Fifty-Six Years of Summer

(Originally published on 8/3/19)

Yesterday was the fortieth anniversary of Thurman Munson’s death. I wasn’t a Yankee fan—quite the opposite as a matter of fact—but it was nevertheless a real shocker and very sad day. I remember where I was—in Lavallette, New Jersey on a family vacation—when I first heard the news. My father—a Yankee fan extraordinaire from way back—was listening to a game on the radio. Sipping from a can of Schaefer Beer, he was stunned and said not a word. Munson was a hard-nosed baseball player from the old school—you don’t see his likes anymore. From my youthful perspective, baseball in the 1970s was the game’s heyday. It seemed that the summers were defined by baseball—not just the professional game, but the amateur kind as well that so many of us played in various incarnations and in various places.

Presently, I’m in the midst of a 1969 “Miracle Mets” fiftieth anniversary read-a-thon. Perfectly timed for a memoir onslaught, I’ve finished retrospectives by Art Shamsky and Ron Swoboda. Right now, I’m plowing through one by utility player Rod Gaspar, whose baseball career didn’t amount to much, but whose name will be forever linked with the Amazing Mets and history itself. I’ve got one more book in the bullpen, too: They Said It Couldn’t Be Done by sportswriter Wayne Coffey. Its subtitle: “The ’69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History.”

Now, I was several weeks shy of my seventh birthday when the Mets realized that miracle in full on October 16, 1969. Soon after, I officially broke from family tradition—and most of my Bronx neighbor baseball fans—by declaring allegiance to the Mets. I don't actually remember choosing sides like I did, but I do know that in the spring of 1970 I was watching Mets' games on the family's black-and-white television set and listening to games on a radio, a gift from my godmother for my "First Holy Communion." I wanted it solely to listen to Mets' games, which totally Metsmerized me. And most of the players from the 1969 team were on that team!

Oddly enough, I do recall being in Bangor, Pennsylvania—the home of my maternal grandparents—at some point during the 1969 World Series. (That's First Street in Bangor, circa 1985, in the picture above.) We were visiting friends of my mother and a game was on television. I subsequently learned that my father lost a forty-dollar bet on the series. And that was a lot of money back then and a big deal for a family scrimping by! Of course, he bet against the Mets. My father hated the Mets with a passion just because they were the cross-town rival Mets and I would—in due time—come to hate the Yankees with equal disdain because they were the cross-town rival Yankees. And I think for other reasons, but that's another story.

As previously noted, baseball was so ingrained in our lives during those summers. On so many levels, it shaped our days and nights. It forged relationships and repeatedly tested one's fidelity. At the tenth anniversary of the 1969 World Champion Mets, the 1979 team was in last place and—when all was said and done—attendance at Shea Stadium plummeted by two million. That’s a rather precipitous fall in a very short period of time. But I remained loyal to the losers because I believed that being a fan was akin to being in a marriage—in good times and in bad—and that better days were on the horizon.

I’ve now lived through fifty-six summers. So much has changed, which is not unexpected. The game of baseball is a shadow of its former self—albeit an expensive, showy one with five-inning starting pitchers and home run hitters, who strikeout over two hundred times, making tens of millions of dollars. The cork in baseballs has been replaced by a super ball. Like countless players of his time, Rod Gaspar sampled a taste of the big leagues but was out of the game in a few years. In those days, the window of opportunity was a fleeting one for those fighting for the finite jobs. And, as things turned out, most of those guys had to find real jobs in the real world after their baseball careers.

And so goes another summer. Some of my earliest memories of this season are of fun and games —from wiffle ball to stickball to box baseball—on the concrete and asphalt of our home turf. When I was very young, a “victory garden” across the street supplied me with a portal into a past that—I didn’t realize then—would soon only be a memory. When the Mets won the World Series in 1969, the garden endured, but its days were numbered. There were a whole lot of insects around my part of the Bronx back then—lots of bees, butterflies, and ladybugs. Fifty summers later and their numbers—for a whole host of reasons—are drastically diminished.

During my first couple of summers on both Planet Earth and in the Bronx, John F. Kennedy was president. He promised that America would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. In the summer of 1969—during that miraculous baseball season—Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon. My mother hung a homemade paper banner outside that read “Congratulations to Neil, Buzz, and Mike,” the astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. This woman who always put up such things on special occasions so fascinated the local rabbi’s wife. I’m not certain what else Mrs. Turk was referring to, but she was definitely a fan. Many summers have passed and miraculous things don't happen anymore. Not that anyone would notice anyway as they blankly stare into their devices, thumbing and thumbing and thumbing while the summers pass them by.

(Photographs from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Catching the June Bug

Once upon a time, the month of June stood out from the pack. It embodied so much: long days, the school year's end, backyard barbecues, baseball in its many incarnations, and imminent summer vacations in exotic locales like the Jersey Shore and the North Fork of Long Island. Thirty years ago in June, I regularly attended a poetry open mic at a now defunct establishment called Sidekicks Café. A poet named Ron—who was especially good and the exception to the rule—recited his original verse in a soothing Southern accent, a muted cadence not typically heard in the Bronx. One poem of his repeatedly referenced the “June bug.” It was quite evocative as I recall. Brought to life was this awkward insect wandering the night, careening its way toward a light source, while rowdily crashing into countless windows and screen doors in the process.

