Danny's World

A fellow named Danny passed way from COVID-19 this week. Sad news that can’t help but make one consider the larger picture and the meaning of life (if there is any). Danny was the last surviving member of an extended family, whom I knew once upon a time from the old neighborhood. Danny's mother and father made it to ninety or thereabouts, but their two sons weren’t nearly as fortunate in the longevity game.

Like most—if not all families—they were a dysfunctional lot. But that over-used label cuts a rather wide swath. There is run-of-the-mill dysfunction and a more compelling kind that is the stuff of—say—a laugh-riot sitcom. When I was fourteen and fifteen, an older teenager, neighbor, and friend—a mentor of sorts—collaborated with me on a series of very raw comic strips, assorted standalone cartoons, and sundry prose based on this singular family. While there was ample fodder for all to observe in the public square, he was a relative who—courtesy of living in the same two-family apartment building and attending various family gatherings—was the proverbial fly on the wall. My friend was privy to behind-the-scenes goings-on, idiosyncrasies, and banter that I could only dream of witnessing first-hand.

Danny was considered the more “normal” of the two offspring. The younger brother was something of a delinquent with a notorious potty mouth. He would curse out his grandmother, mother, and even his father with such gaudy regularity that it—at the end of the day—came across as more comical than cruel. Granted, not everybody saw it that way. As a kid, though, who was not accustomed to seeing that kind of thing in hearth and home, it was—I must admit—scintillating theater of the absurd. This extended family consisted of authentic characters—boorish, unpredictable, but more-or-less lovable small-screen ones—who never ceased to amaze, enthrall, and entertain. Again, not everybody was amazed, enthralled, and entertained by them.

Fast forward four decades and I still possess a compendium of miscellaneous scraps of paper from that creative snapshot in time. Unfortunately, I was too young to take it to the next level and pitch a sitcom idea to the networks. The time was certainly ripe—the 1970s—for an urban family-based comedy. But, honestly, I churned out this stuff to please my older friend and confidante—period. When he laughed—and he often would hysterically—that was good enough for me. It was the quintessential inside joke that underscored a bygone era, the passion of youth, and the preciousness of a moment that, regrettably, couldn’t and didn’t last forever. 

In this family affair, I knew Danny the least. He was considerably older than me—a grown-up—by the time I was relishing being on the outside looking in on his family. Sure, he was the normal one, but I think the quiet one might be a more apt description. His comedic bona fides revolved around his bear-hairy body, propensity to sweat profusely no matter the season, and relative silence.  

My most lasting memory of Danny is being in his house, after he had moved away from the old neighborhood, married, and had children of his own. As a teen, I worked for his brother—also my ride home—for a spell. One Saturday, a gathering was held at Danny's place, which was somewhere between where I worked and home. At closing time, Danny's bro informed me that he was going to stop there first for the remains of a buffet dinner. Thrown for a loop, I had little choice but to go along for the ride. But rather than go in the house, I informed Danny's brother and my ride home that I would remain in the vehicle, even if it might be for an hour or two. When the always-considerate Danny learned that I was sitting outside all alone—in wintertime no less—he emerged in the chilly darkness and insisted I come inside for a bite to eat, which I somewhat reluctantly agreed to do. Why did I initially choose to pass on this rare insider’s glimpse into Danny's World and a free meal to boot? I was a bashful boy, I suppose. All I can say now with a lump in my throat—more than forty years later—is this: RIP, Danny and the World We Knew

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

More Pandemic Pondering

I just ran across a Facebook post. It featured an image of a woman at an "End-the-Lockdown" protest in Nashville, Tennessee. She was carrying a poster that read: “Sacrifice the Weak. Re-Open.” Now, that’s pretty horrible sentiment, made more revolting at the notion of a person getting out the multicolored magic markers and the oak-tag paper to make a sign for all the world to see. But, hold on, this is 2020, where not everything is what it appears to be. After mulling over what I’d just seen, I considered the possibility that it just might be a photo-shopped original—prime meat for ravenous social-media consumers who, by the way, are ubiquitous and on the far ends of both political spectrums. I sincerely hope it was a fake, but it might not be. If it wasn’t, I’d like to believe this lady is an aberration in a sea of men and women—ill-informed and misguided in many instances—who just want to get back to work and pay their bills.

And now for something completely different: The litter on New York City streets has definitely multiplied in the past several weeks. With alternate-side-parking rules suspended and street cleaning compromised, it was inevitable. Litterbugs, though, have taken their inconsideration and slovenliness to a higher level—or, should I say, lower level—by discarding face masks and latex gloves onto sidewalks and curbsides. Think a minute about what you are doing. You are willy-nilly tossing away products that you were wearing to protect yourself from a potentially deadly virus and you expect an essential worker from the sanitation department or an area homeowner to pick them up off the ground.

