Random Recollections and Observations

While speaking with an old friend from the old neighborhood this morning, our conversation foraged far afield. Our repartee typically veers from past memories of people, places, and events to contemporary people, places, and events. Today, we briefly revisited Cardinal Spellman High School (CSHS), which we both attended and graduated from forty years ago.

Once upon a time, I took a course called Finite Math in my senior year there, which was taught by an acerbic Irish nun with a frightful wig named Sister Catherine. I don’t remember much about Finite Math, except that Sister Catherine referred to some peculiar number theory as the “residue class,” phonetically pronouncing it in an affected manner for maximum comedic effect. Wow, I hadn't thought about integers in years. Another Sister Catherine classic involved the returning of test papers. She would leisurely stroll up and down the rows of desks, plopping the individual tests in front of her respective students. Throughout this faux-somber ritual, she would remark over and over and over as the circumstances warranted: “You know what you are doing," "You know what your doing," “You don’t know what you are doing.” Simpler times in the classroom, I daresay.

A few years after graduation—during my college days—I worked in a mom-and-pop shop called Pet Nosh, which sold pet food and supplies in the nascent days of the pet care trade. Located in the city of Yonkers, a stone’s throw from where I lived in the Northwest Bronx and not too far from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Northeast Bronx, I serviced scores of familiar faces. Regular customers for a spell were none other than Sister Catherine and CSHS’s perpetually scowling and always-disagreeable librarian. Outside of her literary domain, though, the latter was surprisingly genial and so was the venerable Sister Catherine, who either didn’t recognize me or chose not to acknowledge that she did. I believe it was the former. Yes, away from the fast and furious educational milieu, these two Sisters of Charity revealed that they clearly adored their canine friend back at the convent, which was on school grounds. I’d bet dollars to donuts that their dog was shown a heaping helping more love and affection than the pair showed their untold two-legged students through the years.

It always felt strange waiting on customers whom I knew in some way from the past—while they were reciprocally clueless or pretended to be—particularly ghosts from high school and grammar school, or largely forgotten locals. I recall recognizing some pretty obscure folks from my life and times, including a gym teacher from CSHS, a fellow who joined the staff half way through my high school years and taught only the younger grades. The moment I spied his face and modest Fu Manchu mustache, I visualized his picture in my yearbook. When the man paid by personal check, I absolutely knew that the Fu Manchu spoke volumes. And now for some further random recollections and observations...

McDonald's attempting to remain relevant, I suppose. While I had no idea what the "J Balvin Meal" was, I sampled their spicy nuggets last week.  I'll give them a marginal thumb's up. The uber-spiciness helps mask the reality of what you are actually eating.

When the moon hits your eye like a big artichoke pizza pie...something's amiss...

To survive, restaurants and bars alike have taken to the great outdoors, even if it means serving food and grog under a 24/7 noisy El. If you've had a few under your belt, the screeching of metal-on-metal and loud sighing of air-brake ambiance might just have some appeal, but until then...

This stretch of Broadway is the closest thing in the old neighborhood to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

There's still a handful of meatpacking interests in Manhattan's renowned Meatpacking District, but now it's predominantly Hipsterville.

The designer garbage bags tell you as much.

Bear in mind: To live in the Meatpacking District in 2020 will cost you an arm and a turkey leg.

Hipsterville or not, it's city sidewalks, filthy sidewalks everywhere...

Is this amore?

The High Line is a pedestrian walkway that was formerly a New York Central Railroad spur into the aforementioned Meatpacking District. If you enjoy looking at rooftops of factories and such, it's a pleasant enough amble. The Skyline, on the other hand...

Astronomical Rents plus COVID equals $5/cup Oatmeal.

The ChaShaMa is no ma...as are—sadly—many other businesses.

A sign of the times: Winterizing outdoor dining has begun in earnest. But doesn't that then make it indoor dining? King Cuomo will decide.

Early spring reopening? What, pray tell, will Spring 2021 look like?

From the "You Can't Go Home Again" file: No more KFC for me. When it was Kentucky Fried Chicken and I was in CSHS, the chain's MSG-laced food more-or-less agreed with me. Alas, no more. A footnote here: the previously referenced spicy Chicken McNuggets, while perversely tasty, lingered in my stomach and blood vessels for hours upon hours. 