In the beetle family, the June bug was not a sight for sore eyes. Contrarily, its nighttime companion, the lightning bug, was a welcome summer visitor. Flashing on and off as the fledgling summer days of June turned dark, few insects could compete with that light show. Meanwhile, the June bug might just as easily bump into your head as a window or screen door. I don’t imagine the creature was dangerous—not a carrier of malaria or sporting a lethal stinger—but it was gross nonetheless. Come to think of it: While the lightning bugs were impressive visuals on warm summer nights, human contact was not recommended. Their inevitable calling cards: a nasty, lingering odor not easily scrubbed away. And, too, in the bright light of day, they were rather unsightly.

June was the ultimate anticipatory month, a time to get the summer ball rolling. We had the June bug, as it were, and it impacted all ages—from those of us who waited patiently for the Good Humor man to make his daily evening rounds to the adult set who commenced with their nightly stoop sitting. Stoop sitting was an urban art form for generations. It’s still practiced to some degree, but not as extensively as when I was a boy. It supplied the ideal setting for neighborhood gossip, the perfect stopover for passersby, and furnished a ringside seat for the unexpected. Like the time a new neighbor and homeowner was seen chasing his sister down the street while uttering an extended string of profanities. I wonder what that was all about. Footnote: The man lived in the same house for fifty years before passing away last year. I don’t know whatever became of his sister, if she inherited his property, or if she's even among the living.

Just as Good Humor retired its fleet of trucks and became exclusively a supermarket brand, so many of those who caught the June bug along with me have gone the way of a funeral parlor’s laminated prayer card. It’s fair to say that I’m not quite as enamored with June as I once was. Still, the June bug lives on in nature and in many memories as well. I’ll have a grape-lemon-flavored Bon Joy Swirl please.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

 

Good Humor and Bad Humor in the Summertime

(Originally published on 7/21/17)

It’s officially a heat wave here in New York City—several days in a row of ninety-plus degree temperatures—and I don’t like it. I realize that I romanticize the summertime of my youth every now and then—outdoors much of the time and playing the games that little people played for generations, which, by the way, they don’t play anymore. But even as a spry and callow boy, the one-two punch of summer’s heat and humidity was never something desired and rarely, if ever, appreciated. My father’s mantra was that it—the discomforting clamminess and unhealthy air quality—was all in our heads. He didn’t realize it then, but he was a Buddhist at heart. Mind over matter.

Growing up in a seven-person household on the top floor of a three-family house with no air conditioning in the summer months was—in retrospect—pretty brutal. In the 1960s and 1970s, we experienced recurring electrical brownouts as well. During the high-consumption months of July and August, utility Con Edison’s answer to avoiding total blackouts was a brownout. The lights would flicker on the warmest nights, which was no big deal. But brownouts were especially unforgiving when it came to ice cubes. Heat, humidity, and half-frozen ice cubes with a foul taste were a familiar summertime threesome. On some of the cruelest of summer eves, an ice-cold drink wasn’t even an option.

Nevertheless, those were the days. Regardless of the temperature or relative humidity of a summer’s day, stoop sitting was a hallowed evening ritual, as well as—for a spell of time—a Good Humor truck passing by. This daily happening provided a brief respite from the heat, particularly if something icy was purchased like a watery, cola-flavored Italian ice, lemon-grape rocket pop, or lemon-grape Bon-Joy swirl. Lemon-grape was a winning combination.

First there was Larry the Good Humor Man, who drove the classic little truck that required him to step outside and pluck the ice cream from its back-of-the-cab freezer. And then there was Rod the Good Humor Man, who conducted business in a stand-inside truck. Apparently, Rod lived in the neighborhood. He would see us playing during the Good Humor off-season—parts of fall, spring, and the entire winter. So he said. Concentrating on grocery sales alone, Good Humor sold off its fleet of trucks in 1976. And that was the end of that! I see the present owners of the brand recently resurrected the ice cream truck and—along with it—the ice cream man and woman. I suspect they are stationed at parks and such, where ice cream vendors are still spotted. But chumming for business on neighborhood side streets? I doubt it. If a Good Humor Man materialized around these parts, he would find few kids playing outside in the hottest of weather. And as for off-duty sightings during the winter months—fuggeaboutit!

Epilogue: Larry the Good Humor Man was last seen driving a New York City yellow cab. Oh, but that was more than forty years ago. And Rod the Good Humor Man suffered a heart attack in the mid-1970s and lived to tell. I don’t know how or why I know that. I guess Rod told us at some point. Oh, but that, too, was more than four decades ago. Larry, as I recall, was on the younger side as a Good Humor Man, so he might still be among the living, but he would be pushing eighty by now. If he’s still extant, I hope he’s in good humor. Rod, I fear, is more likely among the angels. With any luck, he’s ringing the celestial equivalent of his Good Humor truck bells, an inviting sound for countless living and dead souls who bought ice cream on steamy New York City nights a long time ago.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Freddie McFlicker

(Originally published on 4/10/18)

This essay is a reprise from a year ago. And during this revolution around the Sun, Freddie went missing for a spell. I eventually spied him looking quite thin and jelly-legged—almost unrecognizable. A major medical moment, I surmised. Now Freddie's disappeared once more and I wonder if I'll ever see him again. I miss him. Life in a breadcrumb.)