As a matter of record, I encountered a couple of guys walking around with brooms, long-handled dust pans, and garbage cans this morning. They were sporting fluorescent vests and ambling from block to block picking up random trash from the sidewalks. I assumed they were city employees and not some Good Samaritans doing the neighborhood a good turn. I’ll say this about the pair, their thoroughness was rather uneven. At first I thought they were on a mission to gather up those jettisoned masks and gloves that are all over the place, but they picked up candy wrappers, used plastic cups, and lottery ticket stubs but also passed by a fair share of candy wrappers, used plastic cups, and lottery ticket stubs. Go figure...

On a happier note: I can say with confidence that there’s a certain calm in the middle of the storm right now. By and large, we’ve acclimated to the dire situation. Shopping in the grocery stores—masks are mandatory—seems pretty subdued compared to several weeks ago. There was a panicky feel then that’s not there anymore. Ditto in the tight bodega spaces—where six feet of social distancing is well nigh impossible. I was pleased to see that one of the establishments that I patronize was at long last restocked with Bounty paper towels and Scott toilet paper. The proprietor, too, appeared more relaxed and was no longer wearing a hazmat suit behind the counter. He seemed positively at ease as I handed him cash—my outstretched arm extending as far as it could over a social-distancing barricade of cases of Poland Spring water—and was back to making small talk. While I approve of his sartorial overhaul and the minimalist banter, I would recommend that he keep his mask on while transacting with the diverse clientele in that little hole in the wall of his.

Finally, from the “One Thing Leads to Another” file: I ran out of peanut butter. While I prefer Jif, I will settle for Peter Pan. While I prefer smooth, I will settle for crunchy in a crunch. Well, in the pandemic shopping mania of the new normal—where stocking up is job one—I was compelled to pick up a jar of Peter Pan crunchy. I purchased it from a gourmet market that stocks non-gourmet products, too. It is generally wise to check expiration dates on many of the items for sale there. Knowing, though, that peanut butter has a rather lengthy shelf life, I was remiss in this instance. My jar was expired—by a whole month—which means it probably sat in that store for years. The lid said, “Best if used by,” so I was prepared to soldier on and use the peanut butter. But when I unscrewed it, the top layer of the crunchy peanut butter appeared grayish and petrified. It may very well have still been edible, but I decided to write this one off as a $3.49 lesson. In a cruel twist of fate, I ended up with a jar of Reese’s peanut butter, which is—in my opinion—rather lame as peanut butters go.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Oh, Ho, Ho, It’s Not 1980

Previously, I’ve lamented the fact that all-too-many people are joined at the hip with their iPhones and a mere beep away from social-media ravings morning, noon, and night. While I personally don’t possess an iPhone, I nonetheless spend a lot of time plopped in front of my desktop computer and check out Facebook goings-on—and the usual suspects beating dead horses—more than I should.

I have a friend in the bright light of day who, for health reasons, has recently gone cold turkey vis-à-vis Facebook. On a daily basis, a handful of his italicized friends would engender apoplexy and elevate his blood pressure into visit-the-emergency-room territory. Occasionally, I forward him snippets of the “best of” our mutual Facebook connections. That is, posts from this virtual theater of the absurd that he’s now missing.

As part of my morning surfing ritual, I call upon a super site for nostalgic Met fans like me. It supplies us with a never-ending portal into past players, significant games, and noteworthy accomplishments—a stroll down memory lane often tailored to the calendar date and sometimes not. Nolan Ryan tossed a one-hitter for the Mets on April 18, 1970 and Gary Gentry, on April 18, 1971. Doug Flynn hit three triples on August 5, 1980. That was the “Magic Is Back” year, by the way, with new ownership in place of the antiquated, which allowed a once proud and lucrative franchise to go to pot. The chief villain was a stuffy patrician who refused to adjust to the changing times—i.e., free agency. Anyway, I remember fondly that baseball season, which bridged my high school days with my college ones. There were plenty of signs of hope that year. And I proudly wore my “Magic Is Back” New York City Department of Sanitation-orange tee.

So, that was forty years ago. I hadn’t even lived twenty in total up to that point. Now, two rounds of twenty have passed by just like that and we are in the midst of a pandemic. Strange indeed. At this anxious, uncertain moment in time—with life itself in a veritable freeze frame—contemplating the past and placing it in some broader perspective comes naturally.

We played stickball in that simpler snapshot in time at a nearby high school. It was almost as if the school was designed with two-against-two stickball in mind. The field wasn’t warm and green, but rock-hard asphalt that became sizzling hot in the dog days of summertime. Now, the high school is an extensive complex with security cameras all over the place. Suffice it to say—even absent a pandemic—we couldn’t play our summer game there today.

