Giving Thanks To Mom

Happy Mother's Day, Uncle Mommy!  

(because she was the best uncle I ever had.)  

Her unconditional love for Rory and I has a big room in my heart that I visit each time I need a hug.

This story was previously published in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood

I walk into the house in 1964. I’m 10. The first thing I see is a pair of bare legs on the inside of a closed window and the rest of the body isn’t in the apartment. I’m praying to God whoever it is doesn’t fall, the soapy glass prevents a clean identification of the person sitting on the outside sill, but I kind of figure it’s my mother by the unmistakable fluffy slippers dangling from her toes. Now I’m flipping out because I’m scared of heights. She’s four stories up, 50 feet smack over the concrete backyard. My heart’s outside my chest doing a Mexican Bean dance on my T-Shirt. Finally an arm starts swirling away the soapy water and I see Mom’s face through the glass and she smiles at me. I love that smile, and for a brief moment I was not frightened for her I was just amazed at how hard she worked to keep our small apartment clean.

When I was boy, right through my teens, if I was away a day or longer from the house she’d surprise me and cleaned my room like something out of a movie. It looked so good I thought I was in Beaver Cleaver’s bedroom. This blew my mind, I’d run through the apartment and grab my mother and kiss her over and over saying, "thank you, Uncle Mommy, thank you." All Mom said while being tackled, “Watch my head, I don’t like people touching my head.” Last week, I washed eight windows. When I got to my daughter’s room I felt Mom’s spirit sweep through me, she made several passes. 

As I cleaned my daughter’s space (dusted the old knick-knacks, too) Mom stayed with me for two hours. I felt the love she experienced doing this for me countless times many years ago. Growing up in Yorkville, my family and all my friends lived in small spaces, most with two or more kids. A tenement mother had a difficult job. Keeping a home when the challenges to clean were relentless. I think most city moms had a brittle grip on their sanity. But their love was so sturdy it never gave up. While I was I polishing Mom's Aries knick-knack figurine, behind me I felt that same smile I saw through the soapy window when I was 10. Thank you, Mom. 

This story was previously published in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood

Over The River And Through The Potatoes

This is the final chapter in the Yorkville 1961 Thanksgiving trilogy.

Around one o'clock, Dad and I got back from the parade to my grandparents apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. Dad’s Mom, and Pop Rode, Nan and Pop Cuckoo to me, always cooked our bird. Mom’s parents did Easter’s lamb roast. At the kitchen table, Mom and Nan were snapping ends off a few pounds of string beans and throwing them into a spaghetti pot. Rory and Pop were in the living room watching Babes in Toyland.
“Hi, all, I thought we were eating at one?” Dad said.
“The bird’s got a way to go – maybe another hour,” Nan said.
Mom mouthed to Dad a silent, “No way.”
I was a first class Mom lip reader.
Dad walked to the oven and opened the front.
“Jesus Christ, who are you feeding?”
“Shut your mouth,” Nan said.
“That prehistoric beast is the same size as Rory,” Dad said.
​“Mind your business.”
Mom whispered to me, “Rory is smaller.”
“We’ll eat tomorrow,” Dad said.

“Another hour. Go inside and be useful.” Nan said, waving Dad away. “Get two folding chairs and bring my bag. I forgot something and need you to go to the store.”

Dad eyed me up and down. He wanted to send me but he thought I was getting sick. Resigned, Dad exhaled loudly, ensuring everyone in the balcony knew he was leaving the stage. Being at Nan’s cheered me up. Everything was big. She was big. Pop was big. The coffee cups were big. At her house, I could drink anything I wanted, when I wanted. Dad returned from the front room to the kitchen with Nan’s pocketbook. I could see his arm muscles working hard, lifting the heavy bag.
“Here you go. What do you need?” Dad said.
“Go down to Parker’s and get me a pound of butter.”

 


Dad walked to the fridge, opened the door and stuck his head in it. “You have a full pound.”
“I need six sticks for the mashed potatoes.”
“We’re six people! That’s a quarter pound of butter per person. Are you trying to stop our hearts with a single meal?”

1582 YorkAve Parkers Grocery @1940

“I’m making mashed potatoes for the week and it’s none of your business. Get the butter.”
“And the thirty pound bird?”
“Don’t exaggerate. It’s twenty-six pounds.”
“Oh, only twenty-six. Let’s see, more than four pounds per person, that should cover our meat provision for our sea voyage.”