There’s this little patch of land that’s considered part of Van Cortlandt Park. In fact, it’s called “Van Cortlandt’s Tail” because it’s at the park’s far end—or beginning from where I sit. And speaking of sitting, this tail section of the park is a circle—or a horseshoe might be more apt—of benches. That’s pretty much it. Sure, it’s got a tall evergreen in its center, which is decorated every Christmas. And right now it’s festooned with tulips and past-their-prime daffodils.

It’s a piece of earth—well, asphalt mostly—that I passed by regularly for decades. Since I was a boy as a matter of fact. It was a place that I couldn’t conceive of ever hanging out in—for any reason. There was no conceivable need. Why would I want to sit on a bench that overlooks the El and the noisy Number 1 trains repeatedly coming home to port and heading out on their Manhattan-bound returns.

Life, though, is full of surprises. Nowadays, I find myself in Van Cortlandt’s Tail quite frequently to rest my weary bones. I find the coming-and-going of earsplitting trains almost soothing. It’s the urban equivalent, I guess, of going down to the harbor and watching the boats come in and out. 

Several blocks south of the tail is another small snippet of land with New York City park designation. When all of us were growing up—in the non-politically correct, freer 1970s—it was known as the “Bum Park.” Not nice—yes—but suffice it to say the place attracted some unsavory characters, many of whom were down on their luck.

Van Cortandt’s Tail is not quite the Bum Park North, but it hosts its fair share of characters, including a man I have not-so-affectionately dubbed Freddie McFlicker. I see him regularly roaming the area, sometimes eating a sandwich and other times with a small bag of bread scraps to feed the birds. But there is something very dark about old Freddie. He flicks one crumb at a time and watches—with sadistic delight no doubt—the birds battle over it. He lives in a nearby building, I think, and my detective work surmises that he is unmarried and has abused alcohol at one time or another. He wears an angry face and doesn’t fraternize with anyone but the birds.

Strangely, I’ve come to despise the mere sight of him. All of us, I suspect, have a Freddie McFlicker or two or three in our lives. The bird feeding bit speaks volumes to me. I’ve also noticed that he has a preferred bench. It’s where, coincidentally, I like sitting. The bench is at the beginning of the tail, so you’re never surrounded by people and a quick, unobtrusive exit is always possible.

Well, today, I was sitting on Freddie’s bench—the only one in the whole tail until Freddie in the flesh appeared. There were dozens of empty benches to choose from. But what does Freddie do? He sits on the one right beside me and commences eating his lunch. I could feel hostility in the air. I wanted to get up right away in protest—in disgust—but decided I couldn’t let Freddie McFlicker win this round. So, I stayed for a bit and finally exited the tail, leaving sneering old Freddie alone with his half-eaten sandwich and maybe a few crumbs to be flicked to the birds. He muttered something as I left, but I don’t know if it was meant for me or his feathered friends.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

A Spring in My Step

(Originally published 4/16/19)

To give or not to give—that is the question?  I give a dollar or two—and occasionally more—to many of the panhandlers I encounter in my travels. Anyone, though, with a political or race-charged rant is out of luck. Honestly, it would be impossible to give to all—or even most—considering the staggering numbers of them on the unforgiving city streets and in the dusty recesses of the subway system.

                       

There are some folks I know who just say no—period and end of story. It’s like a religion to them. They claim that such generosity does more harm than good. God forbid the recipients buy booze or some illegal substance with their windfalls. And that may, in fact, occur in a fair share of instances. So what if it does? I give with no strings attached. There’s this one rather sanctimonious fellow in my life circle who claims he only gives money to the men and women who don’t ask for it. This guy’s a political liberal. On the other end of the political spectrum, of course, there are the conservative-minded who absolutely believe that those on hard times need only to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and find employment.

I had all of this on my mind and more as I ascended the staircase of the Van Cortlandt Park subway terminal this past Saturday. A figure whom I'd seen before loomed large at its apex. He wasn’t New York City transit’s equivalent of a Wal-Mart greeter. No, the man was looking for a handout. I gave him two dollars and he replied, “You made my day!” I really hope I did. And I don’t care how he spent the money. Shortly thereafter on the platform proper, I spied this elderly woman—whom I’d also spotted before—rifling through the trash cans. She, though, never asks for money. It’s a very sorry spectacle but par for the course in that milieu. On the train a little while later was that lady with the empty mayonnaise jar. Her shtick never varies: HIV-positive, infant daughter, and no food in the refrigerator until payday, which is invariably two weeks away. I can't say for certain that her talking points would pass a fact check. But permit me to borrow from Oprah here: What I know for sure is that her getting a job is not possible and, too, wouldn’t likely solve her myriad problems.

Later, I encountered a woman sitting in a sea of rags, bags, and newspapers on a sidewalk in the environs of Penn Station. She was getting up there in the years and quite filthy. “I know…that’s right…look at me…I’m disgusting!” she bellowed to uncomfortable passersby. I wondered if that acquaintance of mine with the policy of giving to those who don’t ask for money would have given this old lady some. She didn’t ask for any.

On my train ride home, a young woman delivered a spiel that mentioned—among other things—an urgent need to purchase sanitary napkins. I tuned out of the further particulars and gave her two dollars. She returned later in the trip and repeated the same rather disjointed appeal, sanitary napkins and all. The gal also spoke directly to a passenger whom I naturally assumed was having the bite put on him. So, I was genuinely surprised to see the two of them leave the train together. Were they a grifting duo? Whatever...playing judge, jury, and executioner in these circumstances is not for me. Now, on to more benign encounters and observations from the weekend and week that was.

Seated on a bench opposite this stand, a woman mistook me for the fruit-and-vegetable vendor. She must not be from New York, I thought. Maybe forty years ago...

"Look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Superman."

I've noticed increasing numbers of iron fences around sidewalk flower beds. Take my word for it, there's a three-sided fence around this one. Without them they would be poop decks for sure. 

And tiptoe though the tulips with me...  

There's graffiti and there's this. One is bad and the other is good.

It's impossible to walk the streets of Manhattan without encountering the latest casualty of a greedy landlord. Say it ain't so: Cafe Water is no more.

There is the Narcissus that I can't get enough of and the Narcissist that I wish would vanish altogether.

One hundred years ago at this very spot stood an El and a lot of wide-open spaces.

The ravages of time: The El endures; the wide-open spaces do not.

New York City politicians are considering banning single-use plastics, which wouldn't be such a bad thing. Trees may flower in spring around here, but they are adorned with plastics all year long.

I have to say that of these three businesses, my vote goes to the Great Wall for the best name.

I noticed on Facebook this week complaints about New York City planting trees that uproot sidewalks, which, in turn, compel both homeowners and business owners to repair them and pay for the work. While I'm not a fan of bureaucratic overreach, I'm glad the aforementioned owners don't have the power to chop down sidewalk trees at will. If they could, I fear we would be living in an absolute concrete and asphalt jungle.

Hey, fella, you don't know what you're missing. 

Something to always remember: There is always light in the middle of the tunnel.

I observed a group of tourists for a spell. One fellow in the mix was hopelessly lost in his smartphone the entire time. I wanted to say: "Stop! Look around! What's the point of coming here if you don't!" 

And, while you're at it, look out for Number One.

When I was a youth, New York City's garbage was largely consigned to landfills located in New York City. There was one in the East Bronx. Now they are all closed and it's garbage in and garbage out.

To end on a positive note: While they are a dying breed for sure in these parts, there are still some good diners around. You just have to know where to look.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Scent of a Postman

(Originally published 3-14-14)

In the late-1970s and early-1980s, the Nigro family's local mail carrier was a fellow named Louie. Never without a cigar in his mouth as he made his appointed rounds, he was a memorable postman from a bygone era. His cigar was his calling card and how we—fortunate enough to be among his route—knew that the day’s mail had arrived.

In fact, our front door was typically unlocked during the waking hours, and Louie would enter the hallway leading to the upstairs apartment and place the mail on a bottom step. In his wake was always that distinctive cigar bouquet. Occasionally, he’d ask to use the toilet. Our family dog, Ginger, didn’t care much for company of any kind, especially mailmen, but Louie’s fearlessness won the day. As he delivered the mail, he could regularly be heard exclaiming, “Shut up!” to the loudly barking Ginger. Eventually, Ginger accepted Louie’s familiar cigar wafts and cries of “Shut up!” as par for the course. Louie the mailman was not an unwelcome intruder after all and received a tepid wag of the tail from her as he made his presence known.

Recently, I thought about Louie and our past open-door policy. The late-1970s were a high crime time in New York City, my Bronx neighborhood included. Yet, vestiges of the mentality from a more neighborly past endured. As a little kid, I don’t ever remember using a key, because the door was always open. Neither Louie nor I needed one.

Back in the Louie the Mailman era, nobody could ever have envisioned the post office would one day be on the rocks. It seemed that post offices and mail carriers were eternal, and that generation after generation would covet taking the post office test for a job with security and good benefits. It’s where my father plied his trade for a quarter of a century. But this tax season revealed once more why Louie and his vaunted employer face uncertain times. While I still mail paper tax returns to the IRS, I didn't get the tax package in the mail, which once upon a time was the norm for everybody. Courtesy of technology, there's so much lost postal business in too many places to count. I fear the scent of a cigar-chomping postman may one day be only a scent memory. Fortunately, Louie retired to Florida in the early-1980s when the going was still good. I'm sure he's delivering mail now—with his old aplomb and cigar in hand—somewhere beyond the Pearly Gates. 

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Getting to Second Base

I just had a neighbor pretend not to see me and cross a street he wouldn’t otherwise cross to avoid an encounter. Sometimes the man likes to gab; sometimes he doesn’t. I kind of felt dissed, but then I do the same thing from time to time and have done it to him on more than one occasion. I also witnessed New York’s Finest flag down a GrubHub delivery guy on a motorized scooter. I overheard two officers asking him if he had the vehicle’s title. The answer was no, apparently, and his wheels were confiscated on the spot. One copper hopped on the thing and made a beeline to the precinct just down the block. The obvious loser here: the GrubHub customer awaiting his breakfast.

