First Prize Relinquished

(Originally published 10/30/11)

On the eve of Halloween, I can’t help but hark back to a special memory of the day. The day that I won first prize for the best costume in my fourth-grade class. I wore a clown mask, a red wool hat, and the heavy blue corduroy shirt that my father always wore when he painted the rooms of our apartment and assorted other things. It was a colorful outfit for sure, but the early-1970s were colorful times. I can’t see anyone wearing that heavy corduroy shirt today, but then I can’t see why anyone would have worn it back then, except as a painting shirt to absorb all that splatter, or as part of a Halloween costume.

But here’s the interesting note about this Halloween costume contest in St. John’s grammar school in Kingsbridge. The boy who came in second place to me dressed up as a woman. He went the whole nine yards, too, with a fashionable dress, high heels, and a girdle—not some Woolworth-Woolco $2.47 mature woman costume. His name was Kieran and I'll concede that he really and truly merited first prize. He proudly lifted his dress to show us his girdle. But then, it was a democratic vote—at least that’s what we were all led to believe. In retrospect, considering the time and the school, perhaps there was some chicanery behind the scenes and the ballot box was tampered with in some way. However, I don't think so.

Whatever the real truth is, I would like on this Halloween—some four decades later—to at long last award Kieran first prize, because he so richly deserved it, not only for the costume itself, but for his audacity to wear it in front of his peers. After all, how old were we then? Ten? My only other personal memory of Kieran involves a certain request of his. He asked me if I would be his straight man in an effort to cheer up a classmate of ours named Karen who, for some reason that I don't recall, was bereft and weeping uncontrollably.

Anyway, Kieran, with me at his side—two fourth graders—said to Karen, “Nicholas is ridiculous,” emphasizing the syllabic rhyme. I remember, too, he employed various other rhymes and plays on words to cheer her up, which is laudatory in and of itself, but particularly so considering his young age. While I wouldn't call it a rousing success, I think Kieran’s ten-year-old therapy actually worked. But, if nothing else, it’s testament to his heart and soul, and I am proud to have been his Charlie McCarthy dummy for one brief shining moment a long time ago. I sincerely hope the fifty-something Kieran has put this incredible empathy of his to good use on a much grander scale. And, as for Karen, I hope the “Nicholas is ridiculous” moment made a difference—even if only a small one. Whatever…this Halloween first prize…transferred finally to Kieran is, I know, justice delayed...but at long last served.

The Misadventures of Pizza Man

(Originally published 3/7/16)

He was oozing optimism when he first opened his pizza place’s doors. His little restaurant was poised and ready for what was certain to be a mad dash of salivating clientele. The shop was staffed like a bustling Midtown Manhattan pizzeria—its multiple employees festooned in matching red, logo-emblazoned baseball caps and staff shirts. The adrenalized new owner, who had succeeded an unsuccessful pizza peddler, who in turn had assumed the reins from still another failed pizza guy, had—it seemed—all his bases covered. This latest entrepreneurial endeavor was sure to prove—despite its cursed locale—that a third time's a charm.

Long a pizza devotee and forever a Bronx denizen, the shortest distance from point A (home) to point B (a quality New York slice of pizza) mattered to me. Therefore, I would throw myself at the mercy of the new kid on the block and hope for the best. I was perfectly willing to tolerate any and all growing pains, including extraordinarily green employees, who didn’t in the slightest strive to be otherwise. So, I wasn’t bothered when the two slices, plus a small fountain drink—the $5.00 lunch special—wasn’t afforded to me because I declined the free drink. (I didn’t want to carry it home.) The clueless staff actually charged me $5.50, the cost of two slices when not on special, because I didn’t accept the drink! And then there was the improperly wrapped pizza conundrum, where exceptionally oily slices saturated takeout bags beyond their capacity to do the job. On more than one occasion during this establishment’s fledgling days, my bag split open before I arrived home, splattering my clothes with mozzarella, tomato sauce, and scorching hot, orangey grease. I was nonetheless hopeful things would improve once the gang that couldn’t shoot straight got the hang of it. I would thus ignore that countless pizza slices lost their tips when being plucked out of the oven and when being yanked out of the takeout bag. Call me naïve, but I was convinced the pizza man would soon appreciate that his pizza pies were usually too thin, often too crisp, and sometimes a deadly combination of both. I had been served pizza slices with burnt bottoms before in my fast-food culinary travels, but never this degree of burnt offerings.

This pizza shop in the Northwest Bronx began with both high hopes and a full showcase of every conceivable specialty pizza. Quickly, though, a conspicuous dearth of sales cut the pizza selections on display to a haphazard, forlorn-looking medley of slices. A portent of things to come occurred when the restaurant’s top pizza oven went on the fritz and was not repaired for months. Truth be told, it was painful to behold the well-intentioned, formerly optimistic owner preparing his pizza pies in an oven that was practically on the floor. God knows the man tried. He inundated the surrounding neighborhood with fliers on several occasions. In fact, one of them heralded that the place would be open for breakfast. But—go figure—he never opened for breakfast. It would have been the opportunity of a lifetime—and a first—to sample “Mash Potato” on a roll to start my day.

