Deathman, Do Not Follow Me

(Originally published 3/16/14)

In an eighth grade "Language Arts" course, my classmates and I were required to do a book report-oral presentation combo. We could select a book of our own choosing, but it had to be approved by our teacher, Ms. Hunt. We were permitted to pair up, too, and so my friend Manny and I opted to read a YA entitled Deathman, Do Not Follow Me by Jay Bennett. I don’t remember much about the book, except that I—as a thirteen-year-old—really liked it and a kid by the name of Danny Morgan was the main protagonist. He was daydreaming in history class at some point in the yarn and, if memory serves, Danny inadvertently got entangled with some shady sorts— art thieves, I think. 

Anyway, Manny and I made the equivalent of an abridged book-on-tape. We were trailblazers here. This would be the presentation part. Anything to avoid doing it live.  As fate would have it, we didn’t ever go public with the tape. The reason why escapes me, but it certainly redounded in our favor. For starters, nobody would have understood what was going on in the recording. And we flubbed our lines on occasion as well. In the role of narrator, Manny meant to say "art exhibition" but said "art expedition" instead.

What made me resurrect Deathman, Do Not Follow Me after all these years is a recent encounter I had with a passerby. I saw this man coming toward me who uncannily resembled someone I once knew—a fellow named Jerry, who has been dead for thirteen years. What hurtled through my mind as the distance that separated us narrowed—and he looked more and more, and not less and less, like Jerry—was: What if he said hello to me as if it was him? What if it was akin to the occasional meetings we experienced for so many years—we lived in the same neighborhood—where we would briefly chat about nothing especially important, like his desiring a move to Reno, Nevada, a "great walking town." After all, if he’s standing there as Jerry in the flesh and knows me by name, I couldn’t very well tell him that he’s deceased and that I attended both his wake and funeral mass. This potential scenario quite literally played in my brain in the several seconds leading up to us passing one another. He was a dead ringer for Jerry all right, but Jerry is still among the dead.

Had it been Jerry, what would I have done? Would I have turned around and gone home, presuming I had either lost my marbles or was still in bed dreaming? Or would have I continued running my errands, believing that maybe—just maybe—I’d entered the Twilight Zone—the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. You know the place between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. Afterwards, yes, I kind of wished it really was old Jerry that I spied on the street. Upon further reflection, though, I'm grateful that it wasn't and that I wasn't cast in a "Nothing in the Dark" remake with yours truly in the Gladys Cooper role.  

The "Usually" Suspects

(Originally published 4/6/11)

Sometime in the early 1970s, the progressive educator arrived in St. John’s grammar school. Gone were the venerable old report cards with the familiar grades of A, B, C, D, and the big fat F. In their stead were pabulum progress reports with non-grades, if you will, ranging from the best, “Progressing very well” to the middling, “Is progressing” to the worst, “Needs to put more effort.” Of course, I’ve assigned value judgments to these three classifications, which were not intended by their creators.

These new progress reports of ours also included a mother lode of categories within such traditional courses as English (called Language Arts) and History (known as Social Studies). To this day, I am at a loss for words as to what this one Language Arts category embodied: “Uses word attack skills.” I don’t ever recall the term being explained to us, but then I suspect that my teacher, salty old Sister Camillus, hadn't a clue, either.

Evidently, this noble experiment of employing the carrot and stick, and oh-so-gently importuning us to try harder, failed miserably. The As, Bs, Cs, and Ds soon returned, but not before our report cards—or whatever the heck they became—were full of 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s. If memory serves, 1 was the optimal grade (or non-grade) and 4 the bottom of the barrel. But once again, I’m employing value-charged adjectives here. I surmise the social experimenters reasoned we wouldn’t be as bowled over by a 4, or as boastful among our less fortunate friends with our straight 1s. We, however, took our “Needs to put more effort” check marks just as hard as Cs and Ds. And although mere children, we weren’t fooled for a second by the sleight-of-hand numbers game. Despite descriptions telling us otherwise, 1 signified an A to us; 2, a B; and so on and so forth.

I believe these social experiments absolutely jumped the shark in an area headlined Personal Development, which included "religion" and "social growth" under its umbrella. Here, even a tepid “Is progressing” was too loaded a term for the education engineers. The top mark one could achieve in this realm was “Usually”—a not only insipid grading word, in my opinion, but just plain wrong and a true injustice for an individual who always cooperated in work and play, accepted responsibility, etc. Among many lessons learned there, St. John's grammar school taught me the road to hell is paved with “Usuallys” and “Needs to put more efforts.”

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Mr. McMahon and Friends

Recently, I watched the six-part Netflix documentary Mr. McMahon. It was at once compelling and something of a slog. Add to the mix a cringeworthy element, a grossness, and— undeniably —there’s a story to tell here. My recollection of Vince McMahon, the documentary’s subject, was as a wrestling announcer in the 1970s, when—as kids—my older brother and I dutifully watched the sport on local TV station WOR, Channel 9.

McMahon excelled as a put-upon presence and straight-man foil for a colorful cast of bad guys: wrestlers and, in many instances, their bombastic managers. Witnessing the man get harangued by “Classy” Fred Blassie, Captain Lou Albano, and—my personal favorite—the Grand Wizard of Wrestling was a youthful thrill. Typically, the proteges of Blassie, Albano, and the Grand Wizard were “heels,” rotten to the core, and boo-worthy. Who can forget Nikolai Volkoff, the Wild Samoans, and Sergeant Slaughter?

