An "Out of Sight" Blog

A current writing project of mine finds me revisiting my personal favorite decade: the 1970s. While researching my subject matter, I decided to reacquaint myself with the lingo of the time, considering that more than three decades have passed, and I am no longer a teenager uttering, “Be there or be square” and “Take a chill pill.” Well, actually, I don’t think I ever spoke either of those two phrases. I was way too square for that. However, I know for a fact that I branded some people “chumps,” who were definitely worthy of the label, and I may possibly have even said “later,” as I parted with friends a time or two, which is embarrassing to admit.

I found a 1970s lingo listing—you can unearth virtually everything on the Internet—and noticed that “Who cut the cheese?” made the cut, if you will. This intriguing query resurrected a memory of a grammar school religion class taught by a hipster priest—and a very likeable fellow from my parish, I should add. He interrupted a lecture of his with that very question: “Who cut the cheese?” He just knew how to endear himself to seventh graders living amidst the grooviest snapshot in time ever recorded in the annals of history. However, I didn’t appreciate his follow-up query: “Nick, are you gagging?” As I recall, I wasn’t the guilty party. And as we know: Whoever smelt it dealt it.

Most of the 1970s slang on the list I remembered, even if I didn’t employ the majority of the cool jargon. “Far out” was John Denver’s thing. And I didn’t call cops “pigs” because I didn’t have a bone to pick with them and, too, Kojak was my favorite TV show. Even the “fuzz” was too pejorative for me. I may have said “fooey,” instead of “nonsense” at some point, and I’m certain I used the word “grody” to describe a variety of “disgusting” things in those days of yore. “Doofus,” well, I still like that word, and it is equally apropos in the twenty-first century, and I don’t plan on retiring it.

Yes, I recollect peers of mine being called “spaz” when they lacked athletic grace. And that’s really urban slang at its best, sounding like what it’s describing. I know some people said “you know” after many sentences in the 1970s when it was the hip thing to do. Now, some people say “you know” after many sentences when it’s not the hip thing to do. Many of the phrases that became the “rad” in the 1970s are hippie-inspired, and the hippies deserve their due for adding immeasurably to the English language. Wearing cool “threads” with no “bread” in their pockets had to be a real “bummer.” Do you catch my drift?

New York Really Is the City That Never Sleeps

This past Labor Day weekend—on an early Sunday morning—I noticed a meter maid walking around the neighborhood. Considering it was the day of the week that many New Yorkers call on their preferred houses of worship—and, too, that it was the "official end of summer" holiday—I thought it a very unusual time for a city employee to be roaming streets, checking up on parked cars’ registrations, and, of course, writing tickets. Perhaps the city fathers and mothers have the little guy and gal’s best interests at heart with this sort of thorough patrolling—after all, drivers should keep their automobiles’ registrations and car inspections up to date.

Forgive me, though, for being slightly cynical here. As part of my morning Internet ritual, I visit the website "EveryBlock" and search my zip code for local news items, which include the latest restaurant inspections in the area. It’s clear the city has both hired many more health inspectors and is making many more inspections of eateries, which is understandable considering rats and water bugs run amok on some of the richest real estate on the planet. However, some restaurants are being inspected every two to three months and racking up violation points that I presume are attached to considerable fines. While it’s a good thing that restaurants are being held to higher standards, forgive me—again—for being slightly cynical here.

Recently, I saw a man double park his car and get out to help a very elderly woman with her groceries as she exited a supermarket. He left his motor running and was only several yards away from his vehicle when a meter maid pounced and ticketed him. I believe this infraction comes attached to a $115 penalty nowadays. I know double-parking in overly congested metropolitan areas is a no-no, but once more: Forgive me for being slightly cynical here.

Is it possible the mayor and his dedicated bureaucratic army are foremost interested in adding money to the city’s coffers, even if it means fleecing the little people for more and more and more when they can least afford it? Perish the thought. What was I thinking? I know, of course, that he and his are looking out for me in the City That Doesn’t Sleep—just ask the meter maids and health inspectors.

A Parable: the Minister, Tree Branch, and Me

I share something in common with a certain man of the cloth. It seems we both reside in street-level bachelor pads in private homes on the same block. And that is the long and short of our common ground, I suspect. Everything else I know about this man is limited to our encounters—for lack of a better description—which have been numerous the past couple of years. When I see him in the early morning hours—presumably before he goes to work, if that is the right word—he’s always walking a very small dog, puffing on a cigarette, and sporting a Roman collar.

I have always assumed he is an Episcopal minister. Having experienced a Catholic upbringing and education, I just never knew a priest who lived in a basement apartment, which doesn’t mean such living arrangements are unprecedented. The priests in my past always called hearth and home a parish, or resided somewhere on the school grounds where they taught. But then again, a friend of mine worked with a Catholic priest in a Barnes & Noble store. The guy needed the money and had to both locate, and pay for out of his own pocket, his accommodations. These are hard times for all.

Anyway, today—post-Hurricane Irene day one—I was outside and picking up scattered debris, including a large tree branch that I dragged to the curbside. With my back unintentionally turned away from this approaching holy man, I heard him—quite uncharacteristically—say something. I swiveled around and momentarily considered asking, “You talkin’ to me?” As per the norm, however, he was staring straight ahead, cigarette in one hand, and dog leash in the other, fulfilling his morning ritual. I surmised he was speaking to his little canine friend, because I never saw a Bluetooth, or any comparable technological device, in his ear. This man is old school and, for that matter, pretty old.

But then I spied that the tree branch I had moved was jutting out a foot or so onto the sidewalk proper. Had I noticed this before, I would never have placed it in such a precarious position, and I immediately moved it out of harm’s way. I proceeded to do something of a double take at that point, realizing that this neighbor of mine, who always does his best not to make eye contact with anyone—and, by osmosis, speak to anybody—had indeed addressed me. In fact, as soon as I laid eyes on the branch partially on the sidewalk, my brain—without any prompting on my part—replayed the previous moment. Yes, this mystery servant of the Lord, whose holy threads no doubt reek of nicotine, had chided me. Considering that I was cleaning up a big mess, the scolding was both unnecessary and unappreciated.