When all was said and done, the pizza served was pretty good—above average, I'd say—even if the slice size and its mass fluctuated from one day to the next. My last takeout purchase of a couple of slices—with pepperoni on them—was practically weightless. It was as if I had bought them on the moon. Unquestionably, there was a consistency issue. You could get the freshest, tastiest slice one day and a soggy muddle the next. Refrigerated pizza from the prior day is a definite no-no in this business. And pizza visuals matter! The place’s showcase was too often unsightly—practically empty with just a few petrified-looking options. Nevertheless, I genuinely liked the proprietor and hoped and prayed he would eventually get his act together. He never did. His almost two years of misadventures seemed like an eternity to me, a loyal customer. I can only imagine what it seemed like to him. And if this pizza man tries his luck someplace else—which I believe is very possible—I sincerely hope his pizza slice tips stay put. I also hope in the next go-round that if he advertises “open for breakfast” he does, in fact, open for breakfast.

(Photos 1 and 2 from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Rainy Day Schedule

When I attended seventh grade at St. John’s Middle School in the Bronx, there was an unusual policy in effect. It was dubbed the “Rainy Day Schedule.” Based on the fickle whims of Mother Nature, it was an odd duck indeed. If our principal looked out her office window and spied raindrops falling from the clouds, she would take to the school intercom and declare, “Today, we will be following the ‘Rainy Day Schedule,’” which cast asunder the hour lunch break and augured an early dismissal, 1:30 p.m. instead of 2:30 p.m., as I recall. Personally, I liked “Rainy Day Schedule” days. Getting out of school at 1:30 versus 2:30 was very appealing to this twelve-year-old boy, who lived just a couple of blocks away.

Under sunny skies—on a more typical school day—I would venture home for lunch and return to school for the afternoon session. But not every kid did that. A fair sampling of my peers enjoyed “hot lunch,” as it was known, in the school’s cafeteria. The wafting aroma of a Chef Boyardee-esque tomato sauce was quite commonplace around lunchtime, but not when the “Rainy Day Schedule” was operational. Presumably, this policy saved some bucks on meals not served. What other reason could there have been for it? Being at the mercy of the weather must have truly inconvenienced some parents, who were now responsible for their young’uns arriving home an hour earlier than usual and, of course, serving them lunch. And what about the lunch ladies?

If memory serves, Sister Estelle’s invoking of the “Rainy Day Schedule” was more popular than not. It, though, often seemed arbitrary—a close call, as it were—whether or not we’d dash out into the rain or drizzle an hour before our standard dismissal time. Looking back on the whole affair, it likely generated more problems than benefits. If saving on the Chef Boyardee-esque tomato sauce bill was the wind beneath the wings of this policy, I don’t remember it ever being explained one way or the other. And this was 1974-75, the heyday of Catholic schools in New York City, when their cups runneth over with cash and student fannies in every desk available. My classmates and I represented the tail end of the baby boom. Just a few years later, in fact, St. John’s Middle School, which housed seventh and eighth grades, shuttered its doors, and all eight grades fit into the grammar school on Godwin Terrace, a hop, skip, and a jump away. Once upon a time, this building served kindergarten through the sixth grade only. And several years after that consolidation, the middle school was back in business, hosting the whole shebang. The Archdiocese of New York leased the empty buildings—first the middle school then the larger grammar school—to the New York City Board of Education.

As fate would have it, the noble experiment that was the “Rainy Day Schedule” vanished the following year, never to be seen or heard from again. It was an experimental time for sure. Also in my seventh grade, A, B, C, and D grades were jettisoned in favor of 1, 2, 3, and 4 grades. Our education was thorough enough, however, that we weren’t fooled by this sleight of hand. Getting a mess of 4s in lieu of Ds offered the recipient little solace. Being a straight 1 student was still preferable.

In tandem with the “Rainy Day Schedule,” the 1, 2, 3, 4 grading system was retired as well, a folly soon forgotten. The eighth grade for me was weatherproof with the venerable A, B, and C thing back in business. Blame it on the rain, if you want, but it was most assuredly a simpler time.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

 

If I Could Save a Time in a Bottle

(Originally published 9/23/15)

Another icon has died: the incomparable Yogi Berra. The man personified a time when professional baseball—and professional sports in general—had both character and characters. He also transcended the game in which he played and played so well.

Yogi will always be a Met in my eyes. He managed my all-time favorite team, the 1973 New York Mets, who improbably came within a game of winning the World Series against the heavily favored Oakland A’s. Previously, they had beaten the heavily favored Cincinnati Reds—the “Big Red Machine”—in the National League playoffs. The whole spectacle was especially remarkable because the 1973 Mets were floundering pretty much all season long—beset with all kinds of injuries—and closer to the basement than the penthouse when the month of September began. In fact, The New York Post had run a mid-summer poll, which posed the question to its readership, “Who should the Mets fire for their underachieving: Manager Yogi Berra, General Manager Bob Scheffing, or Board Chairman M. Donald Grant?” Scheffing and Grant got the lion’s share of the votes—and deservedly so. Yogi was a beloved figure and wasn’t to blame. After all, he went on to win the pennant. It’s a crying shame the pompous patrician Grant wasn’t sent packing then before he single-handedly destroyed a great franchise. (We shall never forget the Grant’s Tomb years: 1977-1979.)

There was nothing quite like being a kid and a fan back then. In the real world—the adult world—there was President Nixon and Watergate and, too, Vice President Agnew resigning during the post-season excitement. But I was pushing eleven in September and October 1973 and not particularly interested in the goings-on in Washington, D.C. I didn’t care whether or not our president was a crook—let's put it that way. I was more interested in watching Mets’ games on the black-and-white television in our family living room and listening to just as many on the radio—my personal radio. No, it wasn’t a transistor. It was a much bigger deal than that with a dial. The radio could be either battery operated or plugged into an electrical outlet. What more could a boy want? Actually, my godmother had gotten me the radio as a First Holy Communion gift a couple of years earlier—one of the fringe benefits of being raised a Catholic. Holy Sacraments and that very first time often came attached to presents and sometimes even monetary rewards. Anyway, the radio is what I wanted so I could listen to Mets’ games—period and end of story. I don’t remember using it for any other purpose but to tune in to the dulcet tones of word painters Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner—the Holy Trinity as far as I was concerned.

