My Walkie-Talkie Christmas

(Originally published on December 15, 2013)

In my youth the anticipation of Christmastime and Christmas itself was very exciting. So, the aftermath of the holiday and returning to school was—it stands to reason—extremely depressing. Seeing decorations and lights lingering in people’s windows—while knowing that Christmas wasn’t on the horizon but a memorable fait accompli—was an awful feeling. But it was a microcosm of life, I've since learned, where all good things come to an end, attached—quite often—to an ugly payback of some sort.

Anyway, in January 1973, upon my melancholic return to St. John’s grammar school in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge, religion teacher Sister Therese queried each and every one of her students as to what his or her favorite Christmas present was. Except for the fact that my answer was “walkie-talkies,” I might not have remembered this banal Q&A. For Sister Therese repeated my words in a somewhat befuddled tone. It was as if she was unfamiliar with them. “Walkeee…talkeees,” she said or possibly asked with a question mark.

It was a simpler time when one wanted walkie-talkies for Christmas. A neighbor of mine had a pair and we established contact times, where he would initiate a Morse code—something that his more advanced walkie-talkies were equipped with but not, sadly, mine. I recall my mother talking with his mother on the walkie-talkies as if it was big thing—a grand technological moment akin to the very first phone call. Of course, they could have called one another on the telephone—and gotten better reception—or walked down a flight of stairs and met one another on our adjoining front stoops.

My “walkie-talkie” Christmas—1972—assumes an even a higher importance to me because they were number one on my “Santa Claus” list that year. I was absolutely certain that ol’ Saint Nick would come through with them, but he disappointed me big time. But forty years ago, I had a very generous godmother who always bought me a Christmas gift—a real one, something that I coveted, and definitely not clothes—but I didn’t typically see her to New Year’s Eve. Albeit a week later than expected, my godmother got me those walkie-talkies. Evidently, Santa Claus had arranged it with her. The pair was coolly trimmed in blue, quite hip looking, and individually packed in form-fitting Styrofoam compartments—worth the wait and then some! They had that wondrous transistor-radio plastic smell, too—something a 1970s kid appreciated. Suffice it to say, walkie-talkie fun ensued.

For sure, there will be no commensurate walkie-talkie gift this Christmas. It’s just not in the Yuletide cards anymore. There will be no Morse code chatter with a neighbor, either. Such is life as time marches on and on and on.

Christmas Eve Traditions and Memories

(Originally published 12/22/12)

For a lot of people, Christmas comes attached to a healthy dose of melancholy intermingled with all the colorful lights, festive music, and hustle and bustle. As a boy I could never conceive of why one single person wouldn’t welcome Christmas with open arms and a happy heart. For me, its one-two punch of anticipation and excitement truly made Christmas “the most wonderful time of the year.” But now with my youthful exuberance pretty much spent, and so many key Christmas players no longer on the scene, the season just isn’t what it once was—and I understand completely.

Once upon a time Christmas Eve meant gathering with the cousins, exchanging gifts, and enjoying a traditional Italian dinner featuring Spaghetti Aglio e Olio—garlic and oil—and multiple fish dishes. I believe the official tradition calls for seven, but we never quite reached that number with fried eels, baccalà (salted cod) salad, boiled shrimp, and calamari (squid) in tomato sauce rounding out the menu. Honestly, I can’t say I ever relished this particular fishy mélange, but my grandmother had a knack for making just about everything as good as it could possibly be—really. Fish, in fact, were very hard to come by in my grandmother’s hometown of Castlemezzano in the rocky mountains of Southern Italy. Her village was pretty poor and accustomed to the humblest of fish fare, and the tradition crossed the ocean. There were no swordfish steaks, lobster tails, or sushi on our Christmas Eve tables. Actually, her spaghetti was more than enough for me on this one night a year. I would sample an eel or two, which were peculiarly edible, and a few benign shrimp as well—but that was the long and short of my seafood intake.

The image of my grandmother preparing Christmas Eve dinners, with a mother lode of cooking oil at her disposal, is seared in my memory. Interestingly, though, it isn't olive oil I recall but peanut oil—in big gallon tins. It seems that during World War II, olive oil was pretty hard to come by and—when available—too expensive, so my grandmother substituted with Planter’s peanut oil. It was comparatively cheap and, as it turned out, tasty enough to pass muster. She purchased it at the Arthur Avenue retail market in the Bronx’s "Little Italy." Times have changed. Peanut oil is now hard to come by and pretty expensive when you do find it.

