine recently lent me a book. It was authored by his doctor’s son, Francesco Clark, and called Walking Papers—a memoir of a young man paralyzed from the neck down in a freak swimming pool accident seven years ago. He was only twenty-four-years-old when it happened. Flash forward to the present and Clark's defied the odds. Although, admittedly, he’s got a long, long way to go, he's made monumental progress far beyond the original doomsayer medical prognosis that he would never breathe without a respirator or ever move from his bed.

To make a very long story short, Clark’s dogged determination to skirt the health bureaucracy’s rock-bottom expectations and money-matters-most-of-all approach to medicine made all the difference in the world. With the help of his amazingly supportive family, he is in a far different place than his initial life sentence decreed. Clark had what would be considered real “good insurance,” too. Yet, there were various points in his convalescence when his physical therapy was no longer covered. And, as you can imagine, his grave circumstances necessitated intensive therapy for as far as the eye can see. Clark was told point-blank that he was deluding himself with any wild dreams of progress beyond wiggling the tips of his fingers. In other words, it was time for him to “get on with his life” and accept his sorry fate as final and irreversible.

While Francesco Clark is still paralyzed these many years later, he nonetheless is markedly less so than seven years ago. He has every intention, too, of walking again, and is living proof that the spinal chord can regenerate. With the help of his family’s wherewithal—which sadly is not available to majority of the population—he’s undergone an experimental stem cell operation. His unfailing efforts and utter unwillingness to accept the prevailing doom and gloom scenario of the medical consensus now finds him working a computer on his own. He's also started a skin-care business called Clark’s Botanicals. Not inconsiderable achievements!

My friend actually lent me Walking Papers because he thought I could identify with the book’s author. Sure, I had my medical moment, lost a part of my leg, but I’m hardly paralyzed. I have, by and large, fully returned to doing what I was doing before, albeit with the help of my trusty friend, the C-Leg. And, yes, I’ll concede that my life is a wee bit different from what it was. But, really, it’s not all that bad. And, I know, some people find that hard to believe. I’m not complaining and seek no sympathy. I certainly can identify with Clark in one respect—the very low expectations of the medical establishment. Upon my discharge from the hospital four years ago, the occupational therapist who visited my apartment was fixated on the fact that I had to climb a couple of stairs to get into it. I needed to move to a place with ramps accessible for a wheelchair—and fast!

Well, I am happy to report that a few months after this professional's grim harping about my future, I bid adieu to my wheelchair, which I hardly used anyway. In fact, when I first received my prosthetic (not the computerized C-Leg, by the way), I was informed that I would very soon be fitted with a pair of wrist canes. That is, after I felt comfortable enough to dispense with my training wheels—my walker.

No way was I going to be seen in public with those hideous devices. Heaven forbid! Almost immediately, I walked with my prosthetic and a simple cane. And I lived happily ever after. My prosthetist told me that walking on one is “all about confidence.” Permitting even a whiff of fear to wend its way into my subconscious could send me to the ground in a heartbeat. And so it is with life in general, I suspect.

Why Not In the Living Years?

The human species is a peculiar breed. From all that I have observed in my little corner of the world, and in my own life and times, earthlings typically assign extraordinary value to attending wakes and funerals, but not especially high value in visiting, and spending quality time with the dearly departed during the all-important living years.

So many of us drop what we are doing, and sometimes travel great distances, to pay our respects to the grieving families of old friends and relatives, many of whom we haven’t seen in a dog’s age, or even longer than that. And quite often it’s a real friend from the past reposing in that pine box, or a close relation from days gone by. We can't, therefore, miss these celebrations of lives lived—these fond farewells—for anything in the world.

But, may I humbly pose this question: Where the heck have you been in the last ten, twenty, and thirty years? Come hell or high water, you can make it to a wake or funeral service, but you just couldn't find the time, or generate sufficient desire, to call upon the genuine article over the last quarter of a century.

Okay, by all means, check out those easels scattered about the hallowed rooms of the funeral parlors—complex lifetimes reduced to cheery photo storyboards thrown together in a couple of days at best. Then kneel before the formaldehyde-filled Madame Tussauds wax figures of those you remembered as flesh and blood. That’s all well and good.

Really, though, you could have visited these stiffs a time or two in the not-too-distant past. Yes, I know you must attend these wakes or funeral services, lest you get on somebody’s shit list. We are a wacky bunch with wacky priorities. But if there is a moral to this story, it’s this: If you know someone whom you would absolutely attend his or her funeral, maybe now’s the time to organize a get-together, or at least place a phone call. Stay in touch when it actually counts for something. The Last Picture Show can wait.

East Side Story

While traversing the lower east side of Manhattan on this sunny but very windy first day of the Labor Day weekend, I was foremost struck by its general seediness—stretches of grunge and malodor commingling in an unsightly mishmash. It’s no doubt a few notches more habitable than it was in its storied past. For this area that I now trod hosted European immigrants en masse in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Millions of people lived in vastly overcrowded, filthy, and ramshackle tenement houses—hardscrabble first experiences for countless people in the land of opportunity.

Fortunately, I was in New York City, where discoveries and unexpected gems lurk around so many corners in so many neighborhoods. One encounter in particular added a little color to the mostly gray surroundings that I walked—a candy store called Economy Candy on Rivingston Street. While I didn’t purchase anything, I nonetheless traveled through time to the halcyon days of my youth—of bubble gum cigars and Sugar Daddies. In fact, many candy brands were here that I’d long since forgotten about, or thought had been consigned to the dustbin of history, including Bit-O-Honey, Turkish Taffy, C Howard’s Scented Gum, Candy Buttons, Charleston Chews, Charms, Chuckles, Double Bubble Gum, Gold Mine bubble gum sacks, Mallo Cups, Marshmallow Cones, Mary Janes, Milk Duds, Necco wafers, Nik-L-Nips, Pixie Stix, Pop Rocks, and Razzles.

If I were to place any of the aforementioned confectioneries in my mouth today, God knows what would would happen. I suspect these enchanting ghosts from my past would do a real number on me. All the chewing and sucking in my adult mouth would yank the fillings out of my teeth, break a few of them along the way, and give me a major sour stomach, too. I just can't abide heavy concentrations of processed sugar anymore.

One footnote concerning the Economy Candy stroll down memory lane: Bubble gum cigarettes and chocolate cigarettes are available there. Remember them. We put these faux weeds in our innocent mouths, blew, and white puffs of powdered sugar spewed out, simulating the genuine article: cigarette smoke. I thought political correctness had done away with these candies for all time. Hope Mayor Mike Bloomberg doesn't find out about this.

A God Awful Question

The precise causes of the dinosaur population’s extinction have long been a subject of scientific conjecture. A consensus opinion has held that a humongous asteroid crashed into Earth’s terra firma multiple millions of years ago and did quite a number on these gruesome creatures and their sources of sustenance. However, a recent study intimates that it may very well have been more than one big bang that cast asunder these celebrated masters of the prehistoric planet.

I will admit to never having been a fan of dinosaurs. Maybe that’s because I knew they weren’t warm and fuzzy like Dino, Fred and Wilma Flintstone’s faithful household pet. Even as a boy attending Catholic grammar school and weekly Sunday Mass, the dinosaur years didn’t quite jibe with my religious tutelage. I recall wanting to ask God, or at least a church elder, a very pertinent and, yes, perplexing question: Why dinosaurs? It seemed to me a rather circuitous and convoluted creation route. In fact, with the exception of some flighty sorts, apparently we have absolutely nothing in common with Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus.

Dinosaurs literally roamed the earth for millions upon millions of years, evolving along the way. Did God Almighty conclude: "These creations of mine really suck. It's time for me to go back to the drawing board and get it right. So, I'll riddle Earth with meteorites and start anew." I don't know. Maybe Frank Sheed was on to something in explaining dinosaur's protracted existence. He wrote, “God knew that the discovery of such fantastical creatures would fascinate and delight us, and perhaps this was reason for their creation.” True, without dinosaurs, there would be no Barney. It's all one big mystery.

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind

According to a recent e-mail I received, the planet Mars—the fourth rock from the sun—was supposed to be so close to Earth yesterday evening that it would appear as big as the moon in the night sky. This would have been quite something to behold, a fellow planet as colossal to our naked eyes as Earth's faithful hanger-on, the moon. The missive further elaborated that Mars's orbit would not bring it this close to our prying eyes—here on the third rock from the sun—until 2287. In other words: We could ill afford to miss this dramatic and uber-rare celestial moment.