It was definitely a time worth saving in a bottle. I recall Yogi’s rather humble description of managing. He said, “All you have to know is when to take your pitchers out and how to keep your players happy.” The first year of the Designated Hitter in the American League was in 1973, which more or less torpedoed the only in-game strategy Yogi believed a Major League Baseball manager needed to master. By the way, Tom Seaver completed eighteen games in 1973 (after a career high of twenty-one in 1971). There were no pitch counts and other such nonsense back then. Yogi Berra, manager; Tom Seaver, the ace of the pitching staff; and the legendary Willie Mays on the very same roster in a pennant race and then in a World Series—you gotta believe nothing even remotely resembling that will ever occur again. 

Bummer Summer Ramblings

Once upon a time, I loved summer, I really did. What, after all, wasn’t to like? Oh, sure, it could get ghastly hot and humid in the Bronx. And, too, I grew up on the top floor of a three-family house with seven residents sharing one bathroom, no air conditioning, and intermittent brown outs courtesy of our local utility Con Edison. That’s the way it was when I was a young and callow fellow. But, come on, summer was about a vacation by the sea—the New Jersey shore or Long Island—baseball, the Good Humor man, and incessant stoop chatter by young and old alike. School was also out, which counted for an awful lot. That fact alone made sleeping with a wet washcloth peachy keen.

Those bygone summers are distant memories. Nowadays, I see more pesky lantern flies than lightning bugs, which were ubiquitous in my neighborhood when I was a boy. Most of their former habitats have been built upon and their mating modus operandi has been simultaneously stymied by omnipresent lighting sources from home security cameras, streetlamps, and automobiles galore. I fondly recall sitting on the concrete grounds of the alleyway adjoining my home and enjoying a Good Humor cola-flavored Italian ice with a little wooden spoon. The ice and spoon cost twenty cents. It was, if memory serves, a solid ice ball, but I relished the thing on those warm, quiet, dark summer nights replete with lightning bugs and a reassuring calm. It didn’t matter to me that the spoon inevitably passed through the paper cup multiple times during the ice shaving. The sticky struggle to reach the bottom was well worth it. That’s where most of the cola coalesced, infusing the finishing bites with an incredible summer taste sensation. Of course, there were better brands of Italian ices around, like Marinos, but they, sadly, were not peddled by the Good Humor man.

Time waits for no Good Humor man. Oops, that sentence, I fear, violates many of today’s college and university speech codes. Nevertheless, I’ll soldier on and, when needed, use the phrase, “Kill two birds with one stone,” and not as Stanford University suggests, “Feeding two birds with one scone.” Also flagged as a violent turn of phrase: “Bury the hatchet.” But I digress, the streets of my youth are presently overrun with Grubhub and other delivery drivers on fast scooters and electric bikes, revving cars with tinted windows, and the occasional "dune buggies" that look like something the Joker rode around in on the Batman TV series. No more Good Humor trucks pass by—the fleet has long been retired. The ringing of the bells heralding their arrival are no longer heard. Mister Softee, though, still haunts the back streets with the familiar jingle playing ad nauseum and further disturbing the peace. I checked out the price of a Mister Softee milk shake: six dollars for a rather small cup in my opinion. I remember when it was served in a monster cup that had to contain at least a quart. The shakes cost around sixty cents sometime in the mid-1970s, which the inflation calculator puts at some four dollars in contemporary dollars, which doesn’t sound too out of whack, except that the shakes are half the size.

Contrast that with the tuition of my high school years (1976-80), which I recall as being around $800 for the year. Without fail, in the middle of the summer, a packet arrived with all kinds of depressing back-to-school information, including an apology from the principal for raising tuition by eight or ten dollars. That price tag seemed steep back then and it was for my parents, who sent multiple kids to Catholic grammar and high schools. Plugging in the inflation calculator again: $800 equals $3800 in 2023 dollars. My alma mater’s current tuition: $10,000. When I graduated college in 1984, my tuition for two semesters totaled $5,000. Today that money could buy me about $15,000 worth of goods and services. Manhattan College’s tuition for the coming year: approximately $50,000. What gives? All I can say is “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” Also, don’t take out the loan if you can’t repay the lender. I always thought that some of my college courses were a ridiculous waste of time, especially when considering the enormity of the tuition bill. Today, with higher education crazy expensive and increasingly Orwellian, that waste of time and money assumes a whole new meaning.

So, I look around at what has become an urban dystopia. A passing Grubhub guy is doing a wheelie while on his scooter. Hope he’s not delivering a pizza. All I can say is: This is now and that was then.

 

 

The Cough Drop Kid

(Originally published 2/13/13)

I knew a kid in grammar school whose favorite candy wasn’t candy at all, but a cough drop. It was, however, displayed and sold alongside the Sweet Tarts, Razzles, and York Peppermint Patties—so perhaps it was candy after all. The candy store proprietors in the neighborhood didn’t mind that ten- and eleven-year-old kids were purchasing and eating cough drops like they were Milk Duds and Mary Janes. They didn’t request purchaser evidence of a cold, allergy, or scratchy throat. And nobody suggested, then or now, that there was anything wrong with selling cough drops in the same fashion as Bubble Yum, Good & Fruity, and Starburst.