I was curious. Would Nan slap him or not? I was pulling for a slap. She seemed close. Instead, she stared him down. He wisely took the money and went to the store. I joined Rory and Pop in the living room to watch the end of the movie. Dad came back and stayed in the kitchen with Nan and Mom.

More than an hour passed.

“I’m starving. How much longer?” Dad said.
“I’ll take a look,” answered Nan.
I got up and watched through the doorway. Nan opened the oven and took the turkey out with her arms firmly hanging onto both pan handles. From behind, she looked like a Russian weightlifter. She placed the pan on the counter and checked the thermometer. Dad was right behind her.
“What does it say?” Dad said.
“135 degrees,” Nan said.
“Forget it, put it back in.”
“No, it’s done.”
“You’re nuts.”
“It’s fine, look?”
Nan sliced into the meat. It was pink like a flower.
“Meat should be 175 degrees,” Dad said. “That bird just stopped breathing.”
“That’s it. Let’s go.”
Nan said and moved the enormous pan toward the table. Dad met her halfway across the kitchen floor and began guiding her back toward the oven. They both had their hands on the pan’s handles. A turkey dance!
“Give it to me,” Dad said.
“Leave me alone. Start mashing the potatoes,” Nan said.
“Give it to me!”
He tugged. She tugged. The pan didn’t know what to do.
The pan flipped over. The gravy soared and the turkey smacked the floor. Nan was a mess. Dad’s shirt, slacks and new dress shoes with the little pinholes were no better. Stunned, Nan and Dad stared down at the the bird on the linoleum. Nan spoke first. “Ah shit, I’m lying down,” And she did.

She passed through the living room. Me frozen in the doorway and Pop with Rory on his lap. They watched like two wide mouth bass. I wish I could’ve taken a picture. Pop and Mom exchanged places. She joined Rory watching TV. Pop went to the kitchen and began to help Dad. They put the bird back in the pan with a couple of cups of water to replace the irreplaceable gravy and put the pan back in the oven. Pop gave Dad one of his extra large guinea tee shirts. Pop’s pants didn't fit Dad, so he gave Dad a pair of his giant boxer shorts. Dad wore Pop’s boxer shorts over his boxer shorts – that went nicely with his dark socks and skinny legs. I saw Mom peek in, point at Dad and start to laugh.
Sometime much later, Pop announced, “OK, everything is ready.”
He went into the front room and brought Nan back. She returned to the kitchen and took over as if nothing had happened.
“Bob, carve the meat.”

Dad grabbed the knife and did as he was told. This relieved everyone. The table comfortably sat six people yet with the large amount of food on it, it was hard to see each other. Everyone was scary polite. Late in the meal, Dad looked at the bucket of mashed potatoes and said, “You know from this angle I can see a goat circling the top of Potato Mountain.”

We all laughed except Nan. But she didn’t hit him. The storm passed and Rory and I started looking forward to our favorite Thanksgiving ritual – Pop watching. He was a gentle Smokey the bear and never yelled at us. After the meal, he drank two short glasses of Ballantine Ale, wiped his mouth carefully with his linen napkin, and said, “Thank you, excuse me.”

 


​He lifted himself from the table, then walked from his kitchen chair to his living room chair. Once Rory and I heard “Swoosh,” Pop’s bottom sinking into the plastic, we started counting backward, “10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1…”
We peeked into the living room. Pop was sawing wood. Rory and I stared at him.




While Pop slept, a cartoon came on with two poor kids who go to bed with nothing to eat. They dream, people come and bring them goodies and music starts to play. Rory and I stood behind Pop’s chair on each side of his head and softly sung along with the cartoon song into his ears:
"Meet me tonight in dreamland, under the silvery moon.
Meet me tonight in dreamland, where love’s sweet roses bloom.
Come with the love light gleaming, in your dear eyes of blue.
Meet me in dreamland, Sweet dreamy dreamland,
There let my dreams come true."
Our singing didn’t wake him. Pop had a stretched out snore with three different sounds. Nan had a toy piano with eight color coded keys. You could play a full octave of tones. It came with a color-coded music book with classics like “Pop Goes the Weasel,” “Roll Out the Barrel” and “This Old Man.” Rory was pretty good on the thing – he played “Jingle Bells” with ease. He went over to the piano.


