Mom's Hard Work & Humor Made Her My Star

"Oh, my God!" I yelled in my five year brain when I came out of my room and looked through the kitchen at the living room window where I saw a pair of legs with slippers on dangling from the inside of the closed window facing me. I couldn't see the top of the body because soapy water was spread over the glass. I knew it was Mom but I had to double check. Running over and careful not to get near either leg from the side I could see Mom in her house dress balancing her upper body on the outside of the building four stories over the backyard. A clean freak, Mom made sure every spot on the window sparkled and worked without a net. While doing so she stopped my heart.

Mom, Patricia Pryor, passed away a long time ago on July 24th. Today, I'm thinking of her outside the 83rd Street window, doing kitchen work with the dish towel over her shoulder, and making pancakes and bacon for dinner.

"I'm Going to Friggin Kill You!"

It happened a hundred different ways. Here is one.

3:15pm on a rainy school afternoon in 1963. No where to play, Rory and I came indirectly home from school, drenched because we fought through and dove into every puddle on the way to our house from St. Stephen's.

It started on the 4th floor landing when we tried to get in the apartment door and Mom pushed us back into the hall.

“Sons of bitches, I just bought  those shoes, they come out of my house money! Undress, there!”

Rory and I get down to our drawers and took off our blue socks. Mom arrived at the door to see how we were doing.

“Holy Christ, half the sock’s dye is on your feet, into the bathroom.”

After Rory and I belted each other around the tiny bathroom while soaping off the blue stuff, I came out and went in the refrigerator leaving Rory in a ball stuck between the toilet and the tub. I gave the fridge a thorough look see and said to Mom, “How come you don’t buy more cake and soda like my friends mothers do?”

After receiving a death ray from Mom’s cold blue eyes she said, “How come your father hasn’t raised my house money in five years?”

I didn’t completely finish saying, “you should take that up with him,” when Mom’s swinging foot brushed my head still bent over in the fridge.  Her wild miss spun her body around.  By this time, Rory was back in the kitchen and we both ran away while Mom yelled, “I’m going to friggin kill you!” 

Rory & I sang that right back to her, first in falsetto voices then deep in a monastery chant, “I’m going to friggin kill you.” Really stretching at the "yooouuuuu."

Whatever she said from that point on, we sung it back to her word for word. We could harmonize, we were pretty good, “Take it, Phil!”

But Mom didn’t appreciate this. If we kept it up she would leave the chase, go to her bedroom and come back with Dad’s belt.  We’d carefully look at her eyes, if they had rolled up into the back of her head, she was seeing black and we were in real trouble. We’d run to our bedroom and get under our bunk bed going all the way to the wall.  Mom had short arms and though she tried she couldn’t reach us and we’d be there giggling as she wildly swung the reversible brown/black 34 inch belt. Only after exhaustion struck did she stop and with heaving breath say, “Wait till your father gets home.”

And she waited, in a chair in the kitchen holding the belt cursing to herself.  We used this time to locate items we had lost under the bed weeks before and thoughtfully picked dust balls off each other.

When Dad got home it never worked out the way Mom wanted.  He’d be in a good mood or self absorbed in something, she’d be feeling semi-guilty about getting the belt in the first place, he’d say, “where are the kids?”

Rory would come charging out, “Hi Dad!”  I’d come out cautiously keeping a sharp eye on Mom while she looked me over and weighed her next move, and there usually wasn’t one.  It was just another typical rainy afternoon on 83rd Street with nothing to do.

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Tomorrow, Tues, Oct 25th @ 6pm I will be a guest on Diana Navarro's terrific radio show "Working Things Out," you can listen live at Centanni Broadcasting Network on this link.

Dad Forgot Something On 83rd Street

Dad had a habit for coming back into the apartment after he left late for work. Most weekdays, Rory and I watched the act as we sat at the kitchen table late for school eating Kellogg’s corn flakes or burnt toast (not Mom’s fault. Toaster was on the fritz, everything came out dark). Like Dad, we were two lazy asses. Mom prayed we all would leave the house and talked to herself while Dad looked for his pants belt or his money clip. Dad didn’t carry a wallet because he didn’t like the lump it created that wrinkled his suit’s pant’s pocket. Dad usually didn’t need subway tokens in the morning because he used to sneak hail a cab on York Avenue to go to Battery Place during the same period he hadn’t raised Mom’s house money in 5 years.