While getting such an intimate peep at a fellow terrestrial planet would be a stargazer's orgasm unlike any other, a moon-sized Mars in the night sky would really portend only one thing: We are doomed! And don't bother heading for the wine cellar or bomb shelter. The sun must be in the process of imploding billions of years earlier than scientists had anticipated, and our solar system no longer so systematic. Forget about hiding under the bed, completing that bucket list, and employing the seven steps of forgiveness for those who trespassed against you. In fact: If the red planet, as Mars is known because of its distinguishing iron-rich hue, is this close to planet Earth—cast your fate to the solar wind and be done with it.

Happily, this Mars does the moon scenario was just another compelling Internet hoax that wormed its way through the virtual ether. And, as with all good hoaxes, many gullible sorts bought hook, line, and sinker this celestial fib of epic proportions. Of course, it would be nice to see the Man in the Moon share center stage with Mars among the cosmic players of the night, but not if it means our species is toast.

Grade A Pizza

For the first time in my life, I sampled a slice of pizza from a Grade A pizza parlor. Oh, I’ve had thousands of slices through the decades from this very shop, but today’s takeout came with the big city’s imprimatur. I had been reading of late that New York City’s Department of Health would be adding letter grades—A, B, or C—to their restaurant inspections. And by law, proprietors would have to prominently post their ratings. I can attest that restaurant report cards are now a reality in these parts.

But there’s something about this bureaucratic codicil that doesn’t quite pass the smell test. Essentially, it’s handing an additional cudgel to restaurant inspectors—men and women who make the rounds and assign points for health infractions that run the gamut from the trivial to the serious. However, the difference between an A grade and a B grade could be inconsequential where food safety and cleanliness are concerned, but very consequential in business gained or business lost. Ditto the difference between a B grade and a C grade. Restaurant inspectors have tremendous leeway and make some rather arbitrary decisions along the way. In other words: the city that never sleeps, led by its billionaire au pair, has just made the life of small businesspersons in the culinary trade more problematic.

The little guys are the ones who suffer most from the increasingly hefty fines levied with ever greater regularity against them. And the little guys will be the ones who suffer most from B and C grades. Even if we the hungry consumer are blissfully unaware how the Bs and Cs came to be, the psychological effect alone will drive business away, especially when there are A competitors nearby.

In theory, the letter grading is not such a bad idea. It places legitimate pressure on lax restaurateurs to remain lean, mean, and clean. But where pencil-pushing bureaucrats are concerned—whose mission is not only the health and wellness of the citizenry, but to collect fines to fill the city’s insatiable coffers—I remain justifiably skeptical. And I'd eat at my favorite pizza place regardless of its report card.

A New York Minute

Yesterday afternoon by chance, I found myself in a small piece of real estate that the city mothers and fathers have graciously designated a peaceful stopover for the public at large. Located on the corner of East 46th Street and Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United Nations, the place featured a little water fountain at its center, lots of colorful impatiens, healthy green shrubbery all around, as well as scattered benches for passersby to rest their weary bones and, in my case, and increasingly weighty prosthetic, which after several miles of walking felt like a ball and chain.

Earlier in the day, I had met an old friend and we had zigzagged around for a few hours, beginning our odyssey in lower Manhattan and ending up contentedly exhausted in this benign urban setting. There were no sorry souls sleeping it off here, a rare and welcome bonus in big city parkland. And soon after plopping ourselves down at the water fountain’s edge, we observed a very well-dressed elderly man shuffling his way into this sleepy alcove. As soon as he sat down, my friend said: “That guy looks familiar. He’s an old character actor. I’m sure of it.”

“He looks a little bit like William Windom,” I replied, but knew he wasn’t our man. We inconspicuously attempted to get a better gander at the gussied up geezer, but he nonetheless sensed our four eyes checking him out. Visibly showing his disapproval, he glared our way.

At that exact moment, a much younger fellow entered the stage. He was there expressly to meet and greet this possible old character actor—it was no chance meeting. But when he bowed down and kissed the man’s hand, the old character actor theory went up in a puff of smoke, unless, of course, this former thespian found another and decidedly different line of work. The attentive toady gently grabbed hold of the mystery man's arm and out the pair went, but not before one final and very piercing glower came our way.

I want those two taught a lesson. Is this what this aged Mafia don was whispering to his underling as he gingerly shuffled away across Second Avenue to God knows where? Or maybe it’s just that my friend and I have watched too much television and movies through the years. From Bill Windom to Don Corleone in a New York minute.