It’s rather insane in these parts with all the electric bicycles and scooter variations buzzing—entirely too fast—in the streets and on the sidewalks. It’s common knowledge that many of these contraptions are unregistered and illegal. Part and parcel of the times we live in, I guess.

While on the subject of the not especially uplifting here and now: Major League Baseball inaugurated another season this past week. Does anybody really care anymore? Once upon a time on opening day, April 6, 1973, the New York Mets and Tom Seaver bested the Philadelphia Phillies and Steve Carlton at Shea Stadium. Tug McGraw got the save in a 3-0 victory. I recall watching the game on WOR-TV, Channel 9. Left fielder Cleon Jones hit two home runs that day and went three for three, collecting sixty percent of the team’s hits. On the must-watch post-game show, Kiner’s Korner, venerable broadcaster Ralph Kiner asked the man of the hour if he ever recalled hitting two home runs on opening day. Cleon wasn’t a prolific home run hitter, never hitting more than fourteen in a season, so I thought the question silly—and I was only ten years old. The opening day hero nonetheless answered, “I don’t remember hitting two home runs in any game!” Questionable questions and malaprops were all part of Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner’s charm. And, by the way, the game was played in under two hours. Imagine that!

So, here I am almost fifty years later. I could never have envisioned then what the game would be like now—it’s decidedly worse on countless fronts. Putting a man on second base to commence extra innings is beyond absurd. It’s not baseball. The Academy Awards is likewise a mere shadow of its former self. The Will Smith slap heard round the world was the icing on the cake, the nail in the coffin, as it were, of what once was something to behold—an event with star quality and winners based on merit, not some cockamamie identity-equity algorithm.

Recently, I read where a college professor was suspended for saying that people get offended too easily nowadays. Point made there. A poll found that sixty-five percent of college students are afraid to speak their minds on campus. Just sayin’: You might want to consider investing your money in something other than a higher education. There are protests in universities of symposiums on the First Amendment! Freedom of speech is controversial on campuses and a lot of other places as well—scary stuff. Staff at publishing houses are throwing in with censors, too. Former Vice President Mike Pence’s prospective memoir even generated controversy with Simon & Schuster employees petitioning to quash its publication, claiming that it made them feel unsafe or some such baloney. Pence was branded a bigot—how original. Personally, I would give the groveling sycophant the benefit of the doubt on that charge and just not buy his book. As for the all-too-common unsafe clamoring, it’s an over-used cudgel that the woke wield to suppress opinions with which they disagree. Honestly, I can’t believe that the mere notion of publishing Mike Pence’s book would make any rational adult shiver in his or her boots.

Then again, I wasn’t being taught substitute pronouns “ze” and “tree” for “him” and “her” in Mrs. Rothman’s kindergarten class. When I chance upon lists of alternative pronouns, I think of—for some strange reason—mortal Darrin Stephens’ unsuccessful attempt to cast a spell on his witch mother-in-law Endora: “Yaga Zuzi, Yaga Zuzi, Yagi Zuzi Zim.” But thank heavens it’s April and the snowperson in the yard is no longer frozen hard. Thus, I am free to dream of Cleon and zis two home runs in that simpler snapshot in time.

 

The Salamander Lot

(Originally published on 11/2/13)

Sometime in the early 1970s, I went salamander hunting. The place: the Bronx. It was not too far from where I lived but, as a boy, it seemed like something of a hike. This geographical reality made it more of an adventure, like we were going someplace faraway and unknown. Interestingly enough the salamanders collected their mail in tony Riverdale, which was the more pedigreed neighbor to the west of Kingsbridge, my hometown.

There were still a few vacant lots around in those days and, I don’t exactly know why, but this particular piece of earth had oodles of pinkish salamanders under its rocks. Those of us on this salamander hunt intended on keeping them as pets—our motives were pure—and we did. I don’t recall what they ate or how long they lived in the fish bowl that became their new home after the Salamander Lot, as we called it, but I don’t think very long.

Just about every piece of available earth has been built on in the old neighborhood, but not the Salamander Lot. It is an odd piece of ground—a steep hill as a matter of fact—perched directly above a parking lot of a tall building in the valley below. The Salamander Lot is not a very big slice of property, so I guess it would be difficult to erect a structure there. However, I’ve seen more unlikely spots developed.

I noticed, though, that there’s now a very tall fence surrounding the Salamander Lot. We wouldn’t have been able to get into it with that thing there—not at our ages as salamander hunters. But then I don’t think there are very many kids in the vicinity of the lot today who would be interested in salamander hunting, unless of course it was a game on their computers.

The question that I have long wondered is this: Do the salamanders still exist in that snippet of earth in Riverdale? Theoretically, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t still be there. I don’t think our hunting them down for pets was sufficient to do them in as a species in this neck of the woods. But why am I confident if I lifted up rocks in that very same piece of property, there would be no salamanders to be found. Like so many things, they existed in simpler times in the Bronx, I suspect, and opted to get out while the going was good.