When Dad looked for his belt or money clip, Mom yapped at the sink curse words scattering in air while washing the dishes she took away from us quickly during our last bite or spoonful of cereal. Dad wouldn’t talk to himself but he mumbled under his breath some personal language of disappointment.

Sometimes, Dad had a load on the previous night, and before he went to bed after looking for something to eat he took a money ball out of his pocket that never made it back onto his money clip, and he hid it instead of putting it on his dresser. Sometimes, Mom would find the money ball in Dad’s hiding place and change the hiding place. When these two things happened consecutively, Dad would spend a great deal of time looking for the money ball, but he couldn’t let Mom know he hid the money, at the same time he slowly came to the realization Mom took it and re-hid it, and he couldn't do anything about it because he knew he never should have hid it in the first place. I remember my neck hurting in school after spending early mornings at our 83rd Street family circus.

Shopping On York Avenue ~ 1959

On the ground floor of my grandmother’s building, 1582 York Avenue, were two storefronts. To the left was Parker's Grocery. One day in 1963 a quart of milk, a loaf of Wonder bread and a pound of Ronzoni number #9 spaghetti all cost 19 cents each. That was cool. Murray Parker owned the store. Leather hat with built in earmuffs he wore year round over his large bald head. A real girl catcher. Huge cigar always unlit. Powerbroker over-sized Swifty Lazar eyeglass frames. Grimy white linen apron. That was ok because you never saw a clean one, so there was nothing to compare it to. Murray’s parents Mr. and Mrs. Parker (no first names available, nor given) started the business in 1932. Same year my dad's family moved into the building.

All arithmetic was accomplished by pencil on the brown bag you took your groceries home in. You would go home, check the numbers on the bag, then scratch your head for five minutes wondering how Murray never made an error. Sometimes he’d go down one side, do a subtotal in his head, go down twenty more items and always give you a perfect grand total. Many purchases were recorded in a marble composition book to be settled at the end of the week on payday.

Parker's was my first solo shopping experience. In 1959, at five, Mom sent me to the store for a pack of Marlboros and two milk. She gave me a dollar wrapped around a quarter. Parker's was around the corner from my 83^rd Street house so I walked to the store without crossing a street. Mom looked out Chickie Murphy’s front window in 4W watching me go up the block. When I neared the avenue she called my grandmother, “Mom, Tommy’s near the corner going to Parker’s, get on the front phone, watch him into the store and let me know.” “Got it.” As I turned onto York, Nan waved down to me and yelled, “Be careful.” “OK, Nan!”

Inside Parker’s, I asked Murray for the cigarettes and walked to the back of the store to grab the milk from the glass case. Walking back towards Murray up the narrow aisle, his eyes traveled from me to the counter. After a long pause, Murray said, “What the hell is this?" Sitting on the tired marble counter a brown bag of garbage. Oh crap, I brought it with me. Too much pressure, remembering Mom's orders, "Marlboro, soft pack, two milk from the back of the case," and the stupid garbage.

The Boy in the Bubble

On the Yorkville radio show last night, I visited the 500 block on East 83rd Street with my guest, Woody Salvan. I thank Woody, Esquire, Land Baron & River Man, for helping me bridge life on that rich block from 1957 to the present. You can listen to the show at the Centanni Broadcasting Network link, then go to the "Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts," archive.

http://www.centannibroadcasting.com/

This afternoon I passed through Central Park and met the Bubble Man. He entertained children of all ages with mammoth works of art that floated for seconds then disappeared forever. Like studying a butterfly who rests briefly on your arm. Hope the Bubble Man comes back.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKG6zN_EjWw&feature=related

83rd Street Summertime Blues

On 83^rd Street, in the mid 1960s my parents bought their first air-conditioner. A tiny unit that for some reason only worked in their bedroom, or so my father told me when I suggested he put it in the living room so we could watch TV with cool air. On "Oh, my God," hot nights, my father barely tolerated my brother, Rory and I dragging our mattresses into their bedroom, so we could sleep on the floor to escape the dead heat of our room next to the building’s air shaft.