Remember the movie The Mask, starring Jim Carrey when he was funny and relevant? Tell Scarlett, I do give a damn.

I've seen multiple census takers on the streets asking passersby if they've filled out the 2020 census. Not a one inquired if I had. I wonder why?

Steam pipes are picking up the pace. Halloween decorations are popping up all over. And we need a little Christmas more than ever this year.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Gabby Cabby

It’s autumn in New York. And yesterday, I was the backseat company of two different car-service drivers. The fellow chauffeuring me to my destination was quite loquacious and the other, chauffeuring me back home, absolutely mute. As a rule, I prefer the latter. Nevertheless, since I didn’t request a Marcel Marceau-type, I was at the mercy of an uber-gabby cabby who revealed to me—in our thirty minutes or so together—a considerable portion of his rather eventful life story. He was Dominican by heritage and has been an American citizen for decades. The man spoke fluent English and lived for a spell in Italy, where he mastered the art of cooking, specializing—naturally—in Italian cuisine.

Personally, I think it wise to avoid raising the specter of politics with perfect strangers. I was, nonetheless, a captive audience—an ear whether I liked it or not—trapped inside a fast-moving SUV. The gabby cabby complained that today’s immigrants aren’t of the caliber of past immigrants like himself. From his perspective, contemporary immigrants are addicted to government munificence and frivolously spend their money. Now, that’s painting with a pretty broad brush, I’d say. But I understand that people like to rant to an audience, even if it’s an audience of one. The gabby cabby wasn’t done with this point, citing the first round of stimulus checks as Exhibit A. He witnessed countless folks purchasing big-screen TVs and other luxury items with it. The gabby cabby, you see, believes in saving money for a rainy day—a rainy day that, he said, will come sooner rather than later to most. He might be on to something there.

Then gabby cabby then effortlessly transitioned to a recent news story of a machete attack in a Bronx bodega—an incident emblematic of the increasingly violent city at large. He blamed Mayor de Blasio for not supporting the NYPD. The gabby cabby spoke of storeowners buying handguns for protection. He dubbed the criminal element “parasites” worthy of the guillotine. I brought up the rising instances of drag racing on selected city streets and stretches of highways, which I see and hear 24/7 nowadays—startling loud revving engines and disconcerting backfires. The gabby cabby and I were in accord that—based on our observations—cops aren’t cracking down on these speed racers as they should. But, we agreed, that it’s understandable in light of how they have been demonized by the feckless city fathers and mothers over the last several months. The New York State Attorney General, by the way, recommended that police no longer arrest people during traffic stops, even if they have open warrants. Seems to me that the police will go them one better and avoid making any traffic stops at all—or, certainly, a lot fewer than in the past. I can thank my local politicians—where one is worse than the other—for this precipitous decline in the basic quality of life. The gabby cabby and I also concurred that our president has lost whatever marbles he may have once possessed. We are, too, waiting with bated breath for another stimulus check to save, of course, for that inevitable rainy day.

After my quiet return trip home—no politics, no anything—I contemplated whether or not to watch the evening’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. I gave in to the temptation—again—and tuned in to the spectacle. It was simultaneously painful and boring, with both candidates ignoring direct questions. A fly landed on the vice president’s head and chilled out in a blanket of white for a while, which was a welcome diversion. Watching Pence speak, though, of the president, as if he were a normal Republican and normal human being, was the painful part. But on strictly debating points, the vice president won going away. Harris’s performance was really, really bad, totally insincere from where I sat. Her pre-planned “I’m speaking now, okay?” responses to Pence interrupting her—which she knew he would do—were totally transparent. Of course the interruptions were dubbed sexism—yadda, yadda, yadda—by the predictable media talking heads. It seems to me—and I’ve watched countless political debates through the years—that candidates of both sexes and all races, ethnicities, and religions interrupt each other. It’s the nature of politicians and politics. It being 2020, of course, the idiotic woke chorus chimed in to further validate their idiocy. Actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted: “Just going over it all in my head. The way Mike Pence constantly interrupted and spoke over Kamala Harris was the prime example of white male supremacy and its common dismissal and disrespect for black woman.” As Captain Arthur Hastings would say, “Good lord!”