Harking back to my boyhood, I was always turned off by the unpleasantness and sometimes-outright nastiness of a fair share of religious sorts. The more innocent and less cynical child quite often cuts to the chase. How could some of these men and women who purport to do God’s bidding and adhere to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth be so disagreeable? I was never impressed with autocratic “good businessmen” known for running parishes with an iron fist and Wal-Mart bottom line efficiency. It seemed so incongruous to me then, just as it does to me now. I was literally both frightened and horrified by the fact that a Sister Lorraine character actually passed nun muster and was permitted to teach children. She sported both a habit and a burgeoning mustache some four decades ago when she threw my friend Johnny down to the rock-hard pavement at the altar’s edge in church. It was during First Holy Communion practice, and he received this body slam courtesy of a chewed up hot lunch straw in his shirt pocket. There’s something wrong with this picture.

Happily, Sister Lorraine was gone the following year—from my school at least. Where she ended up after that, I don’t know. Hopefully, she joined the Teamsters, or maybe was discovered by a talent scout for the WWF. While I am the antithesis of a cheerleader on the God Squad, if you will, I still prefer religious folk to be godly—hopeless romantic that I remain—even in adulthood.

River, Take Me Away in Your Sunshine

According to a newspaper story I just read, several candidates aspiring for the highest office in the land want to gut—if not entirely disembowel—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They claim the agency’s myriad strictures are—in the big picture—job killers. One would-be president more or less believes businesses can regulate themselves vis-à-vis pollutants—just as big banks and investment houses, I suppose, are looking out for, first and foremost, you and me.

When my father was a boy in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, the family and some friends would regularly hop on the Number 1 train during summertime for a short ride up to Inwood Hill Park. Upon their arrival, they would hike through the area’s primordial woodlands—on Manhattan Island still—to an off-the-beaten trail leading to a tiny snatch of sandy beach at the scenic confluence of the Harlem River Ship Canal and the Hudson River. The older generation of Italian men always brought their homemade wines along with them and placed the bottles in an icy cold freshwater spring, which trickled down through the hills. The Henry Hudson Bridge, opened in 1936, loomed like a colossus directly above this Shangri-La.

Provided one didn’t venture out too far, the waters off this obscure snippet of shoreline were shallow enough. My father vividly remembered these beach visits and—most of all—wading through waters awash in, among other things, human excrement, which frequently had to be pushed aside while frolicking in the drink. Granted, this couldn’t have been the healthiest of recreational activities, but it was the late 1930s and early 1940s, when raw sewerage was poured into the local waters.

Flash forward thirty years and I recall being at water’s edge in New York Harbor. The wafting breeze was a curious mix of sea salt and sewer, and flotsam in the Hudson was the rule. The cleanliness of the river in those days—in these parts—was a standard joke punch line. But a funny thing happened over the last three decades. The river’s gotten cleaner—dramatically so. There’s even talk of a public beach on Manhattan’s West Side. And not very far to the north of the city, Hudson River beaches are open for business.

The EPA was the brainchild of the Nixon Administration, circa 1970. And as for swimming in poop in the future, I think would be wise to Just Say No. We’ve been there and done that—and we’re not going back.

Signs of the Times

If I had to select one street barometer that reveals how tough times have become, I’d note the conspicuous increase in the numbers of men and women foraging through garbage cans and bags in search of discarded cans and bottles. Not too long ago in the scheme of things, there was a more predictable order to this pursuit of nickel deposits, with particular areas of the neighborhood considered conquered territory. That is, can and bottle hunters respected others’ turfs. But both this overall tranquility and general courtesy have fallen by the wayside.

A petite, antiquated Chinese woman used to have first dibs on the refuse tossed out by the building across the street from me. Once upon a time this venerable old lady patiently waited for the building's super to cart out the recyclable trash each week. For years, I handed over my deposit-worthy cans and bottles to her. The super christened her “my lady,” and asked only that she neatly close the bags she rummaged through, which she always did. On multiple occasions, this tiny spitfire exhibited real chutzpah, literally hissing at interlopers who dared trod her hard-won territory. She chided me in a sign language of sorts one time—I don’t think she spoke a word of English—for using brands that were being tossed back to her in the local Stop & Shop supermarket’s redeem machine. But this wretched economy—coupled with her super friend losing his position—conspired against her. She was driven away by a dog-eat-dog competition that is no longer willing to play by the former gentlemen’s and gentlewomen’s rules of street. Under the new world order, no turf is ceded to anyone or anybody.

Really, it seems that nothing is sacrosanct anymore. A ragtag army has replaced the little old lady who most certainly could. And they are unwilling to accept that curbside garbage belongs by right to one individual and only one individual. It’s every man and every woman for himself or herself. My can and bottle gal thus disappeared from sight and sound. For a brief spell, I turned over my loot to a pleasant elderly woman from the area who, very tragically, got killed by a drunken driver while on her rounds.

I am nonetheless happy to report that the little Chinese lady has resurfaced, older but apparently undaunted, even in these less forgiving times. I’ve spotted her on several occasions recently. It appears she has found other very fruitful locales to scavenge. Her shopping carts are always chock full of gargantuan black garbage bags brimming with cans and bottles. Somehow these sightings always remind me of the Grinch’s sleigh after he pillaged Whoville. This lady, who probably weighs no more than eighty pounds, and is well into her eighties, pushing an overflowing shopping cart up the steepest hill around in a place called Ewen Park, is downright surreal. But then again, we live in downright surreal times.

Exercising with Jehovah's Witnesses...Not a Quinn Martin Production

Residing in the Bronx has its benefits. Jehovah’s Witnesses periodically ringing my doorbell and trying to recruit me into their cult are not among them. Foremost, let me state at the outset that their encounters with me have always been unfailingly polite, which is why I can’t bring myself to slam my door in their earnest faces.