Once we were all there in the dark, something happened, and the curtain rose on our summer passion play.

Rory bellowed from way low in his belly, “Good night, Momma. Good night, Dada. And good night, Thommmmm.”

I answered lower, limbo low, “good nigh, Ma, good nigh, Da and good nigh, Rorio,” Then I went high as Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd, “Rorio, Rorio, where art thou Rorio?”

Dad said, “Everyone shut up or get back in your bedroom, go to sleep!”

A moment passed. Nothing happened. Then another moment. Nothing. After a length of time, a slow, steady “Whistle While You Work,” rose from the ashes of the silence. It had momentum and an additional passenger onboard as Mom entered the studio stepping up to the mike, hand cupped to her ear…The trio in song, in tune, in danger. Dad was a lion in a cave with a thorn in his paw and the scene had no potential to be a happy ending parable. It was dark, but not too dark, we all continued to whistle and watch Dad squirm under his covers. He was a plutonium heap and fusion was imminent.

Continuing to whistle while we worked, Mom, Rory and I seamlessly moved into another tune, singing loud with pride, “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile!” As the song hit its second verse, the pregnant negative energy in the room imploded, turning into harmless vapor as Dad’s anger transformed into sweet nostalgia. We began our sentimental journey.

World War I tunes, World War II tunes – give him a war, Dad gave you a tune. Civil War? “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Revolutionary War? “Yankee Doodle.” Crimean War? OK, no song here, but you could see his eyes calculating and searching his database. Nothing like a good tune from a good war to calm the beast until he lay down with the lamb.

In song we soared and dove through the dark chilled bedroom together as a family like no other time, unless you count fighting over the last slice of bacon. Our song rolled to a happy conclusion when all the lines were lost to exhaustion except, “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.” The four of us, twin Laurel and Hardys’ skipped arm in arm out of the last scene, in the last reel, as the credits began rolling across our dusty pants.

This is why I love radio as a medium. In the dark, my mind becomes the camera. The radio voice describes part of what I see, but it’s my imagination that takes me all the way there. My mind is the best ride on the block. And a good ride operator knows how to get your imagination into position to enjoy every twist and turn. Turn on the radio and go far away or right in close. It's up to you.

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Tonight’s show is all about the 500 Block on 83^rd Street in Yorkville from 1957 to today. My guest, Woody Salvan, Esquire, Land Baron, River Man. Woody and I are going to talk about the block, the neighborhood and play some tunes. Please listen in on the Centanni Broadcasting Network live Tuesday @ 9pm from Giovanna's Restaurant, 1567 Lexington Avenue (between 100th & 101st Street). Or listen to the archived shows at your convenience.

http://www.centannibroadcasting.com/

last week's show at link below at the Centanni page:

Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts 7/27/2010 with host Tommy Pryor-and Guest Edward Rogers

Happy Birthday, Rory ~ Happy Dad Day, Dad

Today, would be Rory's 54th birthday, I miss him, I love him. Happy Birthday, Rory. Father's Day was always a big one. Dad was on best behavior, and we always threw the ball around. I miss making Dad cards. I gave it everything I've got.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HII6prY06JQ&feature=related

A June 20th 83rd Street,
Yorkville Memory

I remember the morning Rory, Mom, Dad and I moved into #4R at 517 East 83rd Street. It was June 20, 1957. Rory’s first birthday. I was three and three months. It was very warm, Mom let Rory and I run straight into the apartment before my aunts and uncles brought the furniture up.
At the window was the fire escape, on it a nest of baby pigeons. Rory squealed and I felt the same way. Rory said one of his newly learned words, “Wow!”
“Mom got to see it, birds, lots of them!” I yelled over my shoulder.
Mom came over in three strides, gave Dad a look and said, “Bob, stay here. I’m taking Tommy and Rory for ice cream.”
On the stairs, we passed Aunt Barbara and Aunt Joan carrying a piece of our bunk bed. When we got back from the store with our ice cream sandwiches, Rory and I ran to the window. No birds. I asked Dad, “Where they go?”
“The mom taught them to fly and they took off.”
I had no ammunition; I said nothing but knew something fishy happened. I had a good cry, Rory saw me, and he started crying too. Rory didn’t know why he was crying; he just liked to cry when I cried.
When the furniture was in and the move was over, the adults started cracking beers, Dad was on the phone and the next thing I knew a group of friends and extra relatives showed up. Allie Cobert, Uncle Mickey and Uncle Lenny put on Dad’s white dress shirts and made bow ties out of the ladies kerchiefs and begin singing, “Sweet Adeline.” After the singing sung out, Dad put records on the Victrola. Bored, I retreated to the bathroom to play. I sat on the toilet bowl and did some target practice with my water gun. Out the window into the air shaft, a few quick shots off mom’s bra drying on the towel rack, then up at the naked light bulb on the ceiling. That was fun. The more I shot it, the more it sizzled. I could see smoke coming off it. I kept going.
“CRACK, BOOM!”
The bulb exploded, the door flew open and a half dozen people were in the bathroom with me before I could hop off the bowl. Mom was on top of me pretty good but Barbara and Joan extracted me before Mom could figure out what to do with me.
The next summer, Barbara came over our apartment. She sat in the kitchen with Mom drinking coffee. When Mom wasn’t paying attention, Barbara went to and opened the back window by the fire escape. Then she sat back down like nothing happened.
Within a few minutes we heard birds, “Tweet, tweet, tweet.” Then it stopped. Two minutes later, “Tweet, Tweet, tweet.”
Mom moaned and said, Oh, Christ, they’re back.”
I smiled. Then this big gruff voice, “Fire Inspector, Fire Inspector!”
Mom popped out of her chair scared shitless. In came Joan in my red fire hat with a big grin on her face.

Joan had gone to the roof and came down to the fourth floor on the fire escape, waiting for Barbara to open the window to let her in. It was not the first, or last time, someone came into our Yorkville apartment using something other than the front door.

Found Money

Found money and my bicycle ~ tools for a good day. Thirsty, it was easy to raise funds. Walking my bike up 83rd Street towards York Avenue, I'd scavenge garbage cans for empty soda bottles. If I failed to raise the required monies, I'd go to the front of the tavern where the older guys pitched pennies. If there weren't any on the sidewalk near the wall, there was always a few just off the curb where they rolled back. After buying a Pepsi-Cola or a Mission Cream, I'd head for Carl Schurz Park but never much further. I'd get killed for riding in the street (spies were all over the neighborhood) and how else to get to Central Park or the Hudson River? Then if I got there, there were always the older kids to deal with. You could do this in a pack but not alone, it was dumb to push your luck. I had three prized possessions, bike, baseball glove and 45 singles, in that order.

Yesterday, I had a chore downtown that took me through City Hall Park. On a bench, some Richie Rich left 10 pennies just sitting there. Only a few pennies short of a soda, when I was 8. I took a picture of the pennies and left them there for another thirsty kid.

What a gift for kids: the new bike paths around Manhattan Island like Hudson River Park.

Yorkville House Rules

"Jimmy, can I get a towel for a shower?" I said.

"Sure," Jimmy answered.

My mom's sister, Barbara said, "Tommy, you have nerve, you're going to shower here?"

"Barbara, you have a short memory." I said.

Yesterday, I left Jones Beach after a terrific afternoon of body surfing in rough, clean, warm ocean waves. I dropped over my first cousin, Jimmy's house in Massapequa for a block party on Chestnut Street. Of course, I asked my cousin to shower. My house is his house.

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Everybody in my family was welcome in my apartment on 83rd Street. Great uncles and great aunts, fourth cousins, friends, the front door was locked at eleven-thirty after the news. If we were home, that door stayed open for 16 hours. They came without a call, drank a glass of water, stripped down to their drawers if it was horribly hot (Aunt Lily went down to their underwear). Soda, beer, liquor. They watched TV, took poops, fought, made up, fell asleep in chairs and couches, cooked spaghetti, ate sardines with Saltine's crackers, drank Dad's last beer, hid from their wives.

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Our apartment was my Mom's sisters, Barbara and Joan's main stop on their treks around Yorkville and Rory and me were lucky regulars when the circus rolled through.

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Buddy the cat died tonight. He loved Michele and Michele loved Buddy. I'm sorry. If anyone loved you like Michele loved Buddy, well, you'd be a lucky kitty.