At the end of the day, the presidential race is about Trump versus Not Trump. Neither Kamala Harris’s disingenuous, pathetic performance nor Mike Pence’s defense of the indefensible will make much difference, I suspect. My vote’s already been cast for Not Trump. Alas, I cast my fate to the postal winds and am left to wonder if the gabby cabby’s path and mine will ever cross again.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Moth to a Flame

With my own health and happiness to consider, I opted not to watch even one moment of the so-called conventions—Democratic and Republican—this summer. But like a moth drawn to a flame, I couldn’t resist tuning into the first—and perhaps last—presidential debate of 2020. It was an appalling spectacle! Narcissist extraordinaire Donald Trump—devoid of Humanity 101—is incapable of taming his nasty bluster, prevaricating, and penchant for bullying. I personally know a narcissist extraordinaire with a similar personality disorder. In situations when it would benefit her to maintain a low profile and temper the volume, she can’t do it. The Orange Man couldn’t be civil—presidential—for one night.

Anyway, painful as the overall viewing experience was, I got through the entire ninety-minutes. My immediate takeaway was that Joe Biden cleared the extremely low bar he had to clear. While he certainly looked his age, the man didn’t come across as senile—pathetically evasive at times, but relatively coherent when he could get a word in edgewise. Still, as a twofer, Trump-Biden were hardly Eisenhower and Stevenson up there. While the latter duo never debated in 1952 or 1956, they were both presidential timber—not a lesser of two evils choice.

Well, that was then and this is now. I received my absentee ballot yesterday and mailed it in today. Having once contemplated voting for a third-party, I threw in with old Joe after all. It was Trump versus Not Trump and he was Not Trump. Biden will handily win New York State, so, even if my ballot gets lost in the mail or tossed out because I overly filled in an oval, it won’t be such a big deal. Every other race on my ballot was a non-contest with the winner preordained. Despite never having heard of them, I voted for a couple of Republican opponents in two local races. I’ve done that in the past when I felt like I was casting a ballot in Moscow. And because his office is nearby and he offers free Notary service, I did vote for my long-term Democratic assemblyman. All politics is local.

We are definitely living in sorry times. I recently watched a recommended video on YouTube of Gerald Ford’s “inaugural” address after his swearing in as the first unelected president, succeeding the first elected president to resign from office, Richard Nixon. I was in Bangor, Pennsylvania that day—home of my maternal grandparents—and my mother commented that the new president resembled my grandfather. There was something of a resemblance. “Our long national nightmare is over,” Ford said. “Our Constitution works.” Wow, a peaceful transition of power in tumultuous times—a solid democracy at work in a generally civilized society before Twitter, Facebook, and 24/7 cable ranting. We can sure use a Gerald Ford—and his benignant presence—today.

Sadly, though, this “Ford, not a Lincoln” couldn’t happen in these off-the-wall times. It’s funny that the New York Times—once upon a time “the paper of record”—forced an opinion editor to resign after he published a controversial essay by Senator Tom Cotton, who said that the military could, legally, be called in to quell domestic unrest. It positively frightened the intrepid woke folk—adult journalists and staffers—on the paper to hear a contrary opinion. Today, however, the very same paper published an opinion piece where its author lauded the totalitarian Chinese government's violent crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong. Apparently, that opinion triggered not a one in the newsroom. I’m old enough to remember Dan Rather, dressed as a mujahideen fighter, undercover in Afghanistan during the 1980 Soviet invasion. There were no safe spaces for “Gunga Dan” to hide in and the triggers he was up against weren’t words in a newspaper. Courage indeed from a decidedly different and, I daresay, better time!

(Photos one and two from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Are We Gonna Make It After All?

Fifty years ago this month, The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted. It lasted for seven seasons and went out on a high note—on Mary’s terms. Arguably not the best season—with the iconic characters not yet fully in character—the first, which originally aired in 1970-71, is nevertheless a classic. I distinctly recall watching the show in its infancy in my grandmother’s living room—just a flight of stairs away—on her color TV, a hulking Zenith with legs, a light-up channel dial, and a picture that didn’t appear until the set sufficiently “warmed up.”