Indeed, 1970s wrestling was engagingly benign. The good guys included a stellar cast: champion Bruno Sammartino, Haystacks Calhoun, and Chief Jay Strongbow, who—I just discovered—was an Italian American. But then, so was Iron Eyes Cody, who canoed through polluted waters throughout the 1970s, logging many miles and shedding many tears along the way.

I recall being surprised—twenty or so years later—to learn that Vince McMahon, the geek announcer from my boyhood, initially worked for his father, purchased the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) from him, and built—along with his wife—a mega-enterprise now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Adding his two cents throughout the documentary, McMahon absolutely established the fact that he was a business wunderkind and all-around sleaze as well. Also, the guy has had one too many face-lifts and sounds like he smokes ten packs a day—or is it a whiskey voice? In his final appearance in the mini-series, the empresario almost-seemed AI generated sporting a new Clark Gable mustache and dyed jet-black hair. The weirdness just kept on coming.

What amazed me most about the documentary, I think, was modern-day wrestling’s cult following and uber-popularity. WrestleMania has been big—really big—through the years. But it’s still scripted entertainment with a mishmash of realism thrown in, albeit of a more adult variety now than I experienced when Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter lived in the White House. The contrived feuds—and real ones—are just not my cup of tea, but countless others can’t get enough of the brew.

Mr. McMahon, the documentary title, is derivative of Mr. McMahon, the wrestler, a creation of Vince McMahon, who entered the ring in the late 1990s. All bulked up by then, he fought, among others, Donald Trump. The stakes: Loser gets his head shaved by the winner. Guess who won the match? Upon seeing clips of this nuttiness—par for the course in this milieu—it dawned on me that contemporary politics has devolved into an offshoot of the WWE: vulgar, no holds barred, with the blurring of fact versus fiction.

In this corner: Orange Crush, managed by Lindsey “Bats**t Crazy” Graham. And in that corner: Kamala, Queen of the Ciphers, managed by Chuck “the Schmuck” Schumer. Okay, now I understand. I get it. It’s not really real.

 

Mourning and Memories

(Originally published on 10/28/11)

While still mourning the loss of the only true holy ground I’ve known in this life—a very special and unique local diner—I couldn’t help but hark back to days past and the eatery's clientele who have left the neighborhood and, in many cases, this earthly plane as well.

In this culinary cathedral, my faithful dinner companions and I had nicknames for certain regulars—men and women whom we didn’t know by name but nonetheless needed to identify on occasion—and I suppose some of them had nicknames for us. And, if they did, more power to them! There was, for instance, the “Mean Old Man,” whom I saw collapse on a sidewalk not too far from the diner during a winter snowstorm. I don’t know what happened to him after that night, but I never saw him again in the diner, or walking the local streets. And whatever happened to those two old sisters who always dined together? At least I think they were sisters. The seasons changed but the pair never did. They were perpetually glum—winter, spring, summer, and fall. Thus, their richly earned “Glower Champions” moniker. When they suddenly vanished without so much as a goodbye, I surmised they had moved to Florida and warmer climes to run out the clock of their saturnine existence. Gone, yes, but not forgotten.

And then there was this fellow named Lenny. Here was an example of actually knowing the man’s real first name but running with a nickname instead. What always struck us about Lenny was that he never—ever—paid for his lunch or dinner. A little diner detective work on our parts concluded he had, perhaps, won a bet of some sort from the owner, who was not averse to gambling. This could at least explain the free meals. Apparently, though, there was nothing in the terms of the bet that compelled the diner owner to treat him civilly while he was collecting his winnings. And so, this middle-aged, hangdog bachelor named Lenny had to endure more than a little teasing. Asked about his love life at one point, Lenny, rather pathetically, said something to the effect that he was dating “several people,” which set himself up for a major slap down from the individual indebted to him, who roared, “You jerk-off!” And from that moment forward, Lenny was no longer Lenny to us, but “Jerk-off” forevermore. Eventually, Jerk-off, too, disappeared from the diner scene—perhaps when the terms of the bet were fulfilled—and was last seen in the area looking worse for wear. Jerk-off was obviously very ill and, it seemed, not long for this earth.

I remember, too, very old and very loud Mark, who had a most interesting indentation on his skull, which I christened a “skin-dentation." He very abruptly disappeared from sight and sound. The great greasy spoon in the sky? Probably. And then, of course, there was the ubiquitous Seymour, a taxi driver. He was diagnosed with lung cancer while at the top of his game on the diner stage. Trooper that he was, he continued to appear during his chemo treatments, looking—sadly—like his days were numbered, which they were.

Call it life...as seen through the lens of a favorite diner, where not everybody knows your name.

A Very First Time

(Originally published 10/9/11)

Although I don’t have a “bucket list” per se, I accomplished one item that—had I decided to make one—would have very definitely been on it. Courtesy of an annoying twist of circumstances yesterday morning, I found myself in the long mezzanine area of the Manhattan A train’s 14th Street subway station. Were it not for the Number 1 train’s seemingly infinite weekend track work—or, in this case, station makeovers, which compelled me to walk more than a mile to access the subway, instead of the usual few blocks—I wouldn’t have been there. Yes, I could have taken a free shuttle bus, or even a local bus, but since it was such a fine October morning, I opted for the leisurely stroll and, too, the exercise.

It was about 10:30 a.m. when I landed in this subterranean “mezzanine,” a word I typically associate with sports stadiums. While I’ve walked these meandering thoroughfares before and encountered various closed doors along the way, they were invariably marked as “employee only” entrances for transit workers. But, lo and behold, this go-round I detected an apparent civilian—a fellow rider—exiting one of those doors, which prompted me to more closely examine the placard attached to it. The sign indicated he had emerged from a public bathroom—a rare find down under—that would, in all likelihood, be locked tight during the overnight hours.