Nearing the end of an extended walk and a bit of grocery shopping this morning—part of my use it or lose it very soon exercise regimen—I was sweat-laden and plum tuckered out when I spied Jehovah’s Witnesses making the rounds in the vicinity of home. I made a mental note not to answer my bell after I was safely ensconced indoors, because I’d absolutely know who was calling. But lo and behold, as I turned the corner—seconds away from mission accomplished and a day’s exercise in the books—Jehovah’s Witnesses were hovering all too near my front door. I couldn’t enter my apartment without them noticing me and, worst of all, catching my ear. I opted instead to both keep walking and keep sweating, returning several minutes later to find them stationary and patiently waiting for someone or something. If nothing else, they are a persistent religious sect. I then walked completely around the block—and we’ve got pretty long blocks around here—and they had finally soldiered on.

The last time that I had conversed with Jehovah’s Witnesses at my front door, a question was posed to me: “We are asking people to name the person they most admire?” I kind of knew what the “right” answer was, as far as they were concerned, despite having a question of my own to ask them. I nonetheless said, “Quinn Martin.” Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t a very curious bunch, so not a one of them asked me who, pray tell, was Quinn Martin? Naturally, most people had told them the person they most admired in this world was—drum roll, please—Jesus Christ. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know He qualified as a person,” I said. Blank looks all around....

Both a close relation and devout Catholic once told me her foolproof method of getting rid of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as it were. She tells them she’s a pious disciple of her faith, which she is. I should say the same thing, she said, even though she knew I wasn’t. So, I tried it and it actually worked. But I felt kind of weird in employing the fib, and not because I was morally troubled by lying to Jehovah’s Witnesses to get them on their merry way. There was just something unclean about claiming to be a committed religious anything in order to squirm out of the grips of an even more zealous and delusional dogma.

Anyway, after I worked the ruse, one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses said, “Oh, okay—yes—Catholics believe in Jesus Christ, too.” Raised a Catholic and schooled in Catholic education—lower to higher—I still recall a few theological and historical matters. Too? I think Catholics were first in line on the Jesus thing, no? Well, I suppose if I believed Armageddon was imminent, I’d likely alter my modus operandi somewhat, although I doubt very much I’d go around ringing doorbells in the Bronx and Brooklyn. But then, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t observe such pagan traditions as Christmas and even birthdays. Nevertheless, sincere thanks are in order to them for making me push the envelope a bit on my daily exercise routine.

It's Lights Out in the Political Theater

Thirty-seven years ago today, I know exactly where I was—in Bangor, Pennsylvania. My mother was looking after my grandfather while my grandmother was away. It was also the day in American history when Richard Nixon’s presidency officially ended at high noon. I recall my mother telling my grandfather he resembled our new president, Gerald Ford, “a Ford not a Lincoln.” I also remember he tasted lentil soup for the first time in his life. When asked for his appraisal, he replied, “I’ve tasted worser [sic] soups.”

I was not yet twelve then but nonetheless fascinated with political theater, although not political issues. Nowadays, I’d say, I’m decidedly less interested in the theater but very much interested in the issues. And it’s not solely the ravages of mind, body, and psyche that are behind this metamorphosis. No, something else is afoot. Contemporary political theater reflects the times and is more shallow, partisan, and wholly less interesting on numerous fronts. In fact, it’s downright nauseating on many, if not most, occasions, which is why I choose not to watch scripted pols and their flacks recite vacuous talking points on the boob tube. Once upon a time I faithfully tuned in to everything from CNN’s Crossfire—night after night after night—to Sunday morning network fare like This Week with David Brinkley. But no more.

At the tender age of six in 1968—that seminal year—I sported a Nixon campaign button on my little person as Election Day drew near. Very young kids roamed the nearby streets unchaperoned in the old Bronx neighborhood back then. I remember being all by myself—around the corner from home—when a couple of girls festooned in Humphrey-Muskie regalia approached me. They queried mini-me as to why I was wearing a Nixon pin, and then made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. If I turned over my pinback to them, they in turn would give me a bunch of Humphrey-Muskie tabs and some campaign literature. I accepted their offer straightaway, including their two provisos. I would disseminate the materials to adult family and friends and, too, urge them to vote for the Humphrey-Muskie ticket.

What happened next is sadly buried deep in my memory bank. Perhaps hypnosis could unearth what really went down. I can, however, say with absolute confidence that I didn’t move any minds or make any Democratic converts within the family. Still, that little boy sensed the palpable political drama in the ether around—in what were definitely volatile times—and he loved it.

On this day, thirty-seven years ago, Nixon not only got out of Washington town, but also delivered a largely extemporaneous farewell address to his cabinet and the White House staff. It was a captivatingly rambling speech chock full of psychological good stuff, insight, and strangeness from the lips of a disgraced politician in the throes of an emotional breakdown—the ultimate Greek tragedy playing itself out on an American stage. While interminable drama on the current political landscape exists, it’s largely of the lame variety. Regrettably, it's lights out for genuine and compelling political theater.

Mystical Manhattan Moment

Yesterday, on a mostly overcast and very humid summer afternoon, something downright mystical occurred on the island of Manhattan. I met a friend and, before we parted, patronized an eatery. One, in fact, that we hadn’t frequented in more than a decade. Time surely does fly. And not because we disapproved of its cuisine or its cleanliness. We just got into an unholy habit of pinching our pennies when we met, and typically called upon pizza places, where we ate a slice or two and saved a few bucks.

Anyway, the establishment was a diner called Joe Junior’s on Third Avenue and 16th Street. In fact, there used to be another place by the same name not too far away. But it recently lost its lease in yet another rapacious landlord situation, which is, sadly, the norm nowadays in New York City. This remaining location was nonetheless just fine. When we ate there in the simpler times of the 1990s, I dubbed the spot the “Jesse Orosco Joe Junior’s,” so as to differentiate it from its namesake to the south, where my friend and I had also enjoyed a few repasts.