Down These Mean Streets

Stepping out into the mean streets of New York can be dangerous business. And I’m not speaking of getting mugged or becoming another crime statistic, which, while possible, is a long shot in a pretty safe town lorded over by the admirable men and women in blue. No, the danger I speak of lurks in the seemingly benign shadows, where unpleasant and unpredictable urban scenes await unsuspecting eyes.

Today, it was my unsuspecting eyes. While simultaneously running a few errands and accumulating invaluable walking time, I set my sights on Ewen Park, a rather steep grassy knoll that separates tony Riverdale from Kingsbridge, its less pedigreed neighbor. Approaching the traffic light directly across from the park, I came upon an elderly woman loudly berating a younger woman on a bicycle, who was planning to cross the same thoroughfare as me. “You don’t belong here!” she screamed, meaning on the sidewalk, I gathered, because the bicyclist responded, “I’m very careful.”

But this oldster was far from done in speaking her piece. Getting increasingly more apoplectic as the seconds passed, she eventually screeched, “I hope you get hit by a bus!” This rather vicious sentiment prompted the bicyclist to remove the baseball cap she was wearing, revealing a bald head and the telltale signs of cancer treatments. “I have cancer,” she offered, essentially imploring this ranting and raving old woman to put a lid on it and be on her unmerry way. But this plea for sympathy and a little understanding fell on deaf ears—both literally and figuratively, I think.

This ugly encounter turned downright surreal with the next toxic volley: "You can go to hell with your stupid bald head." As the bicyclist began crossing the street when the light turned green, the fusillade of vitriol continued, even as growing distance separated the two. “I hope you get raped in the park,” the old coot bellowed in her last shout, prompting the bicyclist to give her a flailing smorgasbord of well-earned one-finger salutes.

Having bore witness to this sideshow, the air was completely sucked out of my morning constitutional. I tried to imagine how this woman afflicted with cancer must have felt like in the wake of this bizarre encounter with a senior citizen, with a woman who wished her brutalized, and even dead, for the egregious transgression of riding her bicycle on the sidewalk.

I think the most unpleasant component of this city street snapshot was the individual’s state of mind. She just didn’t quite appear to be mentally unhinged, which could have at least explained her rabid performance. She seemed to be, first and foremost, a very mean person turned several notches meaner by the sands of time. But I don't really know. As for who really should get hit by a bus…well, nobody, of course.

Doorway Manner

During the second week of August in 2006, a doctor gave me some pretty bad news. In fact, a case could rather easily be made that it was the worse news I'd ever received before or since. It was at this critical moment in my life that I experienced one doctor's unique brand of bedside manner.

Actually, I think doorway manner would be a more apt description. This particular sawbones informed me that the gutted and gored portion of my right leg would have to go. It was not healing and could not be saved as the medical consensus had initially hoped. Standing at the doorway to my room and surrounded by his team of medical interns, he rather nonchalantly told me that I was slated to go under the knife the following morning. “Okay,” I recall saying, neither shocked at what I had just learned nor frightened at what tomorrow would bring. And it wasn't because I was particularly courageous or anything like that. It had just been such an incredibly grueling and painful week filled with probing, poking, and getting shuffled around that I suspect I needed some kind of closure—a next leg on a journey, as it were.

This week in hell included a close call with the Grim Reaper due to massive blood loss, followed by two debriding operations to try to salvage the gruesome carcass that was now the lower part of my right leg. And, too, the pain was both unrelenting and intense, and intenser still every time the leg's dressing was changed, which it was several times a day. From where I sat propped up in my hospital bed, it was inevitable that a fourth time under the knife would occur, even though I was told similar wreckages had been salvaged and lived to walk again.

So, I received the news of act four from a distance with no one-on-one commiseration with a medical mind. There were also a couple of visitors in my room at the time, too—my sister and brother-in-law. It could have been the milkman and his wife who just popped in for a visit. Old Doc was completely oblivious to whose ears would simultaneously hear, along with yours truly, the news of my imminent amputation. Strange behavior exhibited in both the doorway and hospital bed several yards away, I'd say. But then I can attest from experience that hospitals are strange places to call home. A lot of strange goings-on come to pass there—things you couldn't possibly imagine during healthy times.

Where Is Everybody?