In between Pop's snores he’d hit a key. It sounded pretty good. Rory played around a bit until he located a couple of notes to harmonize with Pop’s snoring. Not wanting to be left out, not having Rory’s natural musical talent, I improvised. Nan’s toilet door made a creaking sound when you opened or closed it. I went over to the door and opened it a smidge to try to join the band. I found a funky “eek” and added it to the mix. Leaning over, looking back into the living room, I could see Rory. Once we made eye contact, it was easy to locate our rhythm.
We riffed, “Snore, piano key, eek; snore, piano key, eek.”
Our tune had a hook as Dad loved to say.
Mom threw a sponge at my head. I ducked. The band played on.
Sponge two was in the air.
I avoided it by doing the cha-cha.



“I will kill you both. Keep it up, I’ll kill you both dead."
Noticing Mom was out of sponges, and the next airborne item could be a spoon or fork, Rory and I left the airwaves.
Later on, Pauline and Charlie Hannah came over and started playing Pokeno with Nan and Pop. Dad and Mom moved to the sink area. I sat on the washing machine right next to them. Mom picked up a dish and started scrubbing it. Dad squeezed too much dish soap into the water, then started playing with the faucet’s screws.
“Let’s get this over with, you’re moping.”
“Not true. The secret is a long hot soak. Then the grease slides itself off.” Dad said and continued to play with the faucet.
“The secret is you’re full of shit and have a bony ass,” Mom said.
Nan got up came over to the sink and said “Leave the kids here. You can pick them up in the morning.”

She helped them gather their things and threw them out of the house. Rory and I conked out together on one bed. The playful noise coming from the card game in the kitchen was the kind of yelling we could sleep through. The last thing on my mind as I drifted off was Santa’s sleigh flying over the 59th Street Bridge up York Avenue heading towards my house.

Do you like old New York City photos and street life stories? Then check out my 1960s memoir,"I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood."Available at Logos Book Store and online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

The book has 136 Amazon five star reviews out of 136 authentic reviews posted. We're pitching a perfect game. My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs.

The Girl Who Killed Santa Claus

Uncle Mommy & Tommy

Thanksgiving morning, 1961. Mom woke me quietly and whispered, “Rory is sick. If you wake him up before you leave, you’re not going either.”

I nodded my head yes. I felt bad that my brother wouldn’t see the parade, but I was happy to go with Dad alone. It was much easier having a good time with Dad when it was just the two of us. This was my first Macy’s parade and I didn’t want one of Dad’s bad moods blowing it.

At nine o’clock, we slipped out the door. We met Dad’s friend Richie Kovarik and his daughter, Deborah, inside Loftus Tavern a few blocks away. The four of us were going together. Richie was talking to Jack, the bar’s owner, over coffee. Deborah sat on a barstool sipping a Coke and sucking a cube of ice with the hole in the middle. She was a year older than I was, stuck up, and knew everything.

Debbie Kovarik

I hated her guts.
Richie greeted us. “Hi, Bob. Where’s Rory?”
“He’s sick. We’ll catch up later at my mother’s for dinner. Hi, Deborah, you look so pretty and grown up.”
With a wide phony smile she said, “Thank you, Mr. Pryor.”
I almost vomited.
Saying goodbye to Jack, we went out the bar’s side door, smack into a vicious cold wind. A Checker cab was just turning off York Avenue heading west on 85th Street. “Cabby!" yelled Dad and we piled in.

Checker taxi cab

Despite plenty of room to sit alongside our fathers, Deborah and I naturally sat on the round pull-up seats that faced them. That’s because for adults a Checker cab was transportation, but for kids it was an amusement ride and the bouncy pull-up seats were why. It was better than most rides, in fact, because there was nothing to strap you in. Deborah and I didn’t acknowledge each other. The cab made it nonstop from York Avenue to Fifth Avenue through a swirl of green and yellow lights. My head slapped the roof several times. The driver impressed me. Crossing Fifth Avenue, we dove into the Transverse through Central Park. 

flip up seats in Checker taxi

“You’re in second grade, right?” Deborah asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m in third grade,” she said, pleased as punch.
She knew what grade I was in. She continued talking while looking out her window. I tried ignoring her.
“What are you getting for Christmas?” she asked.
That was a dirty trick. It’s nearly impossible for a kid to stay silent when this subject comes up.
“Things,” I said.