When it was time to graduate from said grammar school in 1976, graduates one and all were asked to share a fond, funny, or noteworthy remembrance—from their first-grade to eighth-grade educational experiences—for possible inclusion in the class yearbook. You know, for the montage page of fond, funny, and noteworthy remembrances—like the time the bee flew up Suzy Q’s uniform dress during recess, or the time Frankie McGuirk got bus sick—and lost his cookies—on a class field trip to an amusement park in Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey. I submitted the memory of the Cough Drop Kid, who was renowned for both loving a particular brand of cough drops and John Wayne. My special memory didn’t make it into the yearbook—the school censors, I guess, didn’t think it appropriate or interesting enough. And the memories competition was pretty stiff in my esteemed graduating class.

Fast forward almost thirty-seven years since grammar school graduation day—and forty years plus since the Cough Drop Kid indulged in his favorite candy. It’s 2013 and, as fate would have it, I spoke with the Cough Drop Kid today. He’s still alive and kicking. We chewed over his peculiar childhood addiction to a certain cough drop. Funny, but in middle age, we both couldn’t remember the brand name. It definitely wasn’t Smith Brothers—we were certain of that much.

Courtesy of the vast wealth of accessible information now at our fingertips, I Googled the phrase “soft cough drops.” I remembered the Cough Drop Kid’s preferred product was different from the competition. They were not rock-hard lozenges, but chewy. And, lo and behold, there they were: Pine Brothers. I recalled immediately their familiar 1970s box and the drops special shape and texture. While they were reasonably soft as a rule, sometimes they could be quite hard and they always stuck to your teeth. The Cough Drop Kid harked back to a lost love. I refreshed his memory, too, that a classmate, who had him as a “Kris Kringle” at Christmastime, bought him a box of cherry-flavored—his personal favorite—Pine Brothers cough drops.

The Cough Drop Kid and I were now left to wonder if Pine Brothers cough drops were still around. Neither of us had seen them for some time, but then we weren’t looking for them. Happily, we can report, they live on, although these unique cough drops evidently went on a hiatus for a spell. They are being pedaled in the new millennium as “Softish Throat Drops”—and oddish description. Perhaps the Cough Drop Kid will revisit the Pine Brothers cough drop—this “softish throat drop”—in the near future and report back as to whether or not the magic is still there.

Red Light...Green Light

(Originally published on 1/30/16)

As kids growing up in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx in the early 1970s, we played a game—among so many others—called “Red Light…Green Light.” In this youthful diversion of ours, somebody was It. More times than not, being It in an urban street game was the booby prize. But not in “Red Light…Green Light.” It is what the game’s myriad players aspired to be, because the Anointed One got to cry out, “Red Light…Green Light…1, 2, 3...1, 2, 3” with It's eyes covered and back turned to all others. And right after this rapid-fire recitation, It promptly pirouetted in an attempt to catch advancing players in the act. That is, the game's players endeavoring to reach the coveted finish line. Players who could not—under any circumstances according to the rules—be caught in motion. We were permitted to advance only during the “Red Light…Green Light…1, 2, 3...1, 2, 3” clarion call. If caught moving forward by the All Mighty It, we would be sent back from whence we came—the starting line, actually, and a long, long way from being the game’s impresario. That’s the way “Red Light…Green Light” was played—if that makes any sense. And, believe me, it was a lot of fun being It and not It, too.

But this blog is not about the game just described, which I played forty-five years or so ago—and one, by the way, that withered on the vine with just about every other street game after my generation, the baby boomers, retired their spaldeens. No, this “Red Light…Green Light” game that I played some forty-five years ago was a One Night Only affair, an on-the-spot creation of yours truly as darkness set in on a chilly, pre-Christmas December evening just before suppertime. I was nine years old and playing outside with my six-year-old brother. We did that sort of thing in the 1970s. We were outdoors as much as physically possible, even in cold weather and without the light of day.

True, the 1970s were a high crime time here in the Bronx and just about everywhere else in New York City. There were plenty of muggings, break-ins, and the like. Still, I don’t think my folks were even remotely guilty of parental negligence. Anyway, this “Red Light…Green Light” derivative involved a literal, working traffic light on Kingsbridge Avenue, a street a couple a blocks away from where I called home. My younger brother and I participated in a frenetic running game that took us down alleyways, over a short backyard wall, and through a curious nook and cranny—a small space to slither through that bordered a low wrought iron fence with spikes atop it. It was there—X marks the spot—where one could catch a glimpse of that traffic light. Red meant stop and green meant go—simple enough. But for an energized nine year old, stopping on a dime—for a red light in this instance—could augur trouble, especially with a spiked fence in the vicinity.

So, yes, I got a spiked that night—beneath my chin—and the blood flowed. Without delay, Mom brought me to our family doctor up the hill on Kingsbridge Avenue, a mere block away from the notorious red light. The old sawbones stitched me up—I have the scar to prove it—and informed my mother and me that a half-inch or so to the left and I might have been impaled. The following day, my best friend in grammar school at the time—a kid named Mark—mockingly pointed out to my peers that I was wearing “one bandage over another” on my chin. What are friends for? This, in fact, is how I can remember how I old I was when the near-impaling incident occurred. I’ve got a signed report card envelope to prove it. 