Why, you ask, Jesse Orosco? Well, it seems a certain waiter-owner resembled New York Mets, Class of 1986, star reliever Jesse Orosco. And I never in my wildest dreams could have conceived that said person would still be on the premises—and doing what he did more than ten years ago—because there have been oh so many changes in that neck of the woods. Landlords have been running the truly genuine diners out of town, which just cannot afford the astronomical rents. Yuppie foodies, too, who prefer both artifice and paying top dollar for trendy mutations of perfectly fine fare, reign supreme in countless New York neighborhoods.

Sure, Jesse O was a little older—like us all—but as efficient and courteous as I remember him way back when, which seems like only yesterday. Bearing witness to this welcome continuity in a city that’s changed so much was an extraordinary moment for sure. Encountering Jesse O on the scene in a throwback greasy spoon with bona fide diner prices in the Gramercy Park section of Manhattan—well, there really are no words. Joe Junior’s burger cost four dollars and change and was the genuine article. My friend and I couldn’t resist the temptation, and we ordered ours medium rare—risky as that sometimes is. They were deliciously raw in spots but no E. coli poisoning—I’m happy to report—more than twenty-four hours later.

Jesse O still laboring at Joe Junior's. Scrumptious hamburgers plucked from an authentic diner menu and, despite its very expensive address, priced accordingly. Now, come on, if yesterday’s culinary experience doesn’t qualify as a mystical one—or, at the very least, near mystical—then I really don’t know what possibly could. I can only say: Long live Joe Junior’s—with its steaks, chops, and seafood—and their ever-dwindling brethren.

What the Dead Fish Taught Me...

Approximately forty years ago, three young boys found a dead fish on the shores of the Manasquan Inlet. Actually, it was on an obscure, non-swimming sandy beach in what I’ve since learned is part of the fifty-five acre Fisherman’s Cove Conservation Area. But four decades ago this slice of geography was considered both off-the-beaten trail and sort of on the seedy side. Few people navigated it with its myriad byways through tall and thick sea grass—Tick Country. This sprawling space is a popular “dog beach” now and has been considerably upgraded and manicured.

It was early springtime when my two brothers and I—visiting family friends who owned a home in Manasquan—made a beeline to this stark stretch of beach whose shoreline looked out into a busy seafaring thoroughfare of chartered fishing boats, pleasure crafts, and Coast Guard vessels heading to, and coming back from, the Atlantic Ocean, a maritime stone’s throw away at the mouth of the inlet.

The close proximity to the ocean and incessant boat traffic ensured that small waves perpetually crashed along the shore there. The beach was kind of difficult to access from our entry point—we had to climb down a haphazard pile of rocks—and a little bit malodorous, too, but in the most evocatively natural sense. Sea remains washed ashore there all the time, including every imaginable strain of seaweed, the ubiquitous horseshoe crab, and other creatures of the deep.

The beach was quite desolate when we touched the sand, which was the norm, but even more so because it was springtime and pretty cold outside. The Pea Coats we wore underscored both the temperature outside and the snapshot in time: the early 1970s. We also called our in-style sartorial winter wear “navy jackets.” Boys from the Bronx wearing navy jackets by the Manasquan Inlet in springtime—it didn't get much better than that! So, encountering an as-yet-decaying and as-yet-reeking dead fish was a real find for us—both exciting and cool in a seashore setting with fishermen everywhere and nearby streets named Whiting, Perch, and Pike. And just as a cat might bring home a dead mouse or cicada bug, we brought our dead fish—our catch—back to the house. We wanted this Kodak moment to be captured for posterity, I suppose.

Encountering a dead fish on a lonely stretch of beach wouldn’t really do much for me anymore. And as I don’t carry around a pair of rubber gloves and hand sanitizer, I very likely wouldn’t even touch one. Perhaps, though, we all need to awaken that inner-child in us again. You know, the one who would enthusiastically transport a dead fish—that, of course, had died of natural causes as part of the cycle of life—home. I suspect the world would be a better place if we did.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Why Hot Dog Johnny Matters

My maternal grandparents lived in the town of Bangor, Pennsylvania—approximately seventy-five miles due west of New York City. Prior to the mid-1970s, there were no I-80 roads extending this far east. Without the Interstate at our disposal, these treks over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house therefore took the family through many small towns and down intriguing main streets, which were ascetically at odds with Kingsbridge and the big city way of life that I was accustomed. There were so many fascinating sights along the way, and more than a few establishments from the Bronx to Bangor that the younger set so desperately wanted to patronize.

Honestly, it’s hard to believe that it’s been forty years since my siblings and I pined to stop at a joint called Hot Dog Johnny on Route 46 in Warren County, New Jersey. For starters, I am happy to report that Hot Dog Johnny is alive and well these many years later. In fact, it’s thriving in the new millennium as a popular landmark. But four decades ago, my father wasn’t one to call on roadside eateries, or other attractions like the Cherokee Trading Post in nearby Budd Lake. Only peeing pit stops were kosher with him, which—in those pre-Interstate little adventures of ours—typically amounted to pulling alongside the road somewhere and heading off into some brush or tree cover. My dad sprained his ankle on one such jaunt, tripping over a rusty old lawn mower that some irresponsible sort had illegally discarded. There were no public bathrooms, or even a McDonald’s around, on this route in that bygone time.

Eventually, we did sample frankfurters from Hot Dog Johnny. We consumed our tasty wieners on picnic tables with views of the Pequest River, which I had long assumed was nothing but a babbling brook—not a Delaware River tributary teeming with trout. The Internet is such a great source of information. I remember, too, that the place had tinted green coverings of some kind—maybe plexiglass—serving as both sun and rain blockers above the outdoor tables. Upon initially unwrapping my frank, I thought it a rather curious and unappetizing shade of green. Hot Dog Johnny served birch beer in frosted mugs, and, if memory serves, buttermilk as an alternative—something that always rang more melodious to my ears than it tasted on my palate.

By the way, Hot Dog Johnny is in the town of Buttzville. It is indeed. I always appreciated that in that neck of the woods there were so many -ville and –town suffixes. Hackettstown, for instance, not very far away, hosted another place we kids pined to patronize: Leo’s Lunch Stand, specializing in hamburgers and hot dogs. And just like Hot Dog Johnny, we eventually paid Leo's a visit. And I am pleased to report that Leo's, too, endures—although modernized somewhat—in the twenty-first century.