The Christmas Eve tradition endures—I think we’ve even reached the magic number of seven fish—but the memories do too of genuinely exciting times from the past and the people who made them so. There is a definitely a downside in having exceptionally fond memories of what once was and is no more.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Man, They Were Out of Sight

(Originally published 12/6/19)

Man, they were out of sight. They, of course, were Dune Buggy Wheelies, by Remco, a popular toy manufacturer once upon a time. I was the elated owner of one in 1970, when Richard Nixon was president. I distinctly recall playing with my favorite Christmas present of that year on my grandmother’s dinette floor. If memory serves, two D “flashlight” batteries were all one needed to get this modest vehicle hopping, including performing rather extraordinary wheelies. The remote control sprouted two wires, I believe, which were attached to the Dune Buggy Wheelie. I could steer the thing and make it go either forward or backward. What more could a 1970 kid want?

As with many cherished Christmas gifts from my youth, I have often wondered—looking back now all these years later—how long it physically lasted and whether my interest in the Dune Buggy Wheelie waned before this battery-operated toy’s inevitable death knell? Did the Dune Buggy Wheelie make it until the following Christmas? Somehow, I doubt it.

Leave it to a Mockingbird in Manhattan to pose for a Christmas picture.

Wall Street's got the Christmas spirit.

I must disagree. The best way to see New York is on foot.

Or, by air, if you have the wings for it. Riding a bicycle on the mean city streets is not for the faint-hearted.

When the Abominable Snowman isn't available...

This is how you place a star atop a big Christmas tree. By the way, this is the New York Stock Exchange tree, which takes a back seat to the one at Rockefeller Center. Yesterday was the 96th annual lighting. It's actually a better decorated Christmas tree than the one in Rockefeller Center, which only has lights. 

From what I've read, there are a whole lot of tourists in New York City at this time of year. More than ever before. I remember walking on the Brooklyn Bridge and getting chided by a bicyclist for being in the bike path. Last weekend the bridge walkway and bike path were overrun with Homo sapiens from all over the world. 

No matter the time of year nowadays, the bridge is teeming with tourists and peddlers alike. I'm happy, at least, that the Circle Line has somehow endured the vicissitudes of time. Its nautical cousin, the Day Line, which ferried passengers to West Point and Bear Mountain, is only a memory.

A helicopter tour of Manhattan Island is, from my perspective, a viable alternative to taking an overly crowded boat to Liberty Island. Of course, it'll cost a tad more than $18.50 for the privilege.

Sit on it, Potsie, he said, and not a Millennial in earshot knew what he was talking about.

They certainly have changed the place and, at the end of the day, not always for the better.

New York City neighborhoods used to have real character with mom-and-pop businesses able to survive and thrive. The hot dog vendors, at least, are still around. But I suspect their cost of doing business is—not unlike the Dune Buggy Wheelie—out of sight.

Fifth Avenue isn't the same and neither is Ninth Avenue.

This is known as modern art. If you can make a roll of packing tape something other than a roll of packing tape, you've created a masterpiece worthy of a window on Ninth Avenue.

What a difference a "D" makes...

Christmas is coming...

The geese are getting fat. Well, actually no, they are not.

Even stop lights, blink a bright red and green...Ring-a-ling...It's Christmastime in the city.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Charlie and Mama Christmas Miracle

(Originally published 12/17/16)

Nineteen years ago, a possible miracle occurred in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. To set the stage, my favorite local eatery had sadly changed hands. After refurbishing the place, its new owner—a man named Nick—reopened its doors. Many of the old customers returned for this second act, including a remarkably cranky old couple. No, not a husband and wife, but a seventy-year-old man and his ninety-nine-year-old mother. My frequent dining companions and I nicknamed the pair “Charlie and Mama.”

Witnessing a dutiful son lovingly caring for his aging and ailing mother is often uplifting, but it definitely wasn’t in this case. In fact, it was downright deflating, even a bit creepy. You see, very, very old Mama was the embodiment of mean—looked it, sounded it, and acted it. She scolded her septuagenarian son as if her were a five year old. But this was all going down in 1997—not the Roaring Twenties. Son Charlie, however, merited very little sympathy and understanding because he was an incredibly fussy, inconsiderate, and annoying man. Mother and son were frequently spotted walking the streets arm-and-arm, with antiquated Mama looking like she was a light pat away from crumbling into the dust from whence she came.

Suffice it to say, the entrepreneurial-minded Nick didn’t acclimate very well to the diner milieu and its colorful cast of characters, which included bothersome eccentrics like old Mama and her insufferable son. Charlie regularly ordered a burger for his beloved mother sans the bun. Despite it saving him a hamburger roll, this request really got under Nick’s skin. But it was the three or four French fries that Charlie wanted for his mother that irked him to no end. When Charlie informed the diner's put-upon proprietor that old Mama couldn’t possibly eat a regular order of fries, he didn’t say it nicely and, too, expected the sparrow’s portion to be on the house.