And forty years ago while I basked in the newfound magic—dreaming of better days to come—something special was lost: Jane Jarvis tickling the ivories of her organ at Shea Stadium. Uber-loud canned music replaced her. I recall being at a game in 1980 and hearing “Oh, ho, ho, it’s magic…you know” blaring out of the stadium’s sound system. Fast-forward forty years and that 1974 song, “Magic,” by a band called Pilot has been co-opted by a prescription drug called Ozempic: “Oh, ho, ho, Ozempic.” In the good old days of 1980, prescription drugs weren’t advertised on television.

Finally, it’s kind of nice around here on this Sunday. I noticed many more people out and about. Most were sporting masks. In nearby Van Cortlandt Park, however, there were more than a few young kids in an as-yet-finished skateboard section. They looked pretty young to me and not one of them wore a mask. Parental supervision at its best. City parks department personnel were actually chasing youth out of the area before the pandemic and social-distancing decrees.

Stymie Beard once said, “This is getting mo-nop-o-mos.” And it is. As the weather gets increasingly hospitable, social-distancing violators will transcend the skateboard zone, I fear, and the city’s 311 hotline will be overwhelmed with calls reporting violations.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

An Easter Blessing

This morning—on an Easter Sunday unlike any other—I sat on a park bench in Van Cortlandt’s Tail. While the day commenced sunny and pleasant, the weather abruptly changed and not for the better. A couple of other hearty souls rested along with me in this unusual snippet of parkland with a bird’s-eye view of Broadway and the El above it. Naturally, we practiced social distancing to the letter with considerably more than six feet separating us.

At some point a fellow with a conspicuous ambulatory issue ambled through the Tail on his way to Van Cortlandt Park proper. He was masked and gloved but didn’t feel compelled to remain at least six feet apart from his fellow New Yorkers. As this man crossed my path with maybe a yard to spare, he bellowed, “How are you, sir?” “Okay, how are you?” I answered. “I’m above ground!” he replied.

This mysterious passerby then informed me that he recently called his doctor and complained that he was experiencing some serious leg pain. From the looks of him, I have no doubt he was. The doctor’s response was that he should be “grateful” that he “could feel pain.” Personally, I would have preferred a new painkiller. But in this peculiar snapshot in time, that tête-à-tête just might have to pass as an Easter blessing.

But, really, being above ground and in a tremendous amount of pain isn’t the be-all and end-all. A case can often be made that being below ground—when the circumstances warrant it—has its place. Who, though, am I to say that this crippled guy wasn’t absolutely sincere in passing on that thankful-to-be-alive sentiment to me on the holiest of holy days for Christendom and in the midst of pandemic?

Once upon a time there were Easter baskets chock-full of chocolate bunnies, crème eggs, and crosses from Loft’s candy shop. Even as a kid, the cross—sans a personage nailed to it—seemed an odd thing to double as a milk chocolate candy. It didn’t, though, stop me from breaking it apart, consuming it, and thoroughly enjoying the taste sensation. Considering what we were ingesting during Holy Communion, I suppose the cross was fair game.

As memory serves, the Easter Bunny—bless his soul—wasn’t only a bearer of chocolate delights, jellybeans, and those horrible Peeps, he also brought baseball cards, sometimes even those triple packs. The Easter Bunny appreciated how the season represented both “He Has Risen” and “Play Ball.” I can’t say how the current situation impacted his appointed rounds this morning, but I suspect he did what he had to do—while wearing a mask and gloves—without a hitch. 

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Thick Blue Line

Yesterday at a local pharmacy, I found myself standing outside in the mid-morning sun behind a thick blue duct-taped line. It was the establishment’s noble attempt at social distancing. The pharmacy was only permitting a certain number of customers in at a time. There were thick blue lines to stand behind inside, too.

On another front, I noticed this past week a police cruiser with flashing lights in front of a neighborhood supermarket. Apparently the place requires law-enforcement presence to at once maintain social distancing and order. I shop nearby at this so-called gourmet market—i.e., more expensive prices on most things, including the ordinary—that is not yet rationing the number of people allowed in the store. It has, though, devised various detours and a novel waiting-on-line procedure to keep one and all sufficiently apart. Honestly, I don’t think it’s working as planned. Anyway, it’s startling to see this market, which once upon a time put a premium on presentation and fully stocked shelves. Now it looks like General Sherman’s army has passed through it on their March to the Sea.

Really, it’s unsettling enough to be shopping amidst mayhem, but I can do without a raving lunatic added to the general pandemonium. Today it was this middle-aged guy—who wasn’t wearing a mask, by the way—loudly jabbering away about Governor Cuomo. He assigned the governor full blame for the lengthy circuitous line and out-of-stocks in the market. Another annoying fellow was on said line, but kept leaving his cart unattended to secure more booty. Get on line or get off of it!