Postscript: I've noticed that modern-day fences of the kind that nearly impaled me are sans spiked tops. They're flat.  And this flatness is a good thing. I’m glad, though, that I was permitted to go outside and play a game—for lack of a better word—that I conceived in the moment. I’m happy, too, that there was a family doctor still in his office to patch me up—one bandage over another—without any fanfare. Kids with their smartphones just don’t know what they’re missing.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Steaks Are High

As we embark on yet another presidential primary season—God help us—it’s worth noting how absurd and pathetic our politics have become. And it’s not just politics, sad to say, but seemingly everything else in the culture at-large. A few notes on the omnipresent madness: The price of beef is off the charts—the steaks are high, really. Two orders of hamburgers and fries at my favorite diner tallies up to $30 before the tip. Inflation may be leveling off from its peak, but I’m not seeing the prices of orange juice, coffee, and cereal trending south. The state of the economy should be the defining issue in 2024. In the good old days, it was the economy, stupid—always. However, now the two major parties appear more interested in raving on and on and on about cultural issues, which matter, of course, but not at the expense of the bread-and-butter issues. The sky is forever falling, and democracy is ever hanging in the balance, but recently a bag of Frito’s corn chips cost me over $5—“Ay, ay, ay!”

Honestly, the mere thought of a Joe Biden versus Donald Trump rematch is profoundly depressing. What, pray tell, has happened to us? Old Joe is one slip and fall away from crumbling into dust. And The Donald is under indictment for retaining classified documents, making false statements, and obstructing justice—let me count the ways—not to mention that January 6th thing. Serious business, folks. I’m all for the return of selecting candidates in smoke-filled backrooms. The end-results were typically better than what the primary process regurgitates nowadays. Smoking, though, is outlawed in all rooms in 2023, and the party bosses just ain’t what they used to be. So, I won’t hold my breath awaiting vape-filled backrooms restoring some sanity to the body politic.

On another front closer to home: Life in the big city has taken a very wide turn for the worse. Mayor Adams blames the media for obsessing on crime stories. Maybe it’s because there are so many of them! What I see with my own two eyes in my little snippet of the world is an obvious decline in the quality of life. Speed Racers are ubiquitous on the residential backstreets where I call home. With their revved up, popping engines, they shake, rattle, and roll residents morning, noon, and night—accidents waiting to happen. Oh, and then there’s the countless scooters and electric bicycles traversing the roads—stop signs and red lights be damned—and the sidewalks, too. The demoralized police turn a blind eye, and I can’t really blame them in this depraved age where up is down and down is up.

I’ve also noticed an uptick of individuals discarding their lunch remains and spent lottery ticket stubs and scratch-offs outside their vehicles. Exiting their cars and walking several yards to a garbage can is too much to ask, I guess. Often, I’m called upon to clean up dozens of “Win 4” stubs blowing in the wind—not an enviable task and dispiriting as well.

And another thing: The multiple pot and smoke shops—most of them unlicensed and unregulated—plying their trades on the main thoroughfare and throughout the city. In April, it was estimated that there were 1,500 shops in town and only seven were legal operations. It just seems odd that the city fathers and mothers, who would shutter a place that was selling alcohol without a license, or cigarettes for that matter, in a heartbeat, permit so many illegal businesses in this field to go on their merry way.

To add one further quality of life issue, accompany me to my local drugstore chains, where most merchandise is under lock and key. Patrons must ring a buzzer to get everything from Werther’s Original candies to Preparation H to Tide Pods laundry detergent. Once upon a time, I regularly shopped at a local Rite-Aid, but buzzer shopping just isn’t for me. Amazon is a lifesaver. Still, I’d like to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I fear that it is Bud Light.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

 

 

 

Fourth of July Numerology

(Originally published 7/4/13)

In addition to it being Independence Day, yesterday was also the thirtieth anniversary of Yankees’ pitcher Dave Righetti’s no-hitter against the reviled Boston Red Sox. Admittedly, for Yankee fans, that must have been a moment to savor. But since I passionately loathed that haughty franchise from the South Bronx with its bombastic, egotistical owner, I hardly appreciated Righetti’s accomplishment. I did my best to give the feat short shrift.

Except for an ESPN retrospective, I would not have remembered this event occurred on the Fourth of July. Nevertheless, I vividly recall being at home in the Bronx and watching an afternoon baseball game that very day. I was twenty years old and tuned into the cross-town rival Mets on the television in my bedroom. Meanwhile, my father, a Yankee fan extraordinaire since the Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio days, watched his favorite team in the family’s living room. My beloved Mets weren’t doing very well in July 1983. In fact, their manager at the opening of the season, George Bamberger, had abruptly retired, literally fearing for his health and well-being. Big Frank Howard, a team coach, took over on an interim basis. Despite their not-too-impressive 30-50 record on July 4, 1983, I remained ever-loyal to my team. 

When Righetti reached the latter innings with his no-hitter still intact, my father apprised his Met fan son on multiple occasions of what was transpiring at Yankee Stadium, approximately three-and-a-half miles away from where we called home. Even though I was a mere college student, our Mets versus Yankees rivalry had, what seemed to me at least, a very long and contentious history. Granted, in 1983, the Mets were a dreadfully bad team and had been for several years. During that exasperatingly unhappy spell for Met fans, the Yankees experienced a few glorious seasons. But despite the Mets’ recent cellar-dwelling descent, the pendulum was slowly but surely swinging the other way. I felt it. Only weeks before the Mets acquired Keith Hernandez and the team boasted hot prospects aplenty. What really mattered, though, was that my anti-Yankees’ bona fides were solid. So, I wasn’t about to turn the channel on my bedroom set to watch the Yankees’ game or, God forbid, join my father in the living room, which, come the ninth inning, he really expected me—a devoted baseball fan like him—to do. How could I possibly bypass sports history in the making? I could somehow and my obstinacy infuriated him.

