Memories...and Unsolved Mysteries

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. I thought at some point in time the neighborhood had been ceded to the Bronx. While the street signs in Marble Hill in the late 1960s were Manhattan yellow and not Bronx blue, they eventually adopted the Bronx hue. Anyway, that discussion is another kettle of fish entirely.

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. That, too, is another kettle of fish entirely. 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 slice of geography. It lorded over a piece of real estate everybody back then knew as "Shanty Town," a neighborhood with rows of old houses and some shacks, too—relics from a hardscrabble past. 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 recall only one concrete detail surrounding this Marble Hill experience of mine.

Mrs. L, the lady of the house, spoke in a throaty 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 hide 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 that 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)

"You Folks Farmers?"

A quarter of a century or so ago, I attended a breakfast buffet. It was in a farm building of some kind somewhere on the outskirts of Bangor, Pennsylvania. Accompanying me on this culinary adventure were my maternal grandmother, her long-time neighbor, and my two brothers. While the Bangor denizens were accustomed to these local get-togethers on farms and in churches and volunteer firehouses, the Bronx boys were not.

Such neighborly events in our neck of the woods were very rare. When they did occur, they bore little resemblance to the breakfasts and potluck suppers in the countryside. In fact, the one and only all-you-can-eat breakfast that I attended in my lifetime living in the big city served powdered eggs, which would be absolutely sacrilege in pastoral venues.

If memory serves, one also got a whole lot more bang for the buck out in the country, which is not really surprising. So what if I was repulsed by scrapple—a regional favorite and Spam-like product that consists of a mushy concoction of pork scraps—there was so much more to choose from, everything from pancakes to cornbread to home fries. We not only enjoyed the food but the hospitality, too, which was considerably more unfettered and more abundant in supply than what we were accustomed to on the mean streets of the Bronx.

As I sat down at a long lunch table with my breakfast plate brimming with bacon, eggs, sausage, and toast, a wizened old gentleman nearby turned to me and asked in his distinctive twang, “You folks farmers?” I informed him we weren’t and he smiled, returning to the business at hand—chomping down his hearty breakfast. This was the first and last time in my life that I was mistaken for a farmer. Just last week, though, somebody in a local diner thought I was a grease monkey from the nearby garage. I told him he must have me confused with someone else. He didn’t seem to believe me.

An "Out of Sight" Blog

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

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

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

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

New York Really Is the City That Never Sleeps

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

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

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

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

Rocky's Road

I had a teacher in the sixth grade affectionately known as— courtesy of his surname—“Rocky.” The school year was 1973-74, and Rocky stood out from the pack in this parochial grammar school of mine for a host of reasons. For starters, there were very few men teaching in grades one through six back then. This, too, must have been his first teaching job. He was quite young and occasionally showed up for work on the disheveled and scruffy side, like he’d been out late the night before doing what some people do in the wee hours. And no, I don’t think he was moonlighting as a cab driver or a night watchman.

But there was something really right about Rocky, even if he didn’t always make time for the morning shave. Clear-eyed or bleary-eyed, it didn’t matter; he was the genuine article—a dedicated teacher. The school had its fair share of dedicated old school teachers, including Sister Camillus, who only a year before publicly humiliated me when I misspelled the word “paid” as “payed.” “Imagine a fifth grader who doesn’t know how to spell the word ‘paid’!” she bellowed in her less than dulcet tones. Rocky didn’t embarrass students in front of his or her peers over a spelling error. Private consultations were more his style. So, no, there was never an “Imagine a sixth grader who doesn’t know how to spell the word ‘paid’!” moment in Rocky’s classroom.

And Sister Camillus was also not the sort of educator to accompany her class to the park down the street after a late winter snowstorm. Rocky not only did, but commanded our attention at the park’s entrance. “Since this is probably going to be the last snowstorm of the season,” I recall him saying rather earnestly, “I thought we should assemble here to have our last…SNOWBALL FIGHT!” With these fighting words, Rocky proceeded to swipe snow off of a parked car’s front hood onto his momentarily startled students. Really, I just couldn’t see old Sister C initiating a snowball fight. Innocent as it all was, Rocky just couldn’t get away with throwing snow in the faces of eleven- and twelve-year-old boys and girls in the twenty-first century.

Rocky’s last hurrah involved a class trip to Bear Mountain State Park on the Hudson River Day Line, which back in the 1970s sailed north from Manhattan’s West Side. I remember only a few snippets from this trip. Foremost, I almost fell to my death—or so it seemed at the time—while mountain climbing, or whatever the peewee-equivalent of that is called. If my memory is correct, we went off with our friends—rather loosely supervised—to wherever we wanted to go, and were instructed only to return to the dock area at a prescribed time. Imagine a school trip like that today. I remember, too, a couple of kids passing around a lit pipe on the boat, which wasn’t burning tobacco. They were also brandishing assorted pills, which weren't Tylenols. Simpler times in the sixth grade of a Catholic grammar school when Richard Nixon was the president. I may have been rather innocent at the time, but it appeared some others were a lot less so.

Thanks to the sprawling Internet, and Rocky’s atypical last name, I tracked the man down in the virtual ether. He’s still a teacher. It’s been his life’s work. And, wow, he must be sixty by now. While there are likely no more snowball fights, or minimally supervised field trips, in Rocky’s profession today, it appears he’s adapted nicely to both teaching’s new world order and the world we live in.