While I had to go thanks to my breakfast cup of Joe, I really could have held it in for a bit. But then, I thought, where would I go when my time came—the Barnes & Noble at Union Square? No, certainly not yesterday—a Saturday on a Columbus Day weekend with Wall Street protesters in the area undoubtedly heeding nature’s call there. So, I decided to take my chances with this subway bathroom. While I don’t recall ever frequenting one—since most of them are padlocked shut, with reputations that, even when open for business, suggest looking elsewhere—I decided to live dangerously and take the plunge.

Happily, I was all by my lonesome when I entered this realm of the unknown and accomplished what I set out to do. Still, I must admit, the subway bathroom milieu didn’t disappoint. It reeked pretty badly and looked appropriately grungy—but it wasn’t completely hellish. And while the urinal readily flushed, it didn’t flush away any of the urine stench wafting in the rarefied air, which evidently was ingrained in the floor and wall tiles. But at least now I can say: Been there and done that…another New York experience for this New Yorker in the books.

No Dogma in this Fight

On more than one occasion, my elderly aunt informed me that my grandfather—from the mountain town of Castelmezzano, Italy—held the church in utter contempt. So as to maintain its absolute hegemony in village affairs big and small, he felt the clergy intentionally and aggressively kept the populace blissfully ignorant of so many things. His posture was at odds with my very pious grandmother, who recited the rosary every single day of her adult life.

I always found it interesting that my aunt—a God-fearing, faithful churchgoer until the day she died—recounted tales of her father’s independence, and penchant to tell it like it is, with genuine pride. I suspect that my grandfather was really on to something. Okay, times have changed. I don't call home an impoverished enclave in the rocky Dolomiti Lucane during a world war and in the midst of a lethal pandemic. In the present-day Information Age, it’s decidedly more difficult to choreograph and enforce such blanket ignorance, but, in practical reality, the church would obviously prefer you didn’t think for yourself in matters of faith. It's the nature of the beast.

Recently, I encountered yet another news story of the Catholic Church’s hemorrhaging flock, and its miserable track record of connecting with younger people. This is a familiar tune that I’ve been hearing since my callow youth. And, for the record, I attended Catholic institutions from grammar school through college and have no qualms about the quality of the education I received, nor did I ever feel the heavy hand of religious indoctrination. But church doctrine, standing all by its lonesome, doesn’t exactly pass the smell test.

Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, which I attended forty-four years ago, annually held what were called "Parish Days." On these set-aside afternoons, priests from the various parishes throughout the borough would meet with their teenage parishioners at the school. They were always advertised as freewheeling give-and-takes—a chance for us to pose questions to our parish priests and, hopefully, establish a rapport with them. Let's just say they rarely lived up to their billings. My Kingsbridge parish's monsignor assumed the job as ringleader one year and a student posed this question to the young priest who had tagged along with him: “How come you always stop kids from leaving Mass right after Holy Communion, but not the adults?” Visibly rattled, he replied, “I can’t answer that.” The monsignor quickly stepped in to rescue his floundering underling. “I can,” the always stern, smug, and generally unpleasant church elder said. The monsignor explained that it was a matter of maturity. We just weren’t yet old enough to make such an important decision. Fair enough, I guess.

Herein, though, lies the enlightening case in point. If a priest can't handle a softball question, I doubt very much he could tackle a tough one. Some years later in a different setting, another priest from the parish was asked, “Why does God permit so much suffering?” His response was not far removed from this: “He allows other people to suffer so you can appreciate how good you have it.” Come on, fellas, if you want more business, you’ve got to do better than that.

Attention Surplus Disorders

(Originally published 11/19/19)

While in the environs of Madison Square Garden and Penn Station this past weekend, I took particular note of the humongous, ever-changing electronic billboards all around me. For the next mile or so north through Times Square and the theater district, such prominent advertisements were everywhere. Many of them featured larger-than-life promotions for movies, television series, and plays. Images of actors and actresses lording over streets teeming with people—from all over the world in the case of New York City—were omnipresent.

I couldn’t help but wonder how these entertainers must feel upon seeing their glittering, over-sized names and likenesses on the big, big screens above bustling Manhattan streets. How could it not go to their heads? Perhaps this explains why so many Hollywood-types think their opinions matter more than others and that their you-know-whats don’t stink. It never ceases to amaze me how men and women worth multiple millions of dollars feel they can speak for the little guys and girls. If an individual has a net worth of, say, fifty million dollars, he or she is in quite a different league—a league of their own—from the person sweating the rent, electric bill, or college tuition.

That said, celebrities have the right to speak out just as everyone else does. I have a platform—this blog. They, though, typically, have more heady ones in which to pontificate. In 1989, I attended a Harry Belafonte concert at the Cape Cod Melody Tent. Harry, as usual, put on a great show, but at some point rambled on about the recently elected president, George Herbert Walker Bush, whom the uber-leftist performer found wanting. It was an awkward moment, as I recall, since the majority of the attendees were older, conservative white folks. My parents saw a show in the same venue with singer Steve Lawrence as the headliner. From the opposite side of the political spectrum as Harry, Steve nonetheless ventured into that same dicey area, which no doubt offended a portion of the audience. My father, in fact, got up from his seat to visit the bathroom during the spiel. Lawrence joked, “He must be a Democrat.” Wrong, Steve, that lifelong Republican was just answering nature’s call, a non-partisan act, which he did countless times in countless places. 

It's not your grandfather's advertisements anymore. Not by a long shot.

Alfred Hitchcock would have relished being on one. "Do they ever stop migrating?"