In retrospect, I probably should have watched the top of the ninth inning of the Yankees versus Red Sox game on that Fourth of July three decades ago. My father would have definitely watched the flip side and rooted against any Mets' pitcher with all his heart. But I was different. One should never underestimate a passionate sports rivalry between father and son. Ours began when I was just eight years old. And while it had its ups and downs, victories and defeats, it was always intense and defining

The final score in Righetti's no-hitter was 4-0. And thanks to the Internet and its treasure trove of easily retrieved information, I discovered the Mets lost to the Phillies at Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia by the very same score that day. Fourth of July numerology meets a father and son battle of wills. It seems like only yesterday, but also a very, very long time ago.

Swinging the Bat

(Originally published 11/10/15. It was a simpler time for sure.)

I swung a baseball bat an awfully lot as a boy. I didn’t even have to be involved in an organized game of any kind to do it. In fact, for a few years running—I’d say from the ages of eight to ten or eleven—most of this swinging of mine was done all by my lonesome. For the record, I never swung the Louisville Slugger that I received at a New York Yankees’ “Bat Day” promotion—with its Jake Gibbs facsimile signature on it—at anyone’s head or any such thing. Rather, I played a singular version of fantasy baseball—it would seem—in the alleyway that separated my house from a next-door neighbor’s. And I wasn’t pretending to be Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee, or Ed Kranepool. No, what I did in that alleyway all those years ago was completely original and a figment of my imagination—imagine that.

I would just go out and “swing the bat”—period and end of story—for anywhere from several minutes to a couple of hours. I remember alerting my mother as to where I could be found. “I’m going out to swing the bat,” I’d say. And that’s not only what I said but what I did. The time of day didn’t matter a whit, either, but it was a seasonal thing. I’d swing that piece of lumber morning, noon, and night, too, in the summertime mostly. An older neighbor of mine—an affable dullard of a teen as I recall—was positively bewildered when he witnessed me one summer’s eve exiting the house with my bat in hand. “He’s going to play baseball in the dark!” he exclaimed. And the doofus was right. I didn’t need the light of day to play whatever it was I was playing.

Recently, I thought about “going out to swing the bat” as a kid and wondered how that sort of thing might be received today. First of all, a kid in a Bronx alleyway with a bat in his hand—most especially at night—would be frowned upon. After all—just as they shouldn’t play with fire—kids shouldn’t play with baseball bats, either. That is, unless they are being swung under the supervision of an adult in good standing. 

I also don’t know how the act of swinging a baseball bat for hours upon hours—all alone—would be perceived on the contemporary psychiatric front. My behavior might very well be judged as aberrant, and my parents alerted to this noxious bat-swinging compulsion of mine. I’d quite possibly be prescribed some drug du jour to calm me down. You know: to take that unhealthy desire to swing the bat away from me. No more fantasy baseball. Just be a lump, stay indoors as much as possible, stare into a smartphone…and everything will be hunky-dory.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Father's Day Words...

(Originally published on 6/17/12)

My father died just about four years ago. The family delivered Father’s Day cards to his hospital room—he had five kids—but he wasn’t in the least bit interested in Hallmark sentiment. He was too sick and his conscious mind was slowly but surely ebbing away.

A few days ago, I picked up a book I had purchased upon its publication in 1982. It was Norman Mailer by Hilary Mills, a biography of the prolific novelist and mercurial man about town. For reasons unknown, I just never got around to reading it over the past quarter of a century. However, I did lend it to my father—as I did hundreds of my books through the years—and he both read and enjoyed it. In fact, he read it twice because I would occasionally repeat lend some of my books to him. He often read books faster than I could add new titles to my personal library.

The paradox here is that my father was not remotely known as a lover of books or a reader of anything but the local dailies—the New York Post and Daily News—which he devoured each day. The man labored for thirty years in the James A. Farley Post Office located on 34th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. He took the Number 1 subway line to and from this sprawling edifice every single weekday, working the four to midnight shift—inhospitable times to be a straphanger. (This, by the way, is the post office with these famous words engraved on its facade: "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from swift completion of their appointed rounds.")

Nevertheless, he read oodles of books, most especially in his retirement years, on a wide range of subject matter (like his namesake son). He rarely talked about what he read, except to me on occasion—and usually only when prodded—and certainly never tried to impress others with any knowledge gained or insight gleaned, which often is a byproduct of reading about others’ lives, different times, or well-crafted works of fiction that strike a chord. I’ll never forget his pithy comment upon reading Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family by Paul C. Nagel, a favorite of both of ours. “That was some family,” he said.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Kojak Revisited

(Originally published 6/6/17)

When Kojak starring Telly Savalas debuted in October 24, 1973, I was in the sixth grade at St. John’s grammar school in the Bronx. Pleading nolo contendere to charges of having accepted bribes while governor of Maryland, Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned exactly two weeks earlier. President Richard Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” had occurred several days before. And a whole lot was happening in New York City, too, with Mayor John Lindsay in the final two months of his second term as mayor of the city Theofilides “Theo” Kojak valiantly endeavored to keep safe.

In the broader historical picture, the 1970s were not good years for the Big Apple. A fiscal crisis and layoffs of city employees, including cops, left the metropolis dirtier and less safe than it had ever been. My favorite decade is nonetheless the groovy 1970s. And it isn’t because of the increases in crime and grime. Where I grew up, Kingsbridge, there was a fair share of both, but it was notwithstanding a great neighborhood to be a kid. The old-fashioned urban childhood still existed then, but its days were definitely numbered. Simply understood, we spent an awful lot of time in the great outdoors back then—winter, spring, summer, and fall—and weren’t preoccupied with technological devices that had yet to be invented.