I own the first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on DVD. For some reason, I find it especially reassuring. It takes me back to a time and place that were decidedly simpler and more innocent. I appreciate that for the Vietnam War-draft-aged men, 1970-71 was anything but simple and innocent. Still, I was an eight-year-old boy in the second grade at St. John’s neighborhood grammar school. My teacher—a kindly woman—lived up the street from me. I remember—at a class show-and-tell session—bringing in a toy clock that I had gotten for Christmas. It counted the minutes and hours away with indefatigable alacrity. I had this thing for clocks and calendars—a youthful time fetish.

And here I am now, thinking long and hard about the passage of it. Fifty years ago, I was lying on my grandmother’s living room rug with a big fluffy pillow covered with a flowery pillowcase. The latter was my grandmother’s handiwork, just as were the heavy wool socks—a wintertime staple—that she regularly crocheted for her grandchildren. In fact, one of the most captivating things about The Mary Tyler Moore Show was Mary’s cozy studio apartment and her large picture windows leading out to a deck. The fictional Mary Richards lived in the non-fictional Minneapolis, Minnesota with its notoriously cold and snowy winters. We television viewers were thus treated to ample fictional snowfall outside of Mary’s picture-perfect windows. As a boy, I considered snow an awesome weather phenomenon for a whole host of reasons, including outdoor hijinks, potential white Christmases, and—win-win—possible days off from school.

What an awesome time it was to watch prime-time television. Everyone had a favorite show on any given night and there was indeed something for everyone. When The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted, there were no reality shows with histrionic, insincere narcissists behaving badly or Love Islands with histrionic, insincere narcissists behaving equally badly. Once upon a time, the commercials served as welcome bathroom breaks or—in my grandmother’s presence—apple and grapefruit breaks. The commercial allotments were also reasonable in length, unlike today’s network TV promos, which are at once ubiquitous and intrusive. You could cook a full-course meal during some of these breaks.

One final thought on that special time—1970-71: It represented the last year in existence of “The Garden,” as it was affectionately known, across the street from me. This sprawling “victory garden” was the last of its kind in my neighborhood, Kingsbridge in the Bronx. If I looked out my front window, or my grandmother’s below me, during the first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I spied an elongated makeshift fence covering a sprawling patch of earth that sprang to life in the summertime and became starkly barren in wintertime. It was the end of an era in a city with fewer and fewer empty spaces and undeveloped lots for gardens and youthful adventures. The times they were a-changin’ then and then has gradually become now, which is quite a melancholy thought to entertain. Just gaze out your front window and contemplate where we were versus where we are. Love isn't quite all around us.

 (Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

 

Beware of the Unmasked with Corona

Yesterday, while riding in the recesses of New York City’s cash-strapped subway system, an unmasked man entered my car at Times Square. He stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. We passengers are—by and large—wearing masks and now face a fifty-dollar fine if caught without one on mass transit. Anyway, this lawbreaker compounded his crime with a second transgression: openly drinking a bottle of beer in public.

Unhappily from where I sat, he plopped down directly opposite me. What had been a relatively quiet journey—without incident or an uncomfortable moment—in the land down under became creepy awkward in a New York minute. The inebriate was on the young side—late twenties, maybe early thirties—and not especially menacing. He was, though, clearly under the influence, which created an unpredictability that I would rather avoid, particularly while in subway car in a tunnel during a pandemic. The man glared my way from time to time and muttered various asides. I tried not to meet his leering drunken stare, but it’s not so easily accomplished when you’re sitting less than six-feet apart. In a snapshot in time when we are regularly importuned to maintain at least that distance as much as physically possible, who needs a loose-canon tippler in droplet range?

Straightaway, I contemplated employing my subway-riding nuclear option: the “Charles Manson Rule,” where I make like a tree and leave. Initially, though, I didn’t think this snookered rider merited such a bold move. And, too, I prayed his ride might be a brief one—assuming, of course, he knew where he was going. And so it went—50th Street, 59th Street, 66th Street—and he’s still sitting directly across from me and getting increasingly chatty and a bit louder, too. When this hammered straphanger emptied out the remaining quarter of his beer on a subway car door beside him, it was definitely time to go. I don’t know where he came from or where he was going, but I hope he made it there safely. Maybe, too, he got doubly fined at some point between my departure and his arriving at said destination. It would have taught him a valuable lesson: Drinking and riding the subway without a mask during the pandemic is most assuredly a no-no.

After being on Facebook for ten years, I'm not so certain about the latter.

All's fare again with mass transit.

