She Could Smell Who Was Closest

Nan singing and making a store list in her head at same time

My Dad's mother, Nan Rode had the hearing ability of a nocturnal animal. The four of us, Mom, Dad, Rory and I made a visit to her Collyer Brother styled full of crap railroad apartment - before we could say hello Nan lying on a couch yelled from the next room, "Bob, Tom, Rory, get my bag!"
The three of us moved as far away from her as possible shoving each other back towards the voice and knocking over things in our way. She'd never send Mom to a store. Mom would tell her to go to hell under her breath and ignore her.
"What's going on? Bob, you there?"
"Yes he is." Mom said and gave Dad an evil grin.
Dad's shoulders drooped and he mouthed, "I'll kill you," as he passed Mom on his way to the front room to get Nan's gang box.

I'm part of a great show Tomorrow night, July 12 - New York Story Exchange returns! It's a super-duper line-up of fine tellers, and I'm proud Ms. Ferraro invited me to join her crew. All info is below for a major NYC bang for a buck event.

Hear stories, tell stories! Tuesday, July 12th, 6:00 PM, downstairs at Cornelia Street Café. Admission: $9.00—includes one drink! Four featured tellers, followed by a 5 for 5 Open STORY Exchange: Up to five audience members will each get five minutes of stage time for stories, poems, spoken word, or music. Sign up: 5:45–6:10pm. This month’s host: Nicole Ferraro—with featured tellers Brad Lawrence, Kate Agustin, Thomas Pryor, and Nisse Greenberg.
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Collyer Brothers Reading Room

If you come to City Boy @ Cornelia Street Cafe @ Thursday @ July 21st @ 6pm, you'll understand why I was lucky growing up in the old Yorkville neighborhood with my favorite stoops, stops and countless crazy cuckoo nuts. These photos here, the people in them and the scenes they present, are part of the street life double feature in my head where I watch old Yorkville movies from the first row in the RKO 86th Street's mezzanine.

City Boy ~ built into me over a lifetime, stories flew into my ears straight to my memory palace.
These events shook the area
1880 Second & Third Ave Els reach Yorkville\Upper East Side
1918 IRT comes to Yorkville
1955 demolition of the Third Ave El,
2016, Second Avenue Subway
Cornelia Street Cafe
Thurs, July 21 @ 6pm.
$10 admission includes a free drink

"City Boy" 

my first solo play

Thursday, July 21 at 6 PM - 7:45 PM

Cornelia Street Cafe

29 Cornelia St, New York, New York 10014

Thomas Pryor's "City Boy" is a love letter to street life in the 1960s working class Manhattan neighborhood, Yorkville. Devil Dogs were a nickel, Spaldeens flew, and the capture game, Ringalario, let boys put their arms around girls for the first time. Nuns slugged you for humming baseball’s beer jingles in class. And, like other fathers, Tommy’s took him to saloons, all day, and no one thought it was strange. In this funny and bittersweet portrait of family and life, Pryor echoes TV’s “The Wonder Years” - just add in taverns, subways and Checker cabs.

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If you like my work check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood." Available at Logos Book Store or online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The book has 119 Amazon five star reviews out of 119 total reviews posted. We're pitching a perfect game. My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs.