Showing posts with label Joes Candy Store. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joes Candy Store. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Superball Incident

I openly owned a Superball for five minutes. I bought one in Joe's Candy Store between 83rd & 84th Street on York Avenue in 1965 when the amazing nuclear ball was introduced.



I left the store cautiously bouncing the other worldly sphere off the sidewalk not wanting it to fly into the avenue. It's awesome powers unknown to me. After giving it a couple of test bounces, I whacked it off the ground as hard as I could trying to send it up to the sixty-foot high tenement roof. Instead, it went off on an angle towards Spotless Cleaners, hit the store's door at 80 miles an hour cracking the glass and bounced back to me cleanly just in time for the guy in Spotless Cleaners to come out the door and see me standing there with the ball in my hand. "Lose the ball," he told me.

I placed it in the street and walked away. Spotless was a chain dry cleaners so insurance paid for the door's glass. I snuck back later sliding behind the cars in the street and picked up my ball leaning against the curb. Going forward, the Superball stayed in my pocket when I strolled past Spotless Cleaners.











Fun Superball Fact: In the late 1960s Wham-O made a "giant" superball, roughly the size of a bowling ball, as a promotional stunt. It fell from the 23rd story window of an Australian hotel (or some reports say, from the roof) and destroyed a parked convertible car on the 2nd bounce.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Alison and Tommy Love Beaching It


Walking down Second Avenue yesterday, I needed a soda after the gym. I took a dollar out before I went into the first store, and thankfully found an ice cold Diet Doctor Pepper can in the fridge. I gave the guy the bill, he said, "$1.15." I put the soda back and took my buck. A block later same scene, that guy said, "$1.25." I took my dollar and left the soda on the counter wondering what the guy charged for vig when you hit him up for a friendly loan. I smiled on the way out when he sarcastically yelled, "You could put it back!"

I've officially turned into my father. I no longer accept the gall of people charging what they do for so little: "No bang for the buck." I will never pay more than one dollar for a can of soda for the rest of my life. I swear on my record albums.

This incident caused a flashback to Yorkville in 1962. Soda selection was important business, read the story at the link below:



Two of my favorite songs that remind me of being at the water.
Freda Payne's, "Band of Gold," brings back Davies Lake in 1970 and cold chocolate milk out of a cooler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPzO3xmyWJc


The Buckinghams, "Susan," reminds me of long walks on the Rockaway Boardwalk in 1969 from Beach 43rd Street to 116th Street with a Julia Richmond redhead named Susan.