While Dr. Floyd Hess, my grandparents’ GP has long since retired and shuffled off this mortal coil, his shingle—the last time I visited Bangor—still hung outside his old office. And while I miss regularly visiting the town with local surnames like Buzzard, Kneebone, and Stucker, and senior citizens called Myrtle, Margery, and Florence, I can at least take heart that Hot Dog Johnny is timeless.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Twenty Questions, One Hundred Degrees, Two Dollars

It wasn’t really necessary for me to venture out today. Nevertheless, I did and called on my bank’s ATM, which is situated in a sliver of geography that has long been a magnet—the stomping grounds, if you will—for a cross-section of poor souls. A certain old-timer I know refers to these folks as being “not quite right in the head.” While this isn’t quite a medical diagnosis, I suppose it’s apt in the cold, cruel world we call home.

Speaking of this cold, cruel world, it was 104°F in New York City yesterday and forecast to be not much better today. As I walked the several blocks to my destination, a Rorschach test of sweat blobs appeared on my T-shirt. The continent of Australia materialized about mid-chest and a distinctive ampersand around my left nipple. Very, very interesting…but, sorry, no Jesus silhouette to report.

Passing Popeye’s chicken as I made my way out of the ATM alcove, a middle-aged man—pointing at my cane—said to me, “What happened to your leg?” Sensing oddness afoot in the wretched air, I mumbled a nothing response. But he wasn’t satisfied with that. He then asked if I was Jewish. I said no. “Irish-German?” I said no again. Why was I answering this stranger’s barrage of questions? And just who asks if anybody is ‘Irish-German’?

He then said, “But your leg’s going to get better?” In the negative swing of things, I guess, and with ever-unusual sweat shapes materializing on my clothing with each passing second, I said no once more. He was beginning to annoy me. However, this last no reply made him recoil and almost cry. “I hate hearing such things,” he said. I felt bad now and tried to reassure him I was as fit as a fiddle—just fine—but he was having none of it.

He actually looked presentable enough—not down and out—with a mild drinker’s face. Still, I knew where all of this was headed, even though he prefaced what he was about to say next with: “I’m not going to ask you for any money.” He informed me that times were tough and that he had recently lost his job. He proceeded to point into Popeye’s, telling me his wife was in there, and that the pair hadn’t eaten for a couple of days. It costs “four dollars for a piece of chicken!” he said, and let out a plaintive wail for good measure. Finally, he cut to the chase and asked, “If you can help in any way in getting us some food…and you don’t have to say yes.”

Despite not really believing his wife was in Popeye’s, and that the particulars of his tale were more than likely fabricated, there was little doubt in my mind that he was on hard times—genuine hard times. It was time for a yes. I had only a $20 bill—from the ATM—and two singles on my person. I gave him the two singles, which initiated a John Boehner-esque moment. He broke down crying and said, “Thank you...thank you...and God bless.” If I had a five dollar bill on me, which is my official maximum in such chance encounters—for these are hard times for me, too—I'd have given him that. And while I don’t ordinarily give much thought to where these little money exchanges lead to, I’d rather like to think he spent it somewhere other than in Popeye’s. In fact, I’d wager two more dollars that he did.

A Life Detour

I am still haunted by the memory of a life detour taken. It was a very literal detour—on I-95 in Providence, Rhode Island. To return to the Interstate past some roadwork, or whatever it was that necessitated the detour, I missed a critical turn. Instead of being where I wanted to be—heading south to New York on the highway—I found myself in what resembled the backdrop of a particularly seedy film noir: a labyrinthine wasteland of streets leading to nowhere.

If my car quit on me, I was certain I would never be heard from again, breathing my last as a piñata for some indigenous motorcycle gang. Oddly, there was this classic chrome diner smack dab in the middle of this urban back country. It had an “Irradiated Burgers” neon sign in its window. I’d never heard of any such a thing. And although the word rang unpleasant and even dangerous to my ears, I had to assume “irradiating” a burger was somehow a positive. Otherwise, why have a neon sign broadcasting it? But then again, I was lost in the Providence equivalent of Yucca Flat. Perhaps the apocalypse had occurred, or maybe I crossed over into a parallel universe when I missed that key turn.

After fifteen minutes or so of vainly driving through industrial badlands brimming with unsavory characters throwing me unsavory glances, I simultaneously spied a giant termite and heaved a huge sigh of relief. While this may sound like a scene from a bad science fiction movie, this big bug, a motorist landmark, sits atop an exterminator business that has long caressed this stretch of highway. I knew then I was close to where I wanted to be—out of harm's way, on the road leading to home, sweet home, and, happily, in a familiar dimension.

Irradiating hamburgers, by the way, kills the two most common foodborne bacteria: E. coli and Salmonella. But for some strange reason this process hasn't taken the country by storm beyond one health-conscious little diner both somewhere and nowhere in Rhode Island.

The Ongoing Borders Wars

As a youth, it was always a neat treat to call on Brentano’s on Fifth Avenue near Rockefeller Center. In the 1970s, it was the biggest bookstore in town with 31,000 square feet of space and more than 250,000 titles in stock. Founded in New York City, circa 1853, it had by then become part of the Borders Group, which operated various bookstores across the country under various names but none, as of yet, known as “Borders.”

When a larger Barnes & Noble store, with even more books to peddle, opened nearby in the 1980s—and in a lot of other places, too—Brentano’s fell by wayside. Such is the nature of dog-eat-dog business. Excuse the mixed metaphor here, but the bigger fish came to town and gobbled up the smaller fish, including a pretty big little fish like Brentano’s with its twisting wooden staircase—where patrons would sometimes plop down and peruse the merchandise—knowledgeable, customer-oriented staff, and pleasing ambiance. No, there weren't any La-Z-Boys on the premises.

