"I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood" ~ My Book is Published

Melissa Miller & her St. Stephen's 4th grade outstanding writers

"I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - Tales of a scrappy New York boyhood" (YBK Publishers) had a smashing release.

We celebrated at "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts," at Cornelia Street Cafe on Tuesday. Friday night,  St. Stephen of Hungary's 4th graders and I had a House Party at  Barnes and Noble on East 86th Street.

We sold 220 books at the two events and  entertained 150 guests at Barnes and Noble.

Thank you, my friends who made the effort to come to my events from far away and near. Some of you literally ran there to make it. I'll never forget your kindness.

I'm grateful to St. Stephen's Katherine Peck, Nicole McCabe, Melissa Miller and the talented Fourth grade writers. I applaud Barnes and Noble and their staff: Jody Allen, Jennifer Stark, Alicia Lauricella for inviting us and the supportive audience who cheered us on, thank you!

Barnes & Noble 150 E 86 St @10.17.14

Leslie Goshko & Michele Carlo

I need an important favor from everyone who owns a copy of my book.

If you read "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys," please say a few honest words about the book and rate it on  Barnes and Noble at this link and cut and paste your comment to  Amazon and rate it at this link. 

If my writing brings you pleasure your comments mean much to me. Speak your mind.

I've been there for many of you countless times in countless ways because I love what you do. I believe in you.

I've supported the Yorkville neighborhood and New York City with thousands of photos and a bounty of stories in my published work and all over the internet for many years.

I need your help. Please say something about the book at Barnes and Noble and Amazon at the above links.

Signing at B&N

We sold out all the books at Barnes and Noble 86th Street on Friday.  Logos Bookstore on York Avenue has a limited number of copies still for sale.

Going forward, you can buy the book online at  Amazon,  Barnes and Noble,  Abebooks and other online booksellers.

If you like, you can buy a signed copy directly from me for $17 plus postage. Email me at tommy.pryor@gmail.com to make arrangements.  My pleasure.

Thank you,  Tommy

Bootleg, Gary Wood is in, Giants 12 Washington 10!

Praise for the book:

“Thomas R. Pryor has written a sweet, funny, loving memoir of growing up old-school in a colorful New York neighborhood. A story of sports, family, and boyhood, you’ll be able to all but taste, smell, and feel this vanished world.”

Kevin Baker, author of the novels “Dreamland,” Paradise Alley,” and “Strivers Row,” as well as other works of fiction and nonfiction


“Tommy Pryor’s New York City boyhood was nothing like mine, a few miles and a borough away, and yet in its heart, tenderness, and tough teachable moments around Dad and ball, it was the mid-century coming of age of all of us. A rousing read.”
Robert Lipsyte, former city and sports columnist, The New York Times

I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - takes of a scrappy New York boyhood

“Pryor could take a felt hat and make it funny.”
Barbara Turner-Vesselago, author of “Writing Without A Parachute: The Art of Freefall”


“Pryor burrows into the terrain of his childhood with a longing and obsessiveness so powerful it feels like you are reading a memoir about his first great love.”
Thomas Beller, author of “J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist”

with Mike Edison & Judy McGuire @ Arts & Seizures radio show

Photos are from B&N Friday and one from my radio appearance on the  Arts and Seizures internet radio show yesterday with  Mike Edison and  Judy McGuire and Liz Smith, their super engineer. Thank you, Mike, Judy & Liz. It was a blast and the pizza was delicious. Thank you, Jaime Nelson for connecting me with  Arts & Seizures and working hard for the book. Thank you, Frank Flaherty, for your stellar editing on 53 stories. No Frank, no book. Thank you, YBK and Otto Barz for your faith in the text.

Here's a link to yesterday's Arts & Seizures archived show.  And a  link to a public Facebook photo album.


Starting Thursday, I'm be telling my "I Hate Dallas Cowboys" stories, and selling and signing my book at the following events all around the town:

Sideshow Goshko
This Thursday, October 23rd @ 7pm @ KGB 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm)

(85 E. 4th Street, 2nd Floor)

FREE!

The Dave Hill Show
Tuesday, October 28th @9pm, WFMU radio!
http://wfmu.org/playlists/GS

Lower East Side Stories
Friday, November 7 @ 7pm

Adam Wade Show
Monday, November 10th @ 7pm, Theater Under St. Mark's Place

City Stories Stoops to Nuts
Tuesday, November 11th @ 6pm, Cornelia Street Cafe

The Healing Artist - Internet Radio Show
Tuesday November 18th 6pm   Radio

We Three Productions Readings
Monday December 1st @ 7pm, @2A @ 24 Avenue A

City Stories: Stoops to Nuts
Tuesday, December 10th @ 6pm, Cornelia Street Cafe

No Name & A Bag O' Chips with your host, Eric Vetter
Friday, December 12th 7pm - Free
Otto's Shrunken Head

Barnes & Noble 150 East 86 St @ 10.17.14

Katherine Peck

B&N

St. Stephen's 4th grade writers

My pal, Rosanne Puccio

B&N

B&N

Stoops to Nuts ~ I Hate the Dallas Cowboys Book Release

St. Stephen's Headline Story in New York Times

Shadow of St. Stephen's steeple

Today, The New York Times published an honest wonderful story on my old grammar school, St. Stephen of Hungary. Front and center on page A1 of the New York edition.