Witnessing so many people with their shopping carts piled high, my thoughts led me back to a simpler time, the 1970s, and a very special grocery store. Actually, it was a pantry in a neighbor’s basement. The teen-aged me dubbed it “the grocery store” because its shelves were always full of every canned good and non-perishable item imaginable. This family wasn’t about to go hungry during a pandemic, nuclear war, or Category 5 hurricane. The wind beneath the wings of that one-of-a-kind grocery store was the man of the house who worked at Grand Union, an area supermarket chain that has gone the way of the Great Auk. I vividly recall him arriving home on summer evenings with box loads of foods, foodstuffs, and more to keep the grocery store well stocked for that inevitable rainy day.

While revisiting that colorful snapshot in time, I thought about being a kid then as opposed to now. In those days, we spent a great deal of time outdoors. Being under house arrest, as it were, would have been a big deal. But being cooped up in the house is the norm for contemporary youth and where they want to be. They spend most of their free time inside, pandemic or no pandemic, staring at their iPhones and notepads. 

Some forty and fifty years ago, my thoughts were on more temperate weather and baseball during the first few weeks of spring. So the calendar decreed: Break out the mitts and have a catch. This simple act of social distancing is what so many of us did on countless occasions from March through October. Yes, it was an outside world that we lived in and there was always something to do, even if it was just a catch. Sheltering in place would have seriously cramped our styles. 

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Pandemic Pondering

Wondering how local eateries were handling the new world order we find ourselves in, I checked out some GrubHub reviews. One that caught my eye referenced an overly frightened delivery driver. Another chastised an unseen delivery guy for hanging his order on the outside doorknob, which unceremoniously crashed to the floor when he opened the door.

My personal favorite: a woman claimed the delivery driver refused to enter her building’s lobby. The driver said the doorman wouldn’t allow it. She said, he said. The young lady had to go down and pick up the order herself. Inconvenienced beyond the pale from her perspective, she refused to accept her dinner gracefully. Vis-à-vis the doorman’s alleged decree, she called the delivery driver a liar and he—not surprisingly—took offense. The response from the restaurant cut to the chase: “Are you aware of what’s going on in the world?”

While on the subject of GrubHub, this contemporary delivery vehicle has brought me back to places and foods that I had pretty much abandoned like McDonald’s and KFC. When I was a kid, KFC was Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s couldn’t accommodate special orders, like asking for a plain hamburger. You know: remove the pickles, chopped onions, and mustard. It was once upon a time a big to-do that often wasn’t done.

While working at a mom-and-pop pet food store in the Little Neck section of Queens forty years ago, one of our lunch options was McDonald’s. Rich, the boss man, would on occasion ask: “Do you want to do a scraping?” That is: order McDonald’s hamburgers without bothering to ask for them plain or with this or that condiment removed. Burger King, at the time, emphasized that special orders didn’t upset them. McDonald’s employees would often just scrape off the stuff anyway, leaving the residue of what was once there on the roll. The pickles and mustard always left their marks and the chopped onions got absorbed into the soggy roll. In the end, we decided to do our own more thorough scrapings.

Fast forward to the present and, lo and behold, McDonald’s can do special orders and remove whatever you want. I’ve done it through GrubHub, which permits you to click on remove this or that, including the meat and roll. But what I have discovered is that McDonald’s burgers, fish fillets, and chicken sandwiches without the various toppings—which I still find intolerable—leave you with solely the main attractions. The toppings, it would seem, give the burgers, fish fillets, and chicken sandwiches necessary cover. Because eating them unadorned clues you in on what you are actually eating—sodium—and they kind of all taste the same. I certainly feel the same, which isn’t particularly good, after eating anything from McDonald's. This is not to say that I won’t order from them again.

While on the subject of food or what passes for food, I was in a local supermarket a couple of days ago. It wasn’t especially crowded, but shoppers were definitely stocking up and behaving more frantically than ever. And it seems like the rules of polite society have been suspended until further notice, just like alternate-side parking rules. I learned that the express line of fifteen items or fewer was no longer the sole province of those with fifteen items or fewer, like me. Not realizing that a woman had a two-month supply of groceries on the conveyor belt, I chose the former express line. To make matters worse she was perpetually questioning a frazzled cashier behind plexiglass about the prices of various items. “Isn’t this on sale? Isn't that on sale?” I considered switching checkouts on a couple of occasions, hesitated, and found myself in the grip of supermarket freeze. That is, I made my choice, was rendered immobile, and lived or died with my decision.

When I finally exited the supermarket battlefront, I noticed it was spring outside. I’d hate to think of this present scenario in the heat and humidity of summertime. Wearing a mask in temperate temperatures is discombobulating enough. I pine for the day when the express line lives up to its name.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)