Fast forward a quarter of a century and many more book superstores have opened up in the interim—in Manhattan and elsewhere—including numerous Borders stores, which I always liked courtesy of their low ceilings, library-like shelving, and—it seemed to me—greater likelihood of having oddball and otherwise hard-to-find titles for sale. But during that very same time frame, superstores have also been closing, particularly of late. And with the recent announcement that all Borders stores will shut down, the bookstore graveyard grows considerably larger.

Ironically, these bookstore giants that drove countless independents out of business have already seen their best days. A personal favorite of mine, the multi-storied, 60,000 square foot Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center on Broadway, closed its door for good in January. There are just not big enough profit margins to be realized in book selling anymore in sprawling spaces commanding humongous rents. The stiff competition from online retailers and increasing popularity of e-books compounds this bleak picture.

And just when I was getting accustomed to having all these stores around—great places for both consumers to forage far afield and for working writers to reach an audience. Poof. I shake, shiver, and shudder at what the next twenty-five years will do to books, brick-and-mortar bookstores, and writing opportunities. But then again…when one door closes....

Greg Quigley's Cautionary Tale

I worked alongside a man named Greg Quigley for several years in the 1990s. We became friends. He was in his early forties when we first met. I was ten years younger. Greg was attempting to right his life ship, which had been blown off course by a series of unfortunate events.

The man made decent money, dated his fair share of women, and appeared to have a bright future in the immediate years after graduating from college. He even asked the love of his life to marry him. She didn’t think he was ready for such a commitment and said no. She probably was right.

As his mother lay dying in a hospital, Greg wouldn’t leave her bedside and faithfully kept all-night vigils for days that turned into weeks. He told me that he didn’t want her to wake up in the middle of the night with no one around to comfort her. His married older brother, Michael, and married younger sister, Meg, were too busy with their own families for such dedication. When Mrs. Quigley passed away, Greg moved back into his boyhood home in the Little Neck neighborhood in Queens to care for his widowed father, who had a bad heart condition. It was the beginning of his descent.

The move was expected to be a temporary thing, but his ailing father clung to life for more than ten years, even after suffering a crippling stroke. Greg was regularly spotted in the area pushing his dad around in a wheelchair—a man with whom he had never gotten along. His brother, who lived nearby, rarely pitched in. His siblings viewed Greg as a nonentity; a middle-aged bachelor who didn’t have a life worth fretting over.

Greg was deeply depressed by the time his father passed away. The family home had been willed to him, so at least he would have some money coming to him when it was sold, and a roof over his head in the interim. However, his brother asked that Greg sign the property over to him. His family could move right into the old Quigley family house. What would a single guy do with such a big house anyway? And why sell it to a stranger when it could be kept in the family? Compliant, Greg gave the house to his sibling and got nothing in return. Despite being downcast and downtrodden, he rented an apartment and attempted to move on with his life.

When I got to know him, Greg was of much sounder mind. He had emerged from the doldrums and fully realized that his big brother had taken advantage of him at a very vulnerable point in his life. But that was ancient history, he said. He had made peace with that life episode. Greg worked by day and attended law school by night. On the surface, he was a living and breathing example of the possibilities of redemption. Seemingly, he was picking up the pieces and beginning again.

Greg once said to me: “I know that I have to get past all of that stuff. I’m forty years old now. I’m responsible for my actions. But just realizing it and saying it doesn’t make me a different person. I am who I am because of my parents and how I was raised.”

Greg passed the New York State bar exam on his second try. His future looked far more promising than his recent past. But, paradoxically, he made almost no effort to find a job in the law profession. A former professor of his—and regular customer at the retail shop where Greg labored to pay his bills—offered to help him get a foot in the door. Fast forward a couple of years and Greg was working a new job all right, but not with a law firm or even in the field. He was driving a cab for Ollie’s car service in Queens.

The very last time I spoke with him—which I didn’t know would be the last time—we talked about living alone and the prospect of dropping dead in our respective apartments. This was par for our conversation course. We laughed at the thought of our decomposing bodies reeking to high heaven and alerting the neighbors that something was rotten in the State of New York. It was mostly tongue-in-cheek banter, but Greg was absolutely serious when he painted a picture of—what was for him—his worst nightmare. He didn’t want to be found dead stark naked. When his time came, he hoped to be suitably attired and peacefully reclining in his bed or easy chair. He had this thing about dying with dignity. Even the notion of being found in his underwear disturbed him.

I can only surmise that Greg wanted a dignity in death that he didn’t have in life. He also worried that his vast collection of pornography would be discovered upon his death. He loathed the thought of his little sister, pushing forty and with kids of her own, cleaning out his apartment and unearthing the less than wholesome side of her big brother’s inner life. He wanted his niece and nephew to fondly remember their Uncle Greg as the man who took them to Mets’ games at Shea Stadium and to movies in Manhattan.

My final conversation with Greg occurred in June of 1998. He left me a “just called to say hello” message while I was away in early September. I didn’t return the call. I learned in late November that he had died. He had, in fact, been found dead in his apartment, and probably had been dead for a while before his body was discovered. By the time anybody outside of his immediate family got word of his passing, Greg was already in the ground. The full story of how he died, or what exactly was the cause of death, remains unknown.

Greg’s untimely end was a bona fide tragedy because he had exhibited undaunted courage and admirable determination in accomplishing what he did at his age and in his straits. He approached the finish line. But for reasons known only to him, he didn’t cross it. And now he’s dead, and I don’t how it happened or why it happened. I hope for his sake that he was appropriately dressed and composed when his body was found. At the very least, Greg deserved that.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Dangerous Pastime

Last week, a fan reached over a railing and tragically fell to his death in an attempt to catch a baseball thrown into the stands at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas. He hoped to catch it for his young son, who was sitting beside him. Yesterday, it seems yet another fan came very near tumbling over a railing to catch a baseball at the All-Star game’s Home Run Derby in Phoenix.

As a younger man, I occasionally attended Mets’ games at the dearly departed Shea Stadium. And, admittedly, I would have loved to return home with a game baseball as a souvenir. Never did though. In fact, I enjoyed nothing more than going to the games early for batting practice, when recurring cracks of the bat sent baseballs whizzing to and fro, some of which landed in unpopulated areas of seating. These baseballs coming to rest in Nowhere Land always initiated mad dashes, with fans sprinting from every direction to reach them.