I WO ND ER as I WA ND ER. How much did Macy's pay McMann & Tate to come up with this Christmas advertising slogan? AN SW ER: Too much.

Hope this includes debit cards!

Okay, I came upon this no longer functional—dead as a doornail—bicycle still tethered to a post. A life metaphor? If not, a dead one.

The catbird seat with a bird's eye view of the Flower School.

This place didn't appear all that big inside and I, for one, never heard of them.

What next? Wonder, though, if the museum has a 2016 election exhibit?

I am digging the Guardian Angels' new outfits. Certainly beats the red berets and satin jackets.

I sincerely doubt that any of those aforementioned Hollywood big shots get their haircuts here.

This place might be more in their league.

Now, what is it with barber shops branching out these days? I've seen more than a few offering watch repair as an additional service. Is that sort of thing taught in today's barber schools?

This is one of the luckier benches in Manhattan. The longer you sit there, the better the chances that Lady Luck will shine on you.

Not as lucky, but a park bench for the loners among us.

A sobering thought for sure.

No bull, the Wall Street area and Battery Park can be very, very tacky.

Colorful, however...

As 2019 nears an end, one final salute to the 1969 World Champion New York Mets. It was a real game then.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Man We Called Cream Donut

(Originally published 9/30/13)

I don’t exactly know what made me think of the man we once called “Cream Donut” today. I think it happened when I passed by a Dunkin’ Donuts and thought about how expensive their products have become, and how they seem to be getting smaller and airier as the days pass. Cream Donut owned and operated a place called Twin Donut in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge during the 1970s. It was a franchise, I believe, because there were Twin Donuts scattered about the city back then. Actually, there still are handful around, although their numbers have dwindled considerably through the years.

Twin Donut had a large variety of donuts, which was quite impressive in its day. Several stores to its east was a Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor, known to many of us as "31 Flavors." I guess what Baskin-Robbins was to ice cream, Twin Donut was to donuts. Where else could you purchase a butternut crunch donut or one with apple filling? My favorites, though, were the more traditional vanilla cream and chocolate cream kinds. Adding to their appeal, I think, was how the shop’s proprietor, an older Greek man, pronounced them—and always in the loudest of tones. “Shaw-Co-Lot cream and Vah-Nella cream!” he’d bellow. As far as my younger brother and I were concerned, his rather unique pronunciations, coupled with the extremely high volume, struck a funny bone.

The pre-caller ID 1970s was also the era of the funny phone call. I know we called Twin Donut a time or two and asked Cream Donut if he had any cream donuts on hand. Of course, we knew the answer was yes. And when he’d answer in the affirmative, we’d ask him what kinds of cream donuts he had. “Shaw-Co-Lot cream and Vah-Nella cream!” he’d roar, even over the telephone. He couldn’t whisper those two words if his life depended on it.

The one thing we never bargained for was an in-the-donut-shop negative experience with Cream Donut himself. One afternoon, my brother and I had ordered several cream donuts—chocolate and vanilla, naturally—and Cream Donut, like a well-schooled Mynah bird, repeated our order just to make certain he got it right. But that enunciation of the two flavors of cream donuts—and decibel level—caused the two of us to temporarily lose it. And while we were desperately trying to get a grip on ourselves, Cream Donut took notice and didn’t like what he saw.

True, Cream Donut had given us a bravura performance that day—we couldn’t have asked for more—but he was an intimidating sort of guy that we really didn’t want to cross. The last thing a couple of innocent youth wanted to do was incur the wrath of this man. But incur his wrath we did. “YOU LAUGHING AT ME?” he angrily queried. We were indeed, but sheepishly said we weren’t. He didn’t believe us but sold us the cream donuts anyway. Under the circumstances, I wouldn’t have blamed the man for pulling a Soup Nazi and saying, “No donuts for you!” Cream Donut was an imposing presence for sure, but a businessman above all else. 

A postscript: Twin Donut served tasty enough donuts but they left an aftertaste that repeated on you throughout the day. And Cream Donut’s little shop at the intersection of Kingsbridge Avenue and W231st Street was notorious for hosting a mice fest every night after lights out.

Ode to the Neighborhood Diner

(Originally published 6/1/10)

At the risk of sounding like a defective CD—harping on casualties of the new millennium and the modern age—I nonetheless feel compelled to put in a good word for my favorite diner and others like it. The cozy neighborhood Greek diners of New York City, including my very own special haunt—once upon a time ubiquitous and thriving institutions in all five boroughs—are on life support.

I am fortunate to still have a snug and welcoming nook to go to when I feel a hankering for bacon, eggs over easy, and home fries for breakfast, or burgers and French fries for lunch. I rarely deviate from my usual when I get there because the usual is a big deal in the diner milieu. It's a comforting constant in a sea-changing world. But here's the real rub: It’s not really about the food, although I must admit that the truly bottomless cup of coffee—and a flavorful and aromatic one at that—is other-worldly.

This holy place that I speak of has been around for decades. The original two Greek giants still loom like Colossus over the dining space. And, yes, like a microcosm of life itself, the diner has had its ups and downs through the years. Its owners, too, have witnessed a mother lode of changes in the neighborhood and, naturally, their clientele as well. The men at grill's edge have watched countless customers grow old and battle all kinds of infirmities. They’ve seen tragedy befall a cross-section of their bread and butter without so much as fair warning. Not too long ago, the diner's alpha male said to me: “When I don’t see people for a while…I worry.” He didn’t see me for a while...and he worried. I fortuitously returned for another act. Others have not been so lucky. Indeed, a fair share of the restaurant’s regulars have quietly slipped away with the passage of time and gone to that Great Greasy Spoon in the Sky. You know the place with its lemon meringue clouds and celestial rivers of rice pudding and Jell-O....