Eventually, the mere sight of the approaching Charlie and Mama sent Nick into spasms of rage. They came to embody everything he hated about diner irregulars, if you will. Nick desperately wanted his place to be a bona fide restaurant and not a neighborhood greasy spoon. And Charlie and Mama with their bunless burgers and three or four French fries just didn’t fit into his grand plan. Then one day, Nick overheard Mama’s anything but dulcet century-old tones saying aloud, “He’s not going to make it.” His body furiously shook, but the man uttered not a word to them. Instead, he beamed hate—the genuine article—their way.

Come Christmastime, I spied a row of cards taped atop the refrigerator accommodating the Jell-O, rice pudding, and apple pie—from various food suppliers and even a handful of customers, I supposed—despite the fact that Nick was the epitome of ineptness, irascibility, and miserliness all rolled into one disagreeable package. The man had raised all the prices and reduced all of the portions in one fell swoop. The formerly considerable and otherworldly hamburgers of the previous ownership had become McDonald's-sized, flavorless, and much pricier.

While I wasn’t about to send Nick a Christmas card, I nevertheless thought it would be warm and fuzzy if he received one from his worst tormentors—Charlie and Mama. And so he did. The miracle—the Christmas miracle, actually—was that I was present when the postman delivered the card, when Nick opened it, and when he read it. I witnessed the expression on his face as he came upon the sender’s names: “Charlie and Mama.” Nick expressed uncharacteristic glee, immediately showing it to his staff. He just couldn’t believe he had received this holiday goodwill from such a sinister duo. I heard him repeat several times—to no one in particular—these two words: “Charlie and Mama.” And, I can honestly say, he had a big smile on his face the entire time.

I have long believed that my being privy to the fruits of this endeavor was divine intervention, or maybe it was because I often had breakfast there at around the time the postman knocked. Still, I’d rather believe that miracles do happen on occasion. And, as things turned out, old Mama was prescient concerning Nick’s fate. He didn’t make it.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Christmas 1972: Starring Celery Rolaids, Jams Onion, and Apple McCarrot

(Originally published 12/19/20)

Forty-eight years ago this very month, the fifth-grade class at St. John’s grammar school in the Bronx's Kingsbridge embarked on their annual field trip to Radio City Music Hall. What I remember is that we rode the subway into mid-town Manhattan—the Number 1 train—which we could see tirelessly coming and going outside our school’s east-facing windows. We saw not only the fabled Hall's "Christmas Spectacular"—at least that's what it's called now —but a full-length feature film as well. In this instance, the musical 1776. Several years later, a history teacher at Cardinal Spellman High School, Sister Josepha, remarked that this particular flick—albeit highly entertaining— contained “much too much levity” to be considered a fair rendering of the founding of our nation. And the old gal might have been on to something! After all, the historical evidence is not exactly clear that Thomas Jefferson was incapable of writing the Declaration of Independence for a spell because he “burned” at being so far, far away—and for entirely too long—from the misses. We will never know for certain because he burned all of his correspondences with her.

Anyway, fast forward almost five decades. The times have certainly changed since that exciting school field trip all those years ago. On a positive note, the subways around these parts are more efficient and indeed more comfortable than they were in the 1970s. (Contemporary photos are included with this essay.) During that colorful snapshot in time, they were pretty filthy on both the outside and the inside. Passengers, too, often sat atop the subway car’s heating source, which left no room whatsoever under the seats for briefcases, bags, and assorted accoutrements of everyday living.

Nowadays, Radio City doesn’t feature movies at Christmastime. It’s a lot more expensive as well, but then so is everything else. I’d also hazard a guess that the available chaperone pool for school field trips was much broader in 1972 than it is in 2020. Most mothers didn’t work jobs outside of the home back then. One parent’s income often sufficed, which is rarely the case today. So, when my mother volunteered her services as a chaperone, I was afforded the opportunity to select three of my classmates to accompany me under her watchful eyes. Three pals and I amounted to one-tenth of what was a class of forty baby boomers. If my arithmetic is correct, we’re talking ten chaperones per class.

The problem, though, with asking a ten-year-old boy to select a trio of companions is that he might possibly have four or five friends, and somebody would feel left out. And that’s exactly what happened! Once upon a time, our little clique of friends played this rather clever naming game—for ten-year-old kids, I'd say—where we were individually bestowed a moniker based on a food, familiar commercial product, or some combination of the two. They were supposed to sound something like our given names.