But is it too little, too late? Electronic subway message boards are now informing riders about the system's dire financial straits and absolute need of federal monies to survive.

A mostly peaceful protester strikes again and the rest of us are less informed because of it.

I requested my absentee ballot and am putting my trust in the United States Post Office, where my father tirelessly labored for over a quarter of a century in the building above.

Recently, important business leaders sent a letter to the city's mayor, imploring him to put away his fiddle and do something about—well—everything, including the unsightly garbage piling up all over the place.

These ubiquitous messes just compound the overall mess.

We just want to see some light at the end of the 2020 tunnel.

People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. Now all we need are the people.

Fortunately, there are brief escapes from reality at our fingertips, like binge-watching Cobra Kai on Netflix. Despite a series of incredible coincidences and people getting brutally kicked in the face a lot without any physical consequences, it was a whole lot more compelling than The Karate Kid. Plaudits to William Zabka.

It depends on what the meaning of "open" is. On September 30th, eateries can begin indoor dining at twenty-five percent capacity. Will that be enough to stave off a restaurant apocalypse? The Good Stuff diner, which I photographed a couple of weeks with its outdoor dining, has shut its doors.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) workers kept the trains and buses running during the depths of the pandemic. They really deserve a break today.

While ridership is definitely picking up somewhat compared with its nadir, it's got a long, long way to go to be back where it was in early March. And the MTA was money-challenged even in the best of times.

There were a smattering of tourists around and visiting Lady Liberty. I wondered where they came from and how they got here with all the travel restrictions and quarantines.

Who exactly is "We?"

The hot dog vendors? They love New York and valiantly endure.

The NYPD on horseback in tranquil Times Square. Such are these non-tranquil times...

It's 2020. Is there an alternative?

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

From There to Eternity

This past week, three people who played varying roles in my life me passed away: Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, and Kevin Dobson. In a Bronx neighborhood chock-full of Yankee fans, I was a rare bird: a Met fan, nicknamed “Mr. Met.” And with that passionate devotion and youthful enthusiasm for my team came a hero worship of the biggest star of them all—George Thomas Seaver—who threw a baseball both exceptionally fast and incredibly smart. He was a man, too, who conducted himself with class and professionalism on and off the field.

As a boy in the early- and mid-1970s, I watched many Met games on the family’s black-and-white TV set and listened to others on my very own state-of-the-art radio with a super-cool circular tuning dial. It was a First Holy Communion gift from my godmother. I desperately wanted a radio in the spring of 1970 to listen to Met games—and for no other reason than that. There were a lot of close contests—nail biters, as it were—in those days. For my beloved Mets had a stellar pitching staff anchored by Seaver, a.k.a. “Tom Terrific,” and a not-especially productive offense. In other words, there was more than a fair share of two-to-one and one-to-nothing losses to suffer through. In Mrs. Bertolini’s fourth-grade Language Arts class, I wrote an essay about my hero in which I noted: “Tom Seaver throughs with his right hand.” Close enough.

While Bob Murphy, Lindsey Nelson, and Ralph Kiner painted the baseball word picture so eloquently and free of over-analysis and gratuitous criticism, joy or heartbreak came my way day after day after day. Those win-loss highs and lows were kicked up a notch when Tom Seaver took the mound. A friend—and fellow rare bird from the neighborhood—and I fretted over our hero’s E.R.A. when he gave up three or four runs, which, happily, wasn’t very often. Yes, Tom Seaver supplied us with more than a few summers to remember and remember fondly.

Lou Brock, meanwhile, was one of those opposing team stars—and future Hall of Famers—that the Mets played against back in the day when baseball truly was the American pastime. He was simultaneously speedy and classy in an age when athletes weren’t cosseted prima donnas, mega-millionaires, and grandstanders. It was a better time to be a fan of a game steeped in tradition and lore. Nowadays, they’re playing seven-inning games during double-headers and putting an automatic man on second base in extra-inning games. Lou Brock would have gotten there the old-fashioned way—singled and stole second. And just how long would that have taken?