The Case of the Missing Mud Whopper

(Originally published on 6/26/14)

While walking the streets of the Bronx’s Kingsbridge last Saturday—the summer solstice—something monumental jumped out at me. Something, that is, which isn’t around anymore. For many years now, I’ve noticed the precipitous decline of honeybees. When I was a boy, they were everywhere from front-stoop flowerpots to grassy stretches in the neighborhood's parks. Not so anymore, and the same could be said for bumblebees and other species of bees and wasps. There are obviously some around, but the buzz is not nearly as loud as in the not-too-distant past.

There was this peculiar-looking wasp—metallic blue in color—that always seemed to frequent a certain kind of weed in the bygone days of my youth. Their sharp blue color and fluid wing motion were very noticeable in the thickets of their favorite hunting grounds. Being wasps and all, they simultaneously frightened and intrigued me. I didn't want to be set upon by one, let's put it that way. They were definitely more interesting insects than their meaner-looking brown cousins, who always seemed to be on the warpath. Individuals who even mildly disturbed their routine were fair game. My friends and I called the blue wasps “Mud Whoppers.” Something, though, told me that in our youthful exuberance, we had, quite possibly, transposed a scientific name—or that we had given the insect a unique moniker made completely out of whole cloth. Kids can be creative in that way. But now—courtesy of the Internet—I found the answer to this nagging riddle when I Googled “blue wasps” and stumbled upon images of the “Mud Whoppers” from my past. They were not, in fact, called “Mud Whoppers” but instead “Mud Daubers”—close enough. And that explains a lot.

There were bees and wasps aplenty in my youth. Everybody got stung at one time or another. Small, bright yellow-and-black striped bees were sure to be in the vicinity of discarded soda cans in trash receptacles. I don’t see their kind anymore, either. More buildings and fewer empty spaces have no doubt been contributing factors to their demise around here. But when the wide-open spaces in the area’s parks aren’t teeming with bees and insects like in the past, it certainly gives one pause.

Success and the Shopkeeper...

(Originally published on 7/9/2011)

Several years ago—in the wrong place at the wrong time—I was in earshot of an elderly woman named Catherine as she ruminated on her life and times. Catherine was knocking on eighty and had raised three children—two sons and a daughter. In Catherine’s humble estimation, her daughter passed muster in the game of life. She married a good provider and supplied her mother with a healthy parcel of grandchildren. Her oldest son did all right, too. Straight out of college, he took a good job with good benefits, married, furnished mom with grandkids, and never looked back.

It was the middle child, Robbie, who didn’t quite live up to his mother’s expectations of the way things ought to be, despite having added to her ample brood of grandchildren. Robbie made more money than his two siblings combined—a lot more—but this didn’t earn him any extra credit as far as old mama was concerned, which was kind of strange. Money equals success from the perspectives of an awful lot of people, and Catherine was fixated on dollars and cents, even though her senior citizen savings were closing in on seven figures. Her husband had been both a good provider and a good investor, yet she still watered down the Hawaiian Punch in grave fear that she might one day end up in the poor house.

Robbie, in fact, made more dough than anybody on the family tree, which could be traced back to hardworking fishermen on the southern coast of Italy. In his mother’s worldview, Robbie’s unpardonable sin was that he made all of his moolah—millions—in a rather grungy retail environment. In other words, he didn’t wear a suit and tie to work every day, and didn’t have a benefits package bestowed on him by some benevolent corporate benefactor like GE, the Bank of America, or Proctor & Gamble. Catherine relished passing on up-to-the-minute employment reports on her relations—once, twice, and thrice removed, it didn’t matter. From where she sat, there was nothing that commanded more awe and respect than working for a “big company,” wearing neatly pressed dress clothes, and, of course, putting in very long hours for a familiar corporate master.

That her son founded a business on his own that eventually employed hundreds of people didn’t impress her in the least. Looking back on all that was, she wistfully remarked, “Robbie is content to be a shopkeeper.” And then added as a parenthetical aside: “He had a really good job, too, at Gimbel's when he got out of college. He could have gone places there had he stayed with them.” Upon graduation, Robbie had managed this Manhattan department store’s kitchen appliance section. He wore a suit and tie to work and—the icing on the cake from mama’s catbird seat—schlepped on the subway to the job day after day after day. It doesn’t get any better than that. “He could have gotten three weeks vacation had he stayed there for five years,” Catherine recalled almost four decades later. True, multi-millionaire Robbie could have one day become the CEO of Gimbel's—all things are possible, I suppose—just in time for the department store chain to declare bankruptcy and take all their generous employee benefit packages with them.

So, you must be wondering by now: What exactly is the meaning of this life parable? What exactly is the meaning of success? Well, I just don’t know. But Catherine apparently knew and, for starters—just starters—shopkeepers all were a bunch of losers.

The Very Strange Family and Joe Mullins, Too

(Originally published on 11/10/11)

While still in the throes of mourning a shuttered diner and the only bona fide sacred place I’ve ever known, I find it therapeutic to unearth memories from this formerly consecrated ground. Today, permit me to resurrect the "Very Strange Family" and a classic nine-to-five drunkard nicknamed "Joe Mullins," who were regular patrons of the diner. I’d venture to say the cross-section of human beings who ate here were a microcosm of the wider world, or—at the very least—the wider Bronx.