The story delves into the school's survival depended on the recognition that the neighborhood had changed and their competition was not the few struggling Catholic schools in the area but the independent schools scattered around the Yorkville neighborhood for the last 50 years (or more). Understanding this and doing something about it was the challenge. The compromise allowed St. Stephen's to remain open when it was targeted for closing. There were consequences. The school tuition of $8,000 is out reach to many locals but it is a quarter of the tuition at the private schools while offering a similar eclectic curriculum.

Principal Katherine Peck's professional development and implementation of the new diverse educational program while maintaining the Franciscan ideals embraced by the church and school's parishioners is outstanding. Rev. Angelo Gambatese, Pastor of St, Stephen's generously supports the school in all it's activities and has made the church into an embracing home during his long helmsmanship.

Mrs. Peck's energetic leadership is evident in every classroom. Her talented staff of teachers, assistants and administrators are deeply engaged with the students (I visited the school and kids this past year to talk about my time at the school 1960-1968).

Jenny Anderson, of The New York Times, did a great job telling the current St. Stephen’s story.

Things change, Yorkville's still here, and sometimes it's hard to find the old tucked inside the new. My memories are comforting, but it's silly and a waste of time to not find good in the new and if you are lucky tie it to your past.

I intended to write about Bergino's Baseball Clubhouse today, that story will appear here tomorrow.

Here is one of my stories that involves my time at St. Stephen's in the 1960s.

My parents wedding Sept 1952

Folder & Freddy Muller @ 1968

Father Edward marries my parents 1952

Rory First Grade

Church from the choir 2011

Tommy Third Grade ~ Mom made me wear the jacket

'Readin' & 'Ritin' & 'Rithmetic

To the left, I present St. Stephen of Hungary's First Grade drinking milk at their desks right before Sister Beatrice told them to put their heads down for a nap break on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 1962.

Thank you, Katherine Peck, principal of St. Stephen's, for your gracious gift. Yesterday, at the 82nd Street St. Stephen's Street Fair, Ms. Peck led an alumni group on a tour of the school from the auditorium to the rooftop with the bell tower. Thank you, Marty Milisits, for working with Principal Peck to make the tour happen. Thank you, Steve Geosits, for pulling St. Stephen's people together for this event and online at your St. Stephen's Facebook site.

The tour was amazing, visited my 1960 first grade classroom and the seven others including fifth and sixth on the roof. I was ill yesterday, and regretfully missed hanging out with St. Stephen's classmates later on. It was wonderful to see everyone, a few friends for the first time since 1968.

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I spied the room we lined up to get inoculations. Leaned against the closet Sister Beatrice threw Kevin Murphy through after he answered her back for the third time. Peeked in the corner by the radiator where we kept the bishop's crook to open the giant windows or crack a guy in the head across a few aisles. Looked up at the bell tower opening where we threw a few erasers after we played hockey on the roof when we were supposed to be clapping the chalk out of them. Used the boys bathroom where I threw the horrible school lunch food away that I stuck in my pants pockets to avoid the Nun making me eat it. You had to present an empty tray to the Nun to get out of the lunchroom. At the end of the week when she's ready to do wash, my mother to me: "Why do your pants pockets smell like boiled eggs?" Spent time in the church's choir, where I was happily stuck in between a dozen girls singing hymns for a few years until my voice changed. Liked to lend a pretty one my hankie when the Nun told her she needed to cover her head. She attached my hankie to her noggin with a barbie pin. From the choir, I looked down and saw the church's altar where my parents were married on September 27, 1952 by Father Edward Halloran. He taught me how to throw a left hook. Saw the entrance to the sacristy where we folded our hands in prayer to lead Father Frederick McKeever onto the altar for mass after we played tag behind the altar. Sat in a pew where I talked Giant football with Father Benedict Dudley. Still can't believe the Giants Chaplain shot the breeze with me in church. You usually got whacked for that. Saw the shadow of the cross on the 82nd Street buildings facing the church and school. An image locked in my mind. Saw the stage where Mrs. Otis assembled us once a year to perform the School Talent Show in front of 500 bored parents and siblings. Same auditorium where the Knights of Columbus gave me a cool toy for a Christmas gift. Saw the custodian office where I used to annoy Mr. Varga, the school's janitor. When i screwed up he'd warmly call me "Woodhead."

Stood in front of the 8th grade classroom where Lynn Farrell & I sang "The Letter," by the Box Tops with Sister Mercedes permission in September 1967. Same classroom where Sister Mercedes caught Freddy Muller & me playing hooky when the kids in class pointed us out in the ballpark crowd at a Met game on TV in the classroom near dismissal time in mid June 1968. Mets won 1-0. A Don Cardwell shutout over the Phillies. I still have the ticket stub.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQaUs5J2wdI

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Most of all, I saw a place I sought comfort, companionship and knowledge. Yesterday's tour was a meaningful, engaging walk through my past. Thank you, Principal Katherine Peck. You make Sister Beatrice and Sister Mercedes proud. Two of your predecessors. Principals and teachers who deeply impacted my life and countless St. Stephen's alumni.

First Grade class 1960

Car contains the recently wed, Robert Pryor & Patricia Ryan, married by Father Edward O'Halloran on September 27, 1952. That's my Pop, John Rode, looking in the car in front of St. Stephen's.

The Church Tower's Shadow

View of the Church from the choir

1960s classroom chums

First grade closets for our coats and snow boots, also place where sister Beatrice sent the bad kids.

One of my apartments when I talked too much.