Morning Calls Remembered

(Originally published 4/19/16)

A loud shout on the streets of the Bronx in the early morning hours is the wind beneath the wings of this blog. Awoken from a sound sleep, my brain—sans any couching on my part—retrieved two words lodged in its vast memory bank: morning call. I don't exactly know why, but in my groggy state, I recalled my maternal grandmother’s daily newspaper, The Morning Call—the one she found on her front porch every morning on Miller Street and then on South Second Street in Bangor, Pennsylvania. As a youth, I always thought that was such a great name for a newspaper, and I’m happy to report this Allentown-based daily is still in business. But my brain wasn’t done yet. It returned to the Bronx and dredged up one more morning call—my own.

Some forty years ago, it was not unusual to find me in a neighboring alleyway at around seven o’clock in the morning and calling on my best friend “Johnny Boy.” Considering all the advances in technology and the colossal cultural shift, it seems kind of strange to envision a youngster arising so bright and early, before anybody else in the household, and venturing out onto the mean streets of the Bronx without first alerting Ma and Pa. After all, local crime statistics were even more cause for concern back then, and the nine- and ten-year-old me didn’t even have a cell phone to communicate with the home office.

But it’s just the way it was. Roaring at the top of my lungs, “Johnny Boy!” when most everybody in earshot was asleep on a weekend, or on an early summer’s morning, was commonplace. My friend would often respond to my bellow with the logical rejoinder, “What?” I would then say, “You coming out?” Occasionally, one of his sisters would answer for him and shout, “He’s sleeping!” Looking back these many years later, I can understand why some others might not have appreciated this morning call—not too long after the sunrise—of “Johnny Boy!” It was, however, a different and, I daresay, simpler time—completely uninhibited and not remotely technologically driven. It was also more annoying to those who didn’t get up with the roosters.

While I rue all that has been lost to the youth of today transfixed with their latest electronic gadgets and, above all else, impatience with everything and anything that doesn’t move at the speed of light, I take great solace in the contemporary quietude. There are no little people anymore waking up at daybreak, going out to play, and disturbing formerly young persons like myself. Nowadays, when the legions of youth arise from their slumbers, they reach, foremost, for their iPads and iPhones. Venturing out into the great outdoors—the urban jungle—and calling on their best buds is unheard of. When a text message or tweet will suffice, why wake up the wider world anyway? And now, too, I can read the The Morning Call online.

Memories of Class Warfare

(Originally published 9/30/11)

While toiling in a retail pet food and supplies business approximately two decades ago, I found myself the acting cashier—and just everything else—one afternoon, which was par for the course. Since the business in question was a friend and family member partnership, the daily operations were typically informal. Often, whoever was on duty wore many hats, played many roles, and nothing was beneath him or her, including the scrubbing of anxious canines’ diarrhea off the floor, which occurred from time to time in our pet-friendly store.

On this lazy summer afternoon, a woman came to counter with a basketful of cat food cans. She told me how many she had in there, and then went off to gather a few more things. I began bagging her cans and—as was my routine—counted them. I always placed a certain number in each bag—and no more—that was my bag, if you will. She evidently told me she had three cases worth, or some such thing. I counted a couple of cans fewer than her tally. I didn’t tell her and, admittedly, I was remiss in not informing her that her count was off. Still, when all was said and done, I charged her the correct amount, which would have been more had I accepted her erroneous calculation as the gospel truth.

Anyway, several days later, the store received a letter from this woman. She was peeved. Her home address was somewhere on Manhattan’s Central Park West. Apparently, this lady had means. In her missive, she bitterly complained about the cashier who charged her the correct amount, and not more based on her faulty arithmetic. She wrote, “He certainly would have told me if I had more cans in my basket, instead of fewer cans.”

Rich, the headcheese, posted the letter on his back office bulletin board. It was his policy to answer every missive he received from aggrieved clientele (generally speaking a good policy). Even though he had gotten all the pertinent details from me, he was nonetheless going to respond to this lady’s letter.

What particularly irked me about this whole affair was that this evidently well-off woman with a premium view of Central Park was, in essence, attempting to get a cashier—whom she presumed was making minimum wage or close to it—chastised or, better yet, terminated. She was making trouble for the little guy. For what reason: charging her the right amount, and not more money based on her addition gaffe.

As the days turned into a week and then a couple, I noticed the letter still pinned to Rich’s bulletin board. I had had enough and yanked it off. It is in my archives somewhere now, and that Upper West Side denizen never did get a response, nor did she get that cashier fired. Now that was class warfare.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)