The pilot episode of Rod Serling's classic Twilight Zone series is titled “Where Is Everybody?” It stars actor Earl Holliman as an astronaut who, unbeknownst to him, is undergoing a mind game—a stress test of sorts to measure a human being's psychological tipping point. In his induced hallucination, Holliman emerges in what appears to be a quaint small town—a busy little hamlet going about its business. The only thing missing are its inhabitants. He walks into a diner and spies a percolating coffee pot and sizzling bacon on the grill; a church bell is ringing in the distance. He calls out “hello...hello...hello,” but nobody answers him—nobody's around. After an extended and futile search for a living soul or two, he finally flips his raspberry and cries out in a state of panic, "Where is everybody?"

It's kind of the way I feel on hot summer days and nights. "Where is everybody?” I ask myself time and again. For in my Bronx youth, summertime equaled activity and lots of it. The dog days meant stoop sitting, game playing, and constant commingling with friends and neighbors.

We played games morning, noon, and night. We always managed to find something to do as kids, and it was often based on who was out and about at any given moment. Greater numbers of us inspired more epic games like Round-up, Ringolevio, and Johnny Ride-a-Pony. The incredible, multipurpose spaldeen, as it was affectionately known, busily bounced in the heat of summer and supplied us endless hours of entertainment with games like Punchball, Boxball, Ace-King-Queen, and Spud. Without a ball, or any prop at all, we played Mother, May I?, Red Light-Green Light and In-the-Refrigerator. Even after dark, the game playing continued with what we, very cleverly, dubbed Flashlight—an offshoot of tag based on a beam of light, not touch of the hand. Flashlight commenced a little after sunset with the ritual "the odd number is It." The unlucky "It" was handed the flashlight, while the rest of us dispersed, plotted our strategies, and found hiding spots in the neighborhood's backyards, alleyways, and alcoves.

The summer scene was alive and well thirty and forty years ago, with both young and old sitting out on their front stoops. Neighbors kibitzed and gossiped every single evening. Even in the awful nighttime humidity teeming with lightning bugs, the locals were undeterred. They were a tougher breed indeed, preferring the great outdoors to basking in the cool of air-conditioning.

There are plenty of adults and kids in the old neighborhood now. There aren't very many vacant apartments around. So, where is everybody? Apparently, social networking instead of socializing is today's rule—in all seasons. Neighborliness has by and large vanished along with the iconic spaldeen, although Spalding, I see, is still manufacturing them. Today's spaldeen is the iPhone, I suppose, and stoops just aren't meant for sitting on anymore.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Collectibles Must Pay Their Dues

Resurrecting the happy childhood memories of owning and playing with a set of Klackers called to mind a more recent but decidedly different sort of fad: Beanie Babies. While researching and writing the Everything Collectibles Book in early 2001, Beanie Babies were a well-known and frequently discussed contemporary collectible. By that time, however, the fevered pitch of the Beanie Babies' phenomenon had noticeably waned, but I nonetheless thought it prudent to at least mention Beanie Babies in the book. They just couldn't be ignored in the pantheon of collectibles because they were just so popular—for one brief shining moment at least. What the heck happened?

Here were these cuddly cute, pellet-filled, petite stuffed animals that were must-haves for thousands upon thousands of Americans, and not just little girls and boys. In fact, Beanie Babies were foremost marketed as collectibles. They weren't pitched as children's playthings like the pair of acrylic balls on a string known as Klackers (and so many other things). No, Beanie Babies were a well-orchestrated fad for a while with an investment endgame. They were a sign of the times, just like Pokemon and limited edition baseball cards. I constantly see gold investment commercials today claiming how gold is a precious asset that only appreciates and never depreciates in value. This apparent appreciation-lock is what purchasers of collectibles born and sold as collectibles, including Beanie Babies, expected from their investments. (One footnote for gold investors here: Pray that the Twilight Zone's "Rip Van Winkle Caper" denouement never comes to pass.)

In most instances the capitalists who tried to circumvent the immutable laws of the collectibles market lived to see their grand schemes go up in smoke. Of course, many of these entrepreneurs made their killings on short-lived but nonetheless fertile fields of green. The creator of the Cabbage Patch doll, for instance, made multiple millions in one maniacal year (1984).

Beanie Babies and countless other items christened collectibles upon their birth—and given birthdays, retirement dates, and the like—rarely live up to their billing. Collectibles need to pay their dues and age like fine bottles of wine, or something like that. I'd rather see kids clacking away with their Klackers than adults hijacking UPS trucks to secure the latest limited edition Beanie Baby—a stuffed kid's toy that they had no intention of ever giving to their kid. Not all fads are created equal. Some are remembered fondly, albeit a bit painfully (Klackers), while others we'd just assume forget. But then we already have.