I could never bring myself to compete in these frenzied ball chases. In its many incarnations, stadium baseball chasing has always had an Old West feel to it. During one memorable batting practice, a ball landed just a few feet to my younger brother’s right and settled under an unoccupied seat. There was nobody else nearby. But as he shimmied over and bent down to pick up the baseball, and assume lawful possession of it, a mob materialized seemingly out of nowhere. A cluster of fans after the same thing—and, believe me, it was every man for himself—quite literally jumped on top of him as he was grabbing hold of the baseball.

When the dust settled in this cartoonish scenario—of a pile of human bodies in pursuit of a couple of dollars worth of tightly wound leather, wool, and rubber—a bruiser-type had somehow managed to snatch the ball away in the melee. Oblivious to his crime—we were, after all, in the stadium jungle where the laws of civil society are suspended—he returned to his friends in a state of galootish ecstasy and received high-fives and boorish howls of commendation for a job well done.

There is something about catching a baseball—or even picking one off the ground—at the ballpark. But, really, I don’t think it was worth risking life and limb in pursuit of a batting-practice ball off the bat of Kelvin Chapman or Junior Ortiz in the mid-1980s. Nor, I daresay, is it worth risking life and limb for a Derek Jeter fair or foul ball a quarter of a century later.

Further Misadventures in the "World's Greatest Healthcare System"

Submitted for your approval: Yet another health care eye opener. A friend of mine, who owns and operates a small business with several retail stores and dozens of employees, recently informed me that offering comprehensive health insurance to his staff has become cost prohibitive. He said the price tag has climbed to more than $900 per month—over $11,000 annually—per person. This scenario from a pool plan offering considerable discounts to participating businesses. If an employee of his desires health insurance through the business, he or she will now have to pony up fifty percent of the tab.

That’s the long and short of it: Employees earning as little as $8, $9, and $10 per hour in many instances—$400 a week, let’s say, before taxes—will have to dole out $5,500 for their health insurance. In other words, it would take more than a week’s salary, every month, to pay for coverage. And as for anything resembling a family plan…well…fuggedaboutit.

Strange, though, but according to a New York Daily News story last week—headlined “Health Care Nightmare”—that $5,500 price is something of a bargain, albeit a Faustian one. The paper reported on the exorbitant costs to individuals purchasing health insurance in the free market servicing New York City and its surrounding topography. It seems the cheapest HMO plan in town is the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York with a monthly premium of $1,486 per individual/$4,284 per family. The remaining options are more expensive—and some dramatically so. At best, a man or woman living in New York City could buy a health insurance policy for $18,000 per year. The newspaper story also noted that ten years ago approximately 100,000 city residents purchased their own insurance. Today, that number stands at 13,335, which is not exactly surprising and not especially encouraging. In fact, a case could be made that something’s rotten in the City of New York, and in a whole lot of other places, too, under the stranglehold of the World’s Greatest Healthcare System.

The Case of the Missing Motivation

Once upon a time for a college composition course, I was asked to write about my most embarrassing moment. Ironically, I recounted the story of failing first-quarter sophomore English several years earlier in high school. I received a sixty-nine when my school’s passing grade was seventy. I chronicled how we were summoned, in alphabetical order, to the teacher’s desk for a pre-report card look-see at our grades.

If memory serves, I referred to the high school teacher’s “fat finger” pointing at a “fat and ugly sixty-nine,” which was underlined in red in his ledger book. I wrote something to the effect that I experienced the “fires of humiliation” right then and there, which, I suppose in hindsight, passed for college-clever writing. I opted not to recount the background story of this “most embarrassing moment” of mine. That is, how forty percent of the grade was based on books from our summer reading list that I—at least partially—did not read. Explaining in this brief writing assignment that I read lots of books, just not the ones required for school, was way too involved. That summer, I finished everything from Peter Benchley’s The Deep to John Dean’s Blind Ambition, a memoir about his life and crimes in the Nixon White House. In fact, the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old me read a spate of Watergate protagonists’ books in the late 1970s, but often neglected to read the likes of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage during summer vacations. Strange, I know.

Back to the college years and my freshman-year English professor, who elected to read selected essays aloud and offer commentary along the way. Courtesy of the potentially awkward subject matter, he protected each student author's anonymity. Still, I internally groaned when he chose my “Tale of the Shamed Sophomore," squirming to and fro as he read what I had written to the class. Outwardly, though, I remained poker-faced and maintained my secret. “I don’t know how you failed English writing sentences like this,” the professor intoned at one point, which was a welcome pat on my head that briefly assuaged my anxiety. But then suddenly, and without fair warning, he stumbled upon a grammatical faux pas of some sort—an egregious comma splice, I think. “Never…never…Nicholas!” he said. Caught up in what was a textbook teaching moment—and a rather sinuous alliteration—the essayist’s identity was revealed. I was the only “Nicholas” around. There was even a classmate of mine from the old high school on the scene. “Who’d you have?” he asked, underscoring yet another embarrassing moment for me to someday write about.

Subsequently, each one of us in this English class met privately with our professor, a truly esteemed educator and the school’s poet laureate. He talked about our individual essays and offered us helpful hints on how to refine our written communication skills. He told me that I had some real talent in this craft, but that there was a missing link. "It's the motivation,” he said. Proving how on target he was, I actually didn’t give his words all that much thought at the time. This, after all, would explain a whole lot of things in my misspent youth, including not reading required schoolbooks in high school and making countless careless errors in college essays. Nowadays, when I recall this private meeting with such a learned professor, I cannot help but rue the many mentoring moments I chose not to take advantage of, or missed entirely because I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Today, more than a quarter of a century later, and of a vastly different mindset, I would not only listen intently to what this former professor of mine had to say, but hunger for more and more.