It’s hard to do justice with mere words to the Very Strange Family, who enjoyed repasts alongside me in the diner for several years. You really had to see them live and in color to appreciate their unique brand of weirdness. The Very Strange Family consisted of a husband and wife with a son, Peter, who could have been an older teenager, or maybe a young man in his twenties. His greasy demeanor and darting eyes, however, made establishing an approximate age problematic.

At some point in time, the Very Strange Family entered the diner with a bundle of joy—an infant and fledgling member of the brood. Perhaps the toddler’s mother was not Peter's. But, really, none of this minutia really mattered, because what bound the family together was their strangeness. Ma, Pa, and Peter seemed perpetually on edge. Their eyes were always flitting—up and down, back and forth—and they immediately sensed when foreign eyes were looking their way. The Very Strange Family jumped the shark for me when the woman of the house decided to change her newborn’s dirty diaper on a table a couple of booths away. Eventually, the amateur detective in me came to the conclusion they were either members of organized crime—low-level weaselly types operating on the fringes—or in a witness protection program and fearing members of the mob. It had to be one or the other.

Conversely, Joe Mullins was easy enough to figure out. He worked in some nine-to-five bureaucratic job. His credentials—the identification pass hanging around his neck—told us as much. And, each night, when he stepped off the Number 7 bus on his way home, he’d patronize the liquor store that was conveniently a stone’s throw away from the bus stop. Carrying that familiar black liquor store plastic bag, with the latticework insignia on it, Mullins would then cross the street and enter the diner.

A friend of mine is responsible for christening him “Joe Mullins”—that wasn’t his real name—because he just seemed like a “Joe Mullins” to him. From our vantage point, Mullins came across as a harmless sort. But as a rule, he was ill at ease as he laid down his bag full of spirits and ordered his supper, which always consisted of the most boring and basic kind of sandwiches. His whiskey bottles invariably made audible clanking sounds, prompting meaningful glances all around from staff to customers and from customers to staff. The hapless Mullins once ordered “a ham and white on a Swiss.” For some reason, the diner brass just didn’t warm to the man, even though he was a repeat customer—you could see it in their faces and sense it in their body language. In the best diner milieus—like in life itself—everything is visceral. While Joe Mullins was always unfailingly polite, even meek, instinctively he just never was accepted into the diner fraternity.

Love Versus Hate: Mets Versus Yankees

(Originally published 10/25/2010)

While I’ve long ceased following professional baseball, I nonetheless concede to deriving a fair measure of pleasure when the Mighty Yankees go down, as they did this past week. Is there some sort of abiding life lesson here? Perhaps hate is a far more powerful and enduring emotion than love—at least in the arena of irrational sports fanaticism.

Raised in a Bronx household with a rabid Yankee fan as its patriarch, I declared my independence from all that as a mere seven-year-old. I don’t quite know why I broke ranks at such a tender age, and why I started rooting for the Mets, but I did with a vengeance. And I quickly realized that it was one or the other—no namby-pamby straddling and allegiance to both New York teams was allowed. The very first games I attended were actually in the original House that Ruth Built—the one with the uncomfortable wooden seats painted blue and the view-obstructing, concrete poles holding the old stadium together. I recall being at a Bat Day giveaway against the expansion Seattle Pilots during their first and only season as a franchise. (The team moved to Milwaukee in 1970, but, very historically, supplied the colorful and immensely entertaining backdrop for pitcher Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, which is a great book by the way. Believe it or not, this tome of his was considered sacrilege for its time, steeped in controversy for violating the locker room’s longstanding omerta.)

I suspect it was my wide-eyed innocence that coaxed the very impressionable me to the Mets, a team in the midst of an ethereal glow. You know, the Miracle of 1969, which had nothing to do with the Blessed Mother appearing on a slice of burnt toast or any such thing. It was all about perennial losers winning the whole enchilada in crazy, unsettled times against the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles—amazing, amazing, amazing! David slays Goliath! And the fact that the Mets were televised a great deal more than the Yankees in those days of yore—on free TV, too, which was the only game in town—no doubt played a contributing and solidifying role in my declared allegiance. The battle lines were promptly drawn in the family, and with countless friends and neighbors as well—all fans of the corporate, highfalutin Yankees, despite the fact that they sucked lemons big time when I began my quarter of a century romance with their cross-town rivals.

But to get back to the love-versus-hate matter, and which of the two emotions emerge victorious in the end. I more or less lost interest in the game, and the team I loved with a passion since a boy, in the mid-1990s after a strike cancelled a World Series for the first time ever, and was still ongoing at the start of the next season. Along the way, ticket prices skyrocketed, and the players overtly, and rather dramatically and unapologetically, made greed and sheer disloyalty the hottest tickets in town. Then, of course, there were steroids, seventy-five home run seasons, and Barry Bonds breaking the great Hank Aaron’s record with both a literal head and ego the size of planet Jupiter.