Foremost, I was Nicoban NyQuil. Nicoban was a trailblazing "quit-smoking" gum often advertised in the early 1970s. And, of course, who among us hasn’t swigged a dose or two of NyQuil at some point in time? The first two contemporaries I tapped for my Radio City Music Hall troupe were no-brainers: Celery Rolaids and Jams Onion. It was the third slot that put me on the spot because there were two strong contenders. And although I preferred one somewhat to the other, I suspected the odd man out would be wounded by my subsequent choice. And I was right—he was! When I selected Apple McCarrot to complete our foursome, Frankfurter McReynolds Wrap let me know in no uncertain terms how deeply offended he was by the slight. “I thought I was your friend," he said. Frankfurter McReynolds Wrap was my friend—and I felt really bad about it—but, then again, so was Apple McCarrot.

Nevertheless, I suspect Frankfurter ended up in another quartet that suited him just fine. Field trips to Radio City at an agog age at Christmastime transcended chaperones and insular little groups. When we returned to our regular classes the next school day, my "Language Arts" teacher, Sister Camillus, informed us what “obnoxious” meant. A catchy 1776 musical number branded John Adams as “obnoxious and disliked” within the Continental Congress of 1776. Almost two hundred years later, Sister Camillus of St. John’s grammar school stood before us as a living and breathing example of obnoxiousness. Exhibit A, yes, that the ten-year-old me never quite appreciated.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Ghost of Christmas Future: The Next Generation

(Originally published 12/21/20)

Once upon a time, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, holiday specials on the small screen were must-see TV. Adults and children alike dutifully noted the day, time, and channel that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman would air on network television. After all, it wasn’t Christmas until Burl Ives—in his Rankin/Bass snowman incarnation—plowed through the powdery white, banjo in hand, and crooned, “Holly, Jolly Christmas.” It likewise wasn’t Christmas until Jimmy Durante, schnozzola—in vivid 1960s animation—gravelly croaked, “Frosty the Snowman.” All these years later, the lyrics linger: “Thumpity, thump, thump, thumpity, thump, thump. Look at Frosty go. Over the hills of snow.”

I would be remiss here not to mention How the Grinch Stole Christmas with the funny-looking but harmonious folks of Whoville, who, by the way, knew the true meaning of the day. And worth mentioning, too, is The Little Drummer Boy narrated by the somewhat forbidding “Miss Greer Garson”: "Our Storyteller" to be precise. True, “Aaron hated all people,” but that accrued rancor completely dissipated when he laid eyes on the luminescent Christ Child. Was the luminescent thing recorded in the New Testament? Anyway, Aaron witnessed his little lamb, Baba, get hit by a reckless chariot driver. The African king—among the diverse three kings of Orient that also included an Asian and an obese Caucasian—informed the grieving boy that the lamb was near death and that he could do nothing for Baba. “But you are a king,” Aaron said. “A mortal king only…but there is a king among kings,” his majesty replied while gesturing to the glowing infant in the manger. “But I do not understand,” Aaron responded. “It is not necessary that you understand!” the king answered. Understanding has its place.

Flesh and blood folks like Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Andy Williams did annual Christmas shows as well and we awaited with bated breath for them to sing their signature yuletide songs: “White Christmas,” “Ave Maria,” and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” respectively. Even Dean Martin Christmas specials appeared for a spell. Nobody sung “Marshmallow World” like old Dino at his campy best. Comedian Bob Hope’s holiday specials regularly included—for some unknown reason—introducing the AP All-American college football team with a procession of painfully unfunny jokes like: “Leslie is so wide. When he plays he has to wear a number and a license plate.” The recurring spectacles reminded me of high school pep rallies and I could never quite establish the Christmas connection. But Bob would ultimately sing “Silver Bells” and all was forgiven.

There were also the variety-show flavors of the day back in the 1970s. Groups and individuals who hosted shows include The Carpenters, The Osmond Family, and Julie Andrews. While the music holds up well in them, the sketch comedy is excruciating to watch. Guest stars on The Carpenters: A Christmas Portrait, 1978, were Gene Kelly, Georgia Engel, Kristy McNichol, and Jimmy McNichol. Only on a TV Christmas special in the 1970s could you see a sister and brother, Kristy and Jimmy, sing “Fum Fum Fum.” I would also say that the busiest guest on holiday variety shows from that era was impersonator Rich Little, who got to do Jack Benny as Ebenezer Scrooge on The Perry Como Christmas Show, 1974. Harvey Korman performed a frenetic one-man Christmas Carol on The Carpenters at Christmas, 1977, which also included Kristy McNichol as a guest star. She must have been pretty big back then to appear in two successive Carpenters’ Christmas specials. They were simpler times for sure.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)