But it's not only the diner’s never-ending story of ravenous patrons—looking for both food and ears to chew on—who are growing old. I had a full head of hair when I ordered my first hamburger there. Its proprietors, too, are not immune to the inexorable and remorseless sands of time. And when they exit center stage for good, this little diner in my hometown, with its old-style hospitality and unique urban ambiance, will sadly go with them. And we will never see their likes again....

The Stickball Boys of Summer...in Autumn

(Originally published 12/4/12)

Last night the Kingsbridge Stickball Boys of Summer gathered together for the first time as a unit in quite a while—a decade or so, I’d say. Ostensibly, it was to commemorate a milestone birthday of mine from several weeks back. Strange, but it doesn’t seem like it was thirty-plus years ago when we were playing stickball games with abandon on the asphalt grounds of John F. Kennedy High School, just a few blocks from where we all called home. We kept copious records of all our exploits—the highlights and lowlights, too. As both the pioneering teenage statistician and contemporary middle-aged man archivist of all our stickball endeavors, I brushed off the cobwebs of the old scorecards that we faithfully kept for several years from the late 1970s through the early 1980s.

In this decidedly different age—simpler times, for sure—I included a “Saying of the Day” option on some of our primitively photocopied scorecards. "Sayings" ranged far and wide from a local pizza man named "George" to controversial and colorful Alabama Governor George Wallace. It seems that one member of our stickball entourage relished mimicking the latter’s distinctive southern drawl. A “Making of the President 1968” documentary, or some such program, aired on PBS at the time, because every single one of us knew where he was coming from when he impersonated Wallace shouting down an unkempt hippie heckler, imploring him to “Geeeeet a heeeeercut.” We were a unique and interesting brood of Bronx stickball players.

Courtesy of a pronounced rooftop clock and digital thermometer on the Exxon gas station just to the north of our playing field, both game-time temperatures—in Fahrenheit—and game durations were recorded for posterity as well. Let the record show that we played in temperatures ranging from forty-five to ninety-nine degrees. On one set of scorecards, I, for some reason, included “Hero” and “Goat” of the game blank spaces. Most of them were, in fact, left blank. Despite occasional unsolicited commentaries on the scorecards that were sometimes caustic and mocking, we generally opted not to underscore and offend individual games’ goats. While were a competitive lot, we had caring hearts, I suppose. And besides, we exchanged teammates from one game to the next. Sure, I scribbled at one point on a scorecard that “RC is a jerk,” and he responded in kind that I was meekly “sweating” under the pressure, but that was all in good fun.

Final season tallies found each and every one of us coming to the plate over one thousand times and pitching more than two hundred innings. Looking back, this heavy workload explains why I was often sore on Cardinal Spellman High School Monday mornings in springtime. There were no stickball spring training sessions for us. When winters turned into springs, we commenced to playing—up to the hilt and end of story.

Ah, but here we were all these years later, in the flesh, and having experienced lives after stickball—physical and emotional odysseys that have taken us a long, long way from the reassuring terra firma of a neighborhood high school with those crude home plate boxes on a graffiti-laden brick wall . Funny, but to a man, we recalled what was—very clearly as a matter a fact—but not so much the intricate details of the three decades that followed and that led us far afield of stickball in the Bronx. Why, exactly, I wanted to "assassinate" my longtime friend RC on a pleasant summer morning when Jimmy Carter was president, I've long since forgotten. I'd hazard a guess I really didn’t want to do that. And although stickball is now a relic of all our pasts—warm and fuzzy memories—we nonetheless continue to play ball with what we've got left in the autumn years.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Zach’s 1250

(Originally published 3/31/19)

I have filed away my yesterday under the “World We Now Know.” Walking along a Manhattan sidewalk and minding my own business, a young woman with a small dog came up alongside of me. She was jabbering away on her phone—a mile a minute—oblivious to one and all in her path. That’s par for the course in 2019, by the way. I heard her say something about a friend’s son who, apparently, scored “only” a 1250 on his SATs. “That’s not such a bad score,” the lady—in a generous mood, I suppose—added.

Now, I doubt such a reassurance would assuage Zach’s mom or, for that matter, Zach. For they both know that a 1250 score is—ipso facto—the kiss of death. Admittance to the most prestigious of prestigious schools just isn’t in the cards. And, let’s face it, status is everything to the status-seekers. 1250 doesn’t buy too many bragging rights. I don’t why, but Lori Loughlin popped into my head at that moment.

A footnote to my encounter with that annoying woman so wrapped up in an annoying personal phone conversation on a hopping city sidewalk: She would, on occasion, acknowledge the fact that she was indeed in the bright light of day. It happened when her little canine friend passed a spritz of urine and then—lo and behold—a couple of marble-sized poops as we used to say. In the immediate aftermath of both the Number One and the Number Two events, the chatty dog walker excitedly exclaimed in a baby-like voice: “Very good!”

After that stimulating experience, I came upon a stretch of sidewalk with scattered white paper plates on it. For the better part of a block, the grounds were littered with them. Each individual plate had the word “God” scrawled—in black magic marker—on it. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I thought. But, then again, everywhere is God’s Country, isn’t it?

Speaking of God’s Country—New York City—police officers with machine guns can now be seen in front of busy entrances. I spied three of them at a Madison Square Garden entry point. As I passed by, another passerby queried one of the cops. She wasn’t wondering why the man had a big gun strapped to his shoulder. She just wanted directions to the Empire State Building. You see that big antenna in the sky. Follow it like the Three Wise Men followed that Bright Star.