Lastly, actor Kevin Dobson died a couple of days ago. He will always be Bobby Crocker to me, Lieutenant Kojak’s loyal, dedicated, and tenacious right-hand man. Kojak was my favorite detective show in the days when I hung on every one of Tom Seaver’s pitches. Dobson was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens and worked as a motorman and conductor—among other things—for the Long Island Railroad before becoming an actor. His New York roots go a long way in explaining why he came across as the genuine article in his role as a young NYPD detective. It’s worth noting that the police in the city were on the hot seat then due to rampant corruption and misconduct. Frank Serpico was a household name. Nevertheless, Theo Kojak emphasized the importance of the badge and what it ideally represented—maintaining order and keeping the peace. He once chastised an aggressive private detective and contemporary bounty hunter named Salathiel Harms—as played by Rosie Greer—for crossing the line. “You’re one, big angry man,” Kojak said. “But I got a badge in my pocket that’s bigger than both of us. Respect it!” R.I.P. Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, and Kevin Dobson. So much was lost this week.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro) 

Water to Wine

RIP Tom Seaver 1944-2020. (Originally published 6/26/19).

I just finished the book After the Miracle by Art Shamsky and Erik Sherman. Its subtitle is “The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets.” I highly recommend it to—both former and present—baseball fans and Met fans, in particular. Shamsky played first base and the outfield for the “Miracle Mets,” the 1969 World Champions.

After the Miracle was an entertaining page-turner that made me truly appreciate—after all, I hadn’t yet turned seven at the time—the accomplishment. It was impossible not to feel excited while reliving through the principle players that remarkable season from—yes—fifty years ago. It did, in fact, feature a series of miracles—extraordinary on-the-field occurrences and outcomes—that will never be replicated. It’s just not the same game—or world for that matter—anymore. First baseman Ed Kranepool reflected on the moment: “[Y]ou know, back then, baseball was still the workingman’s sport, still cheap enough for people to go. They could relate to guys like me…and all the guys that filled in, like Al Weis. Those fans fought for their team every day. And you know what? That’s why New York is such a great town. The Miracle Mets were a great thing for New York. We’ll never forget it. They’ll never forget it.”

After the Miracle is also a very poignant read as it marries past and present. With the passage of time, key players from that team have passed away, including Tommie Agee, Ed Charles, Donn Clendenon, Tug McGraw, and Don Cardwell. Manager Gil Hodges and the coaching staff—with the sole exception of tomato king, Joe Pignatano—are all gone. But the emotional roller-coaster ride is in the recounting of the reunion of a small group of 1969 Mets—Shamsky, Ron Swoboda, Jerry Koosman, and Bud Harrelson. Knowing that it would very likely never happen again, they visit Hall of Famer Tom Seaver at his home and vineyard. The get-together occurred in 2017. It was known then that Seaver was suffering from Lyme disease-related memory loss—and had good days and bad days—and, too, that Harrelson was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

Reading about individuals whom I watched play, rooted for, and idolized when I was a very young boy—when baseball was baseball—who are now in their mid- and late-seventies is kind of unsettling, particularly when some of them are suffering from debilitating illnesses. That’s life, I guess, and it’s a short bumpy ride.

I’ve written often about growing up in the Bronx—a rare Met fan in a neighborhood of predominantly Yankee fans, most notably my father, who faithfully supported his team from the “Joltin’ Joe” DiMaggio days until the day he died some seventy years later. My introduction to the game of baseball found me—alongside my dad—at the original Yankee Stadium, “The House That Ruth Built,” with those annoying concrete posts that obstructed views.

I can’t recall the precise moment I swore allegiance to the Mets, but it definitely happened in the afterglow of the miracle season. I remember that my father brought home for me—purchased at Yankee Stadium of all places—a 1970 Mets’ yearbook, which celebrated the Amazin’ Mets and their storied season. So, the breakaway from tradition was at-hand. The fact that the Mets televised 120 games on free TV back then—versus only 40 Yankee games on the tube—I suspect was the fuel that took my imagination to faraway places like Shea Stadium with the loud airplanes incessantly taking off and landing nearby. Granted, it was only about a thirty-minute ride from my Bronx home, but it might as well have been in another time zone. That’s how my Yankee fan father saw it. At any rate, loyalty to my team was cemented at an early age. As a seven-year-old kid, I could have loved the Mets and liked the Yankees, too. But it soon became apparent that wasn’t possible in the rough-and-tumble of a cross-town rivalry.