Along with The Rockford Files, Kojak is my favorite TV detective show of all-time. On the boxes of the recently-released Kojak DVD sets I just purchased, the character is referred to as “Bald, bold, and badass.” That’s a contemporary hipster’s description of Lieutenant Kojak, who was wont to say to a bad guy, “Cootchie-cootchie-coo,” while not-so-gently pulling on his cheek. He was the epitome of cool in his Bailey Gentry fedora, spiffy three-piece suits, and stylish sunglasses.

I liked Kojak for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was its New York ambiance. McCloud just didn’t do it for me! It didn’t matter to me that the episodes were largely filmed in Los Angeles and at Universal Studios. Kojak and company visited The Twilight Zone street, as I call it, too many times to count. You know the street: the bars are named just bars and the jewelry stores, just jewelry stores. I wasn’t even bothered that the stock shots of Kojak driving around Manhattan frequently didn’t jibe with where he was actually going in the scripts. I remember him heading north on the West Side Highway to go to Brooklyn.

So, does Kojak hold up for me more than forty years later? In my opinion, Telly Savalas punctuating his sentences with his Tootsie Roll Pop is timeless. Flipping an organized crime boss out of his chair never gets old. The Hollywood streets and edifices can be a bit off putting, I know. Floodlights in the windows of building exteriors don’t exactly enhance nighttime realism. And location shots filmed in Los Angeles that attempt to pass for Manhattan never work. Fortunately, the middle seasons of Kojak—which represent the best of the show—filmed a little more in New York itself.

In fact, season three’s two-hour debut episode, “A Question of Answers,” is filmed entirely in New York and features guest stars Eli Wallach, F. Murray Abraham, Jerry Orbach, Jennifer Warren, and Michael V. Gazzo, who plays a hooligan loan shark. The year prior, Gazzo won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather: Part II. In the Kojak episode, there is a scene of Savalas and Gazzo in a parking lot just north of the Twin Towers along the Hudson River. That’s what that area was like in 1975. Run down and atmospheric with parking lots—in some instances—on property now gentrified beyond recognition. A footnote on the season three opener is that Telly Savalas’s brother, George Savalas, who played Detective Stavros, is finally credited with his full name, instead of “Demosthenes,” his middle name, which was used in the first two seasons’ credits.

Theo Kojak could do no wrong then and now, with one exception that I’ve gleaned in watching the old shows. So far, I’ve seen him toss his lollipop wrapper off a building rooftop, throw its stick on the sidewalk, and fling an unlit cigarette of Eli Wallach’s into the Hudson River. He has also placed his empty coffee up atop a fire hydrant upon exiting his car. It was the dirty 1970s after all.

One final word on Kojak’s legacy: The coolest cop is part of the Urban Dictionary. “To drive straight into a parking space, improbably available right outside the place you were headed,” which Kojak consistently did at crime scenes, midtown hotels, busy courthouses and apartment buildings, is thusly named. You have “kojaked” if you are so fortunate in your travels to find such an ideal parking spot.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro) 

The 1916 Project

Count me as a fan of Judy Norton’s “Behind the Scenes of The Waltons” YouTube channel. She played Mary Ellen in the award-winning series that lives on in syndication perpetuity. Her myriad videos supply unique insight into the inner workings of a weekly television show from that very colorful snapshot in time, the 1970s. A recent installment revisited “A Walton Easter,” a 1997 reunion movie—the fifth and mercifully the last of them—that found the Walton family in 1969 and assembling for Ma and Pa’s “fortieth wedding anniversary.” 

That would mean, of course, that the couple tied the knot in 1929, but when The Waltons debuted in 1972, the family was “in the middle of the Depression,” 1933, and John-Boy was sixteen. In The Homecoming, the TV movie that inspired The Waltons, Olivia—Mama—revealed that her blossoming Christmas cactus took root "before the world war"—World War I—the year of her marriage to John. “1916, I recollect,” replied Grandpa. So, got it, Olivia and John Walton should have been celebrating their fifty-third anniversary in 1969, which, by the way, was when the latter passed away. That is, if we accept creator Earl Hamner Jr.’s closing narration in The Homecoming, where he intones, “For we lost my father in 1969.”

What’s the point of all this? It’s a television show after all. Still, we do appreciate a certain consistency and continuity on the small screen and in life in general. Fans remember details. In The Walton’s reunion movies, key people were no shows—like husbands, wives, and children—and went unmentioned. Budgetary savings, I guess. John-Boy was a New York City TV news anchor in 1969, covering the moon landing, which did occur that year, but in July, not at Eastertime. Why couldn’t the reunion movie take place on Olivia and John’s fiftieth anniversary in 1966. John-Boy could have been covering some important news event from that year—and there were many to report. Nowadays, I believe, series are more faithful to all that came before. But in the good old days, it didn’t seem to matter that much.

There are indeed life lessons to be had from The Waltons. And I’m not talking about the storylines and positive messaging. Rather, I’m looking at the broader picture. For one, the show went on much too long. After “John-Boy” Richard Thomas left the series, and “Grandma” Ellen Corby had a stroke, and “Grandpa” Will Geer died, it was probably time to call it a night and exit on top and still in the depression. Dianne Feinstein would have benefited from this life lesson. The later episodes had a stiff, almost soap opera feel to them. Also, you don’t cast a new actor in the role of a character so identified with another actor. Richard Thomas was John-Boy.