It’s the new normal and I’m happy the police presence is there. I just wish they didn’t have to be. I considered taking a close-up image—of the “World We Now Know”—but decided against it. I’ve heard this subway announcement more times than I can count: “Backpacks and other large containers are subject to random searches by the police.” Ditto the street. Pocket cameras, too, are not off limits. The last thing I wanted was the confiscation of my faithful companion.

In the Land Down Under—the subway—my trip commenced at the Van Cortlandt Park terminal, which is above ground. A homeless man with a cane—whom I’ve seen before—greeted me and asked if I could spare some change. I gave him two dollars. He replied, “You made my day!” I hope I really did. On the subsequent ride downtown, a panhandler entered the subway car requesting “food” or “any cash that you could spare.” While he informed the assembled that he was homeless, his approach was all wrong—no detailed back-story and a somewhat intimidating manner. I gave him a dollar and a woman—with her young son—offered him some food. It was a bag containing cut pieces of grapefruit. While he readily accepted my buck, he turned down the fresh fruit. My advice is that if you are going to ask for food or money—because you are hungry and homeless—accept the food as well as the money. It’s better for business.

Another fellow then got on the train who didn’t appear to be homeless. He didn’t ask for anything and sat directly across from me. Before the man uttered a word, I sensed menace afoot. He just looked incredibly angry. The guy also listened in to others’ conversations and muttered aloud various profane responses to them. All the while his eyes threateningly flitted back and forth. They caught mine for one brief second. I quickly turned away. Can’t let that happen again! A family of tourists appeared concerned. Fortuitously, he exited the train after only a few stops. I noticed, though, that his simmering anger accompanied him to the station platform as he seemingly considered his next move, which I thought might be reentering the subway car. When the doors closed and the man was on the other side of them, I was greatly relieved and so were the folks from Dubuque, Iowa.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Waning Agog Factor

(Originally published on August 10, 2014)

Thirty-seven years ago on this day, I was at once in Boston and agog. The adult impresario of this Bronx to Beantown adventure was a neighbor and friend named Richie. My brother Joe and I—two teenagers absent as-yet-invented iPads or flip video cameras—accompanied him to what then seemed like a very faraway and even exotic destination.

While we were out of town the “Son of Sam” was captured. A Boston Globe headline in a sidewalk newspaper machine alerted us that the fiend was in police custody. We were pleasantly surprised when we dropped a dime in the slot and the machine’s front door pulled open, permitting each of us to grab a paper. Evidently, man and boys alike had never purchased one from an inanimate object. I guess we thought it would be dispensed like a bottle of soda or a candy bar. Still, we felt like we were a long way from home when we read the details about this serial killer, a man who had been in our midst during that especially hot summer and the summer before.

We had seen the Red Sox at Fenway Park the night before and also peed in a communal urinal there, which was yet another first for us. I sat beside a gangly grandfather and his grandson, I surmised, because the latter called the former “Pops.” Pops was pretty old and, when nature called, had more than a little difficulty navigating the ballpark’s steep steps and cramped aisles. He was a dead ringer for Our Gang's Old Cap. The Red Sox beat the Angels 11-10 that night in a back and forth slugfest. The Globe deemed it one of the most exciting games ever played. Richie, however, noted how “dilapidated” the environs were, and obviously liked the sound of the word, branding countless Boston edifices and nearby locales with the same unflattering moniker.

Dilapidated or not, the three of us were generally agog throughout the trip, blissfully going about the business of exploring foreign terrain before anything called e-mail or Twitter existed. Joe had a hand-me-down, fold-up camera with him that took blurry pictures. Richie wore a strap around his neck attached to an over-sized instant camera during our sightseeing. His photos developed a bit on the green side, including shots at Harvard University and of the Charles River. No flash meant no pictures could be taken of the Green Monster by night. On our way home, we naturally couldn’t pass up America’s most historical rock in Plymouth. This rather pedestrian boulder had at some point cracked in two and been cemented together—not a particularly compelling visual and even less so in shades of instant-picture green.

There were no digital cameras or iPhones in existence, so thus no capacity to post our pictures on Facebook, which wasn’t around either. We were merely content with being agog as we climbed the Bunker Hill Monument and toured Old Ironsides. The dilapidated surroundings all around us actually astounded us. We called home from pay phones. In the present age of instant gratification, with all too many people engrossed in their Blackberries or some such technological device—and walking the streets like oblivious automatons—I fear that the Agog Factor just ain't what it used to be…can’t be what it used to be…and that’s really kind of sad.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Who Took the Clown Pictures Down?

(Originally published on 4/4/13)

Many years ago, in a neighbor’s basement—a magical basement, I daresay—the walls were adorned with images of clowns. One was a standard print of the morose-faced Emmett Kelly, but the others in the ensemble were very different. They were not paintings per se, but made of some kind of colorful synthetic chips—rough to the touch and uniquely 1960s looking.

As a boy, I loved visiting this basement just up the street. It had a bar, too, on the premises, which was loaded with adult beverages and assorted bric-a-brac and memorabilia. The latter was of more interest to me. I recall the basement’s matriarch opening up a thirty-two-ounce aluminum can of Hi-C, pouring it into a sixty-four-ounce plastic pitcher, and filling the remainder up with tap water and a full tray of ice on top of that. I’d never before witnessed the watering down of a Hi-C drink, but it wasn’t half-bad. It was the power of the clown pictures, perhaps, that made everything in the basement look and taste good.