Baseball and allegiance to our teams were so much a part of growing up. Tom Seaver was my childhood idol. I received the nickname “Mr. Met,” later shortened to just “Met,” from a Yankee fan neighbor. Being a devoted fan then was akin to being in a marriage—in good times and bad. And both good and bad happened in the wake of the miracle. After the Miracle is, though, compelling testament that miracles do happen on occasion—or used to anyway.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Magic Eraser

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) claims that if it doesn't get a major infusion of cash real soon, it's going to have to—among other unpopular things—cut service by fifty percent! That's a heaping helping of service. The Department of Sanitation has seen its budget slashed and, trust me, it shows. And, yes, the street violence continues unabated, which doesn't appear to concern the woke folk all that much. But at least the crickets are back for their traditional late-summer encore, chirping their familiar swan song to yet another season. It’s been a hot and humid one around here—and an especially wild and wolly one in the wider world—that I’m not going to miss. Of course, I don’t have to go back to school next week. But then many school-aged kids don’t have to go back to school next week either. Or do they? It’s been forty years since I graduated from high school. Wow, that’s a long time in the individual human scheme of things—half a typical lifetime as a matter of fact.

The year was 1980. The “Magic Is Back” was the tagline of the New York Mets ubiquitous promotional campaign that summer. Buoyed by new ownership vowing to be the antithesis of the previously disinterested, tightfisted one, there was—very literally—a hint of magic in the air. Really. The times were definitely a-changin’ for the better, which was most welcome after some sobering and truly disheartening dark years in Fanville.

Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end—summer days free of addictive devices and frothing-at-the-mouth social media. Like 2020, 1980 was a presidential year with the two main parties holding their conventions in summertime. Ronald Reagan received the Republican nomination in Detroit and President Jimmy Carter was re-nominated for a second term right here in New York City. Carter fought off not only a Democratic primary challenger in 1980, but a political dynasty as well. He defeated Senator Ted Kennedy. While Kennedy contemplated his run against a sitting president, The New York Post ran a front-page headline, which reportedly quoted the incumbent: “If Kennedy Runs, I’ll Whip His Ass.” Well, Kennedy in the end ran and Carter, as promised, whipped his ass. I had a political button featuring a replica of that infamous front-page. Simpler times and conventions—but a whole lot more interesting and layered than their vacuous, histrionic 2020 progeny. The contemporary Democrats had a platform but didn’t talk about what was in it. I wonder why? And the Republicans didn’t even bother to have one. In the Trump cult, what's the point? The Republican convention’s roster of speakers sometimes seemed like a who’s who of misfits—a water pistol that shoots jelly kind of thing. These are strange and foreboding times for Americans who care about the nation’s fundamental institutions, most basic freedoms, and peace and tranquility.

With my blood pressure in mind, I didn’t watch a single moment of either convention this month, which I never could have envisioned in 1980. I loved tuning in to party conventions in those days of yore. And it wasn’t the great political issues of the moment that appealed to me; it was the excitement, the real-time lessons in civics and democracy. Despite the candidates having their respective nominations in the bag by convention time, there was still some drama at both of them. At some point in the Republican convention, rumors circulated that former President Gerald Ford was being seriously considered as Ronald Reagan’s running mate. There was talk of a “co-presidency” of sorts, which would potentially alleviate the biggest voter concerns about Reagan as a quick draw and not-quite-ready-for-prime-time player. Reagan ultimately went for the safe pick of the receding, but ever-loyal George H.W. Bush and it paid off.

At the Democratic convention, all eyes were on the vanquished liberal icon, Ted Kennedy, and whether and how he would endorse the man who whipped his ass. Kennedy had a considerable portion of the convention delegates hanging on his every imperial word. His “Dream Shall Never Die” speech brought tears to the eyes of the old-school left, the New Dealers, those classical liberals who believed that America was fundamentally a good place and its Constitution a document worth cherishing and respecting. Kennedy’s eventual endorsement of Carter was halfhearted to say the least.

Well, that was then and this is now. The magic was indeed back in 1980, but now it’s gone—in sports, obviously, and politics, too. Will it ever be back? Can it ever come back? Old Joe talks about being a transitional president. I fear, though, what’s on the other side of the transition. Nevertheless, he’ll have to do at this critical moment. But, as for the magic, it isn’t coming back anytime soon—I’m certain about that.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)