Finally, leave the classics alone. The 2021 remake of The Homecoming, which aired on the Hallmark Channel, was ghastly. The original captured the spirit of the Great Depression and hard times with edgy, unsanitized characters. Earl Hamner, Jr., the film’s director, Fielder Cook, and the older actors lived through the depression years. The movie looked the part in studio and on location. The modern version—well—didn’t from the neatly pressed, L.L Bean wardrobe to the all-too smart furniture to the banal Hollywood outdoor settings. You can’t go home again.  

 

Hare Today, Rabbit Tomorrow

Recently, I overheard a neighborhood eccentric inform his companion that he at long last learned the difference between a hare and a rabbit. This local oddball, a former college professor, has been around since time immemorial, living in an increasingly dilapidated house and, sadly, body as well. Like us all, he is aging and aging fast.

For years that turn into decades, there are countless individuals in our lives—on the periphery—that we know very little about. Men and women who cross our paths too many times to count that we barely acknowledge or don’t acknowledge at all. The nutty professor looks the part, acts the part, and keeps pretty much to himself. That is and always has been his modus operandi. Once upon a time, he was regularly spotted walking a strange looking, hairless little dog and—before that—pushing around his wheelchair-bound wife. The man nodded to me a time or two when our eyes met. But I got the impression that even such minimalist greetings made the professor extremely uncomfortable, so—when sharing the same sidewalk—I thereafter avoided any and all eye contact.

As time marches on and neighbors die and move away, life’s fleeting nature becomes impossible to ignore. Suddenly, these obscure folks in my tiny earthly orbit loom larger in my eyes. There’s this peculiar, misshapen fellow about my age who is frequently seen chiding his pooch to behave or—heaven forbid—suffer the consequences. I know his name and remember him from way back when—as a teen—thumbing through the dirty magazines in the back of—what was colloquially known as—“Optimo” or the "cigar store." This guy is pushing sixty now and looks worse for the wear, but I’ve known of him for more than forty years.

These days when people leave town who have been around forever, I feel on occasion as if I’ve missed something by not getting to know them better. After all, living in an ever-changing neighborhood for—in some instances—a half century or more, we shared much in common. And the clock is ticking. If I so desire, I could—the next time I encounter him—engage the nutty professor in conversation and discover what exactly he taught and where he taught it. I could, too, try to break down the wall of the man who—all those years ago—thumbed through Playboy magazine but never once purchased a copy, much to the disgust of the shop’s proprietor. Oh, truth be told, I can’t say for certain whether he did or didn’t, but I’m pretty confident it was the latter.

On second thought, I’ll leave these two cases in point alone, because that’s how they have long wanted it. And one day in the not-too-distant future they will be only memories. The professor will go to his grave at least knowing how to distinguish a hare from a rabbit, which is something, I suppose.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

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)

Thoughts of Barbicide

(Originally published 3/26/17)

I was in Greenwich Village yesterday morning—at brunch time as a matter of fact. In contrast with most of the month's temperatures, it was pleasantly warm—near sixty degrees—and the local hipsters were milling about in great numbers. Many of these men and women patiently waited their turns to dine in over-crowded and over-priced holes in the wall. From my perspective at least, all that waiting around spoils the dining experience. What the waiting inevitably portends is rarely pretty—dining in a sardine can with fellow sardines.

In my travels, I walked through Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, still home to an ever-decreasing number of meatpacking enterprises. Mostly, the area has morphed into a gentrified playground offering luxurious places to live—in converted slaughterhouses in many instances—and a bevy of posh restaurants and boutiques. I recall my father’s stories of watching hundreds upon hundreds of railroad freight cars carrying livestock along the Hudson River to the Meatpacking District. That’s one visual I’m happy I never witnessed. So, I can’t really say I miss the old Meatpacking District.

It’s just that New York City is fast becoming devoid of diversity and charm. And I’m not speaking of diverse peoples, but of diverse character and entrepreneurship. For example, I stumbled upon this chic, peculiarly named business called Acne Studio. I thought at first it might be the office of some dermatologist—a Dr. Zizmor epigone. After all, a dictionary definition of acne is: “The occurrence of inflamed or infected sebaceous glands in the skin; in particular, a condition characterized by red pimples on the face, prevalent chiefly among teenagers.” But no, Acne Studio wasn’t peddling $5.00 jars of Oxy face cleansing pads, but fashion instead like derby shoes with painted cap toes for $800 and $50/pair boxer briefs.  

Often in my Bronx to Manhattan adventures, I exit the train at the corner of 12th Street and Seventh Avenue. For many years, a neat row of mom-and-pop retailers greeted me on the northeast corner, including an independently owned pharmacy with a modest mortar and pestle neon sign. That same strip is now a Duane Reade chain drug store and a Subway sandwich franchise. This is the law of the jungle now.

Happily, small barbershops and locksmiths—to name a couple—are weathering the changes. Not too far from Acne Studio were two barbershops that I noticed. One was called Fellow Barbershop; the other took a page out of Shakespeare’s book and posed the immortal question: What’s in a name? The owners decided not to call it Best Barbershop or some such thing, but merely Barbershop. A barbershop by any other name would smell as sweet—or like Barbicide.

The great equalizer in this New York experience is a subway ride. It’s still a bargain and transports patrons of Acne Studio and Target alike. No special privileges here when—after pointing at the hanging zebra boards—subway conductors open their doors. It is then that we know for certain that while the stars may not be properly aligned, the subway cars most assuredly are.

(Photos two and three from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)