Indeed, nobody cared that the family cat slept on the dinner table and everywhere else for that matter. It was the basement after all. And the cat was yet another intriguing basement player. It was the only housecat without a name. The neighbors across the alleyway had a cat named “Sniffles.” Maybe “Cat” was actually the cat’s name. It remains a mystery to this day. Cat could often be spotted on a perch in the basement’s front window. One chilly afternoon an interior window in the basement was shut with Cat in between it and the exterior one. The family went on a frantic search throughout the neighborhood for Cat, when all the time he was resting comfortably on his favorite roost in the front window.

Like so many other things in life, the basement as I once knew it is no more. Cat is no longer roaming the place, nor are their clown pictures on its walls. The fashionable contact paper that was all the rage in the 1960s and 1970s, and that was supposed to resemble wood paneling, has, too, been stripped away. However, the memories linger.

There was a man named Lou who rented the basement resident’s garage. He used to thank basement son Richard—profusely as a matter of fact—for opening the garage for him when fate brought the two of them together. “Sank you, Reeechard!” he’d say both loudly and sincerely. He spoke with some sort of accent, which I enjoyed mimicking as a young teen. It was okay to do that kind of thing back then. In fact for a spell, I must have uttered, “Sank you, Reeechard!” a few hundred times. Then one day, I decided to put some words into Lou’s limited lexicon—ones I had never heard him utter.

“Reeechard, who took the clown pictures down?” I asked. And so, with Reechard’s blessing, we snapped a photograph of a clown picture being taken down—by the devil no less. But it was not in our youthful, living-in-the-moment brains to press the fast-forward button and contemplate that the clown pictures were not, in fact, eternal and would one day come down. Perhaps they’re hanging up in other people’s homes as I write these words. I'd like to think so. Maybe, though, they weren’t thought as worth saving and put out with the trash. Such is the duality of life and everything that we value.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Memories...and Unsolved Mysteries

(Originally published 9/29/11)

When I was young boy of about six or seven years of age, I accompanied my parents to a party thrown in my father’s honor in the Marble Hill section of Manhattan, just a few blocks away from our home: Kingsbridge in the Bronx. Quirky geographical changes through the years have led to some confusion. It's part of Manhattan but not part of Manhattan Island, but—once upon a time—it was.

As I recall, Mr. and Mrs. L—the hosts of this get-together—were genial enough. The man of the house once ran a successful bar business in the big city, and his Misses—I subsequently learned as an adult—was both his second wife and his niece. Anyway, reminiscences from such a tender age are typically confined to disjointed snippets from a wide-eyed kid’s unique perspective—of moments good and bad; important and unimportant.

As I saw it from my six- or seven-year-old eyes, the L’s house was located in an incredibly atmospheric sliver of geography. It lorded over a piece of real estate everybody knew back then as "Shanty Town," a neighborhood with rows of old houses and some shacks, too—relics from a hardscrabble past. Hoovervilles. Some of Shanty Town’s residents raised chickens in coops, and even farm animals, in their front and backyards. But I was also a guest in a home not too far from a busy railroad, the Harlem River Ship Canal, and the elevated subway tracks of the Number 1 train. There was an intoxicating ambiance surrounding the L’s humble abode, with sounds emanating from nearby trains and boats. But beyond these rather general memories of welcome sensory sensations, I can remember only one concrete detail surrounding this Marble Hill experience of mine.

Mrs. L, the lady of the house, spoke in a throaty, Betty Davis-esque voice from—I’ve since concluded—one too many Marlboro's and an unquenchable thirst for the grape. She was pleasant enough on the surface, but—from my little boy’s view of the world—there was something of the night about her. She was quite petite, always wore bright red lipstick, and looked by day a little too much like the Joker from Batman—as played by Cesar Romero—for me to fully warm to her. By night, it got somewhat worse, and she resembled a vampire, which I know is rather hip now, but it wasn’t back then.

Here now is my only definitive memory of being in that house more than forty years ago. Mrs. L very graciously gave the youngsters on the scene free run of the place. She asked only one thing of us—that we keep our distance from an automobile tire flatly resting atop the stairs in her two-story home. I admit to being fascinated by this car tire in a spot where car tires weren’t usually found.

Flash forward three decades and I recounted this peculiar memory, so etched in mind, to a friend of mine. He said, “That’s probably where she kept her stash.” While it does make some sense that a person might conceal his or her bottles of whiskey in a car tire—if secrecy is the name of the game—it seems rather illogical to do so in a tire sitting at the top of a staircase, where the logical question passersby would pose is: “What’s a car tire doing there?” But that's as good an explanation as any that I've heard before or since. Memories…and unsolved mysteries.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

This Old House

(Originally published 7/30/17)

This old house is no more. It stood in the same location in the Bronx for nearly a century and, it’s fair to say, witnessed innumerable and seismic changes all around it. If this old house could only have spoken before it was demolished, it would have had a story to tell. The home’s original owner built the structure with his own two hands, which wasn’t unheard of in the Bronx of yesteryear. People who had the privilege of entering its interior reported that the rooms were tiny and the ceilings, low. It was a dwelling for a different time and place. Pat Mitchell, an iconic local grocer for decades, rented a furnished room in the house’s attic in the immediate aftermath of World War II. While an average-sized adult couldn’t stand up straight there, rooms were really hard to come by then.

I am old enough to remember the builder’s then-elderly daughter living in the house with her grown son, known as “Buddy.” Buddy, who bore a striking resemblance to actor Jason Robards, had a faithful German shepherd often at his side. He was not what you would call a conversationalist. Outside of walking his dog or silently lounging around in his windowed front porch with a can of beer in his hand, the man was rather nondescript. The neighborhood’s nastier wagging tongues considered Buddy something of a slacker. He never appeared to be duly employed and was never sans beer money—a deadly one-two punch as far as they were concerned. And, too, the family had a summer place in the Catskills, where Buddy and his mother vacationed and eventually moved to after selling this old house.