Jumping the Shark...Again

Evidently, the New York City bureaucracy and its supreme leader are really and truly concerned about our health and wellness. The city fathers and mothers are currently on an anti-sugar binge, compelling vendors in municipal courthouses—most of whom are legally blind by the way—to promote healthier bottles of water over high-calorie beverages like soda pop and energy drinks. Small business owners are crying foul, claiming that this new edict will completely ruin them, or, at the very least, cause them to layoff employees because of lost revenues. Not surprisingly, their cries have fallen on deaf ears.

The city’s health department is now mandating that “soda machines,” as they were once affectionately known, maintain a maximum of just two options containing twenty-five calories or more. The remaining offerings in the machine—the vast majority—must consist of beverages with less than twenty-five calories. In addition, no drink can surpass twelve ounces, thus putting the kibosh on the sale of popular twenty-ounce sodas and their ample-sized brethren.

I cannot help but believe the city bureaucracy has jumped the shark on this one—yet again, which, I realize, nullifies this particular analogy—by championing plastic bottles of water above all else. Yes, I know, it’s all about making us svelter in the here and now and healthier over the long haul. But yet these excessively meddling civil servants don’t seem at all exorcised at the environmental waste involved in the mounds of plastic manufactured for a product that, typically, is no better than what comes out of our faucets.

For a government entity to involve itself in the minutia of what perfectly legal products—for people of all ages—can be sold in vending machines is surreal. If, for whatever reason, somebody in a city courthouse or city hospital is feeling a bit unglued, it seems to me that a mayor and bureaucracy should not have it within their powers to deny this thirsty individual and citizen a twenty-ounce Dr. Pepper, if that is what he or she desires in this free country of ours.

Old and New

I vaguely remember as a boy seeing a movie in the New Marble Hill theater in the old neighborhood. I’d hazard a guess it was sometime in the late 1960s, not too long before this historic movie house closed shop for good. My father, on the other hand, recalled numerous visits to the RKO Marble Hill—the old Marble Hill theater, as it were—in his new neighborhood during the late 1940s and 1950s. The place first opened its doors on the Bronx’s Broadway in 1917, when the area was positively pastoral, albeit with an elevated subway line running through it.

For the most part, my memories of this celebrated theater, with its ornate interior, are from the years after it had shut its doors. You see, its New Marble Hill theater marquee remained, looking increasingly old as the days, months, and years passed. As a matter of fact, it hung for decades as a decomposing relic and reminder of both the old and the new having seen better days and, too, having run out of time.

Actually, a daily Bingo game breathed new life—if you wish to call it that—back into the New Marble Hill theater for a spell. But it was almost sacrilege hearing people screaming “Bingo” in a crowded theater, especially one with such a rich history and magnificent tapestry. But then again, no grand theater—old or new—could make a go of it in that geographic locale anymore. So, I suppose a regular Bingo game was better than nothing at all there, for it, at the very least. permitted people to behold both the old and new Marble Hill theaters in one fell swoop. For Bingo players, it was also an opportunity to bathe in a bit of history, although I suspect that checking out the lavish ceiling above them took a back seat to listening for the cries of B-3, G-9, and O-17.

Fast forward to the present and the Bingo game is gone as well from this hallowed location. The old Marble Hill theater that became the new Marble Hill theater currently accommodates a series of retail businesses on street level. The marquee, which had become hideously dilapidated after the place’s closure and lengthy passage of time, is also gone with the wind in what is now known, in recognition of all that was, as Marble Hill Plaza. At last report, the interior theater and its distinctive architecture endure—unseen now by the public but survivors of years and years of outright neglect and, too, Bingo.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Not Going Home Again...This '70s Blog...

As a callow youth in the glorious 1970s, planet Earth was an incredibly warm and reassuring orb—pure as the driven snow—and the old neighborhood I grew up in a veritable Shangri-La. Wasn’t it? Regarding the latter at least, that’s the recurring sentiment I encounter on an Internet site devoted to sharing one’s memories of the good old days in the good old stomping grounds. In fact, one former resident of this paradise lost posts what he considers “Exhibit A” photos of this formerly pristine neighborhood of ours turned completely rotten and downright scary in its maturer incarnation. A snapshot features a familiar homeless man hanging around a familiar bank. There were never, ever any unfortunate—and in some cases very unsavory—souls on the streets back in the day. Hey, wait just a second here—I believe there were. I could even identify a few by their neighborhood handles, but I won't just now. Further accounts from the 2011 dark side—of visible drug-use and its associated crime—abound in these virtual tête-à-têtes that often paint a portrait of growing up thirty and forty years ago in the Bronx equivalent of Walnut Grove.

I’ll happily concede to fondly remembering the old place in the old days—it was a simpler time, lost forever, on numerous fronts—but both the 1970s neighborhood milieu and life in the big city were anything but clean, safe, and orderly. For starters, the subways were none of the above. They were covered in an unsightly fusion of grime and graffiti back then, much more dangerous, and considerably more unreliable than they are today.

While venturing downtown with an older sister to see the film Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Beatty, in the summer of 1978, a woman was robbed at gunpoint—on the Number 1 train, in the middle of the afternoon, at the rather busy Lincoln Center station. And there wasn't a police officer in eyeshot or earshot to come to her aid. A fiscal crisis had seen to that. Please forgive my cowardice in this instance, but being at once unarmed and fifteen-years-old, I just couldn’t summon the courage to chase after a guy brandishing both a handgun and a lady’s handbag. That very same summer, a neighbor was shot at through his car windshield in the front of his house in the wee small hours of the morning. He ducked in the nick of time in what was, very fortunately, a failed robbery attempt. A few months later, the family next door was ransacked of all their valuable jewelry. Apartments and garages were regularly robbed, too, of their TVs, toasters, and bicycles. Oh, and the area’s parks were in visible decay and pretty seedy.

While I revere the good old days, frequently traffic in nostalgia, and pine for the simpler days every time I cross paths with some oblivious, rude, and silly fool yakking on a cell phone (which is daily), I fully appreciate that you can’t go home again—even if you still live in the same geographical locale. So why bother trying? As Billy Joel sang so eloquently once upon a time: "The good old day weren't always good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems."

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)