I never consciously made the decision to turn in my fan card for all time. It occurred very gradually, with my fierce fan devotion waning with the passing years as the American pastime slowly but surely imploded. From my perspective, baseball once upon a time showcased a wholly unique ambiance with its slow and unfolding pace, strategy, and unpredictability. It was a game not held hostage by ticking clocks, flags, and annoying whistles—not to mention that there were many, many games on the schedule (162), with most of them played during the dog days of summertime, the best season of all for a kid.

But, ah, the question before us now is this: Why did my bowing out as an uber-fan not purge my simultaneous and heartfelt loathing for the Yankees? Granted, the wars were pretty bitter and intense back in the day between my beloved Mets and my father’s equally beloved Yankees. But that was ancient history. Or was it? I must confess that there’s still something about the Yankees, their fans, and that exasperating sense of entitlement that taps into that old hate. I may be a lapsed Met and former professional baseball fan—who’s gotten over the great love for his team and the sport—but hatred for the grisly opposition somehow never dies. 

Elegy for Alouishes...

(Originally published on 12/27/12)

English poet John Donne once wrote, “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” I have no doubt that his words—these many centuries later—have been enshrined in a well-circulated Facebook meme. Still, I would have to disagree with the erudite Donne. Yes, a handful of men's and women’s deaths diminish me. But honestly, most don’t—in any way, shape, or form—because I didn’t know them in any way, shape, or form. However, a case could be made that some people’s deaths actually enhance me…and the wider world, too. But that’s for another blog topic.

I can think of one man, though, whom I didn’t know very well, whose untimely passing has diminished me in some nebulous but nonetheless profound way. I learned of his demise just a few days ago. He was a ubiquitous and reassuring presence in my favorite diner for more than a decade. Initially, I thought diner personnel were calling him “Al,” and then it sounded to me like “Louie.” So, I compromised and dubbed the man “Alouishes"—not to be confused with "Aloysius." Alouishes worked his way up from busboy to counterman to waiter. His former boss lavished the ultimate praise on him when he said, “He was one of us,” meaning Alouishes ultimately did it all in the bustling diner milieu—a considerable accomplishment—and was as loyal and dependable as they come.

I was told that Alouishes never missed a scheduled workday in his fourteen years on the job, which didn’t surprise me. He was a comforting constant when I patronized this very special diner—almost always there. While the man was not especially proficient in English, he rarely erred and effortlessly communicated in the fast and furious diner universe. He had a certain knack—a sixth sense—for zeroing in on his customers from great distances. Alouishes would often times have coffee on the table before my diner companions and I even entered the place. That’s the kind of guy he was. He kept a vigilant eye on our cups, too, making sure they were never empty.

Alouishes became a welcome part of my life for a spell, and when my diner—the last of its kind— shut its doors a year ago, it was an end of an era for sure. However, I never imagined it would be end of a very good man. I learned this past week that Alousishes was approximately my age—too young to die just like that of a heart attack and stroke. Perhaps there’s a cautionary tale in all of this. Working seven days a week, long hours, and not attending to one’s health—and all those warning signs—is, maybe, not the best life course. Why not find that happy medium instead? R.I.P., Alouishes. Your death diminishes me…and so many others.

The Revenge of the Uncola

Almost a half century ago, a sixty-four-ounce glass bottle of 7up, the uncola, left its mark. It was Christmas 1973, when soda pop came in glass, not plastic, bottles and were measured in ounces, not liters. Anyway, if memory serves, my brothers and I were playing a game of Skittle-Bowl, a Christmas gift that year, and about to partake in a little holiday bubbly.

Before opening the 7up bottle, I recall, it accidentally dropped to the floor. For every action there is a reaction. Retrieved, the now agitated uncola erupted, ejecting its bottle cap with such force that it passed through a plastic hanging lamp shade above. It left a jagged hole in it on its way to the ceiling.

It was one of those what could have been moments in the family history. One of us could have lost an eye or suffered some other serious injury from the unleashed uncola. But no physical harm came to any human on the scene. And the hanging lamp endures to this day as a reminder of what once was.

I miss 1973. The family car was a used 1968 Buick Skylark. The Mets were the National League champions. Local Sam’s Pizza served up a greasy delight back then when only whole pies were put in boxes, which were tied with string. Four oozing slices in a small paper bag was a sight to behold. My father called the place the “grease shop,” but the grease was—depending on the age of the pizza—a maker or breaker. There was good grease and bad grease, let’s put it that way.

There was a great bakery in the neighborhood, too: Shelvyn’s. Standout standalone bakeries are hard to come by nowadays in these parts. Supermarkets with their own bakery departments and changing tastes and times have seen to that. Once upon a time this otherworldly bakery on the main thoroughfare served up a cream donut the likes of which will never be sampled again. It was deep-fried, dense, and delicious. Not unlike the grease factor with pizza, the dense factor with donuts can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

I haven’t had 7up in quite a while. I wonder if it still tastes the way it did when Geoffrey Holder was the product’s TV pitchman and bottle caps passed through lampshades at warp speed. Probably not. For it was a simpler time when the Skylark, with my father behind the wheel, slid off an icy road into a ditch in the environs of Bangor, Pennsylvania, home of my maternal grandparents. A good Samaritan—a farmer in his tractor—got us back on course. That also was Christmastime 1973. A lot happened that week. It’s fair to say that then I wasn’t mulling over what life would be like in 2022.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)