Interestingly, the house's foundation was laid atop the recently covered-over Tibbetts Brook, which meandered through this area of the Bronx until the fledgling years of the twentieth century. When it was first ready for occupancy, there were still vestiges of the stream at the surface. Initially, the home's owner had a swimming hole in the backyard—water in which he actually swam, or at least wallowed in. The basement was quite often flooded.

When my grandparents moved to Kingsbridge in 1946, the old man's wife was still among the living. There were many empty lots in the neighborhood at that time and locals planted what they called “victory gardens” in some of them, even after the war and victory. My grandfather tilled a plot in close proximity of this old house. Approximately ten years later, he and fellow gardeners were asked to vacate the premises in the name of progress. The original developer of the property—directly behind this old house—went bankrupt after running into unforeseen and considerable water issues courtesy of the underground, but ever-tenacious Tibbetts Brook seeking daylight. Two tall buildings were subsequently erected, which were dubbed Tibbett Towers. And this old house now had a parking lot alongside it.

Happily, my grandfather and a few friends found a new site in which to indulge their penchant for gardening. It was not too far from their old garden space—walking distance in fact—and just to the north of this old house. A makeshift fence promptly enclosed the new space, and a well was dug that tapped into Tibbetts Brooks, which supplied the flowers and crops with a regular and generous source of water. It was this garden that I came to know during my youth, before it, too, was plowed under. I recently learned that the old man who built this old house planted the Sycamore tree in the backyard, which has long towered over the property. As of this writing, it’s still there and probably over eighty years old. No surprise though: the developer is going to cut it down—in the name of progress, naturally.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

With Mr. Denton on Doomsday

On more than one occasion, I have witnessed a passing car sporting the vanity license plate: DOOMSDAY. Ordinarily, it would have gone by unnoticed—just one among many vehicles traveling up and down the street where I live. But this automobile’s driver craved attention with his ear-splitting display of four-wheel barbarism. A ridiculously loud and revving engine with popping gunshot sounds doesn’t exactly complement one’s morning coffee and is no more pleasing at lunch or dinnertime. It’s off-putting morning, noon, and night, which, I suppose, is the point.

Doomsday it is. At least that’s the way it feels around here with the countless speed racers violating multiple New York City ordinances as they make their daily rounds. Then there are all those noisy electric scooters and their various epigones—many of them illegal and often operated by illegals—whizzing past stop signs and through red lights. Further adding to Doomsday is the $4.4 billion retail crime spree underway in the Big Apple. Every damn thing is locked up in stores because the thieves know they won’t ever be. There is this palpable sense of chaos and lawlessness run amok, which I’ve never experienced before—at this omnipresent level anyway. Local politicians appear uninterested in the problems or unwilling to address them in any meaningful way.

I have an idea. In the Batman TV series, starring the indomitable Adam West, I recall an episode where the Joker captured Batman and Robin in a large fish net. Why don’t the big retailers that are being robbed blind place big nets by their entrances and exits and snare the shoplifters on their way out? Then lift them up in the air and encourage the non-criminal patrons to taunt them and, if available, toss rotten fruit at them. When all is said and done, ship the offenders en masse to an undisclosed wilderness location equipped, of course, with survival kits donated by Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot. Sounds like a plan, no?

Moving on to our national dignity crisis—self-respect sacrificed on the altar of ridiculousness and obeisance to unworthy people. As a youth, I had a poster on my bedroom wall with this Native American proverb: “To give dignity to man is above all else.” Sadly, a vastly different kind of tribal mentality has descended on much of the populace, particularly those who are addicted to social media and can’t get enough of bloviating talking heads, sky-is-falling commentators, and loony conspiracists. The ones, too, who also vote in primaries and supply us with the worst general-election candidates imaginable.

In fact, their names are legion—men and women who have cast dignity away to kiss Trump’s keister come hell or high water. Exhibit A: Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and Mike Lee. And on Side B: the minions who have been telling us that old Joe Biden was sharp as a tack—better than ever in fact—when are eyes, ears, and common sense told us otherwise. The best president since FDR—come on, man! It’s retirement village time, they now say. It takes a village, I guess.

Several months ago, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion column entitled, “Age Matters. Which Is Why Biden’s Age is his Superpower.” Around the same time, the New York Times ran the piece, “For Joe Biden, What Seems Like Age Might Instead Be Style.” You can’t make this stuff up. Did these authors actually believe what they were saying? If they did, they ought to find another line of work. Self-respect takes yet another back seat in 2024.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump repeatedly proves that he is meshuggeneh. His tweets, or whatever they are now called, are creepy crazy and certifiably looney tunes. I have little doubt the man, too, is suffering from cognitive decline, but it is hard to decipher in an individual who is bona fide fruit loops. Permit me now to turn my attention elsewhere—to an alternative to the two, manifestly unfit for the presidency, geriatrics. A third-party candidate. This option has had a worm devour part of his brain and—heaving a sigh of relief here—sampled barbecued goat and not barbecued dog cooked on a spit in Patagonia. “So many skeletons in my closet,” the man says. Now, I will concede, that’s quite an honest admission, but hardly refreshingly so.

In closing, there’s an old Kamalan proverb worth mentioning: “It’s time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.” Yes, then, I will just sit back and recall the better and saner days when Michael Dukakis was the Democratic presidential nominee and selected Senator Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate—two reasonable adults from a more reasonable and dignified time. I remember voting for them with pride at having done my civic duty. I wish that time were every day, but it’s not. See all of the above.