"Huh?"

“I’m getting a bike and an Erector set.”
“That’s nice,” I said.
“What did you ask for?” Deborah pressed on.
“I’m still deciding. I have a list.”
“What’s on the list?”
“Lots of stuff.”
“Oh, come on, name a few things.”
“That’s between me and Santa.”
“WHAT?” she said.
“It’s between me and Santa.”
“Well, good luck, dummy, because there ain’t no Santa.”
Despite my lingering hope, I worried it was true. I wanted her dead.
I tried to recover. “I know there’s no Santa, stupid.”
“No you didn’t, but you do now.” Her eyebrows arched up and down.
“I play along for my brother. It makes him feel good. He’s just a kid.”
“Still believe in the Easter Bunny?” she said.
“Oh crap, him too?” I thought, then said, “No, of course not.”
I never realized until that moment how much detail there was on the stone blocks lining the underpasses through Central Park. The road was twisted and bumpy. My forehead banged repeatedly against the window’s glass. It felt good. It took my mind off the other pain. Silently staring out, I saw the glitter of the granite and the chiseled cuts where they sliced the stone to make the blocks. I imagined Deborah’s head being dragged across that rock as we drove back and forth through the park. Kaput!
“Johnny, leave us off on the near corner of 86th Street and Central Park West.” Dad’s voice broke my dream of vengeance.
The driver aimed for the curb. The air was frigid. I barely noticed. Normally, I would’ve run ahead toward the action, but my heart remained behind on the cab’s pull-up seat. I took Dad’s hand, even though I didn’t feel like a little boy anymore. We walked south to 77th Street in formation. Dad squeezed my hand. I weakly squeezed back.
“I don’t think we’re staying too long,” Dad said to Richie. “I think Tommy’s got something, too.”
We stood inside the park’s wall on the rocks. This allowed us to see the parade over the sidewalk crowd. Only because Dad announced the balloon names as they passed by, do I remember they included Underdog, Popeye, and Bullwinkle J. Moose from Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.

Underdog Thanksgiving @ 1961


This is the second story of three, the finale appears tomorrow





Do you like old New York City photos and street life stories? Then check out my 1960s memoir,"I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood."Available at Logos Book Store and online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

The book has 136 Amazon five star reviews out of 136 authentic reviews posted. We're pitching a perfect game. My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs.

My Turkey Got A B minus

It was Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving 1961 in St. Stephen of Hungary’s second grade.

“Children, the Pilgrims had a bountiful crop their first year in the American colony. They arranged a peace treaty with the Indians. They celebrated together, and feasted on geese, deer, corn, and oysters.”

“Yuck,” said a few kids at the mention of oysters.

Sister Lorraine threw a look around the room then said, “… and President Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday in 1863.”

She cleared her throat, “Let’s move on. Everyone take out the hats, bonnets and headdresses we’ve been working on. Pilgrims, go over to the windows… Indians, stay on the closet side. Think about your lines, everybody.”

While the kids got into place, I put on my Indian headdress and snuck over to the teacher’s desk. It was the only one with a cartridge pen. Second graders worked in pencil. Sister Lorraine, distracted by the two herds moving to her left and right, missed my pre-show make-up application. I had no mirror to work with so I figured out two spots and wiped an inky finger across each cheek twice. Sister Lorraine gave us a short history lesson while she passed back our art assignments. My turkey got a B minus. I ran out of brown crayon and finished his stomach off with green and red. Eventually she saw me upfront.

“Thomas, what are you doing?”

“Huh?”
“What are you doing?” Sister Lorraine repeated.
“Putting on stripes.” I said, standing in front of her desk working the ink off my fingers onto a piece of loose leaf.
“Why, God Almighty are you putting on stripes?”
“I’m an Indian. If I’m an Indian, I’ll need war paint. It’ll look good, promise.”
“Do you ever listen to me?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Didn’t I just say the Pilgrims and Natives declared a peace treaty?”
“Was she nuts?” I thought.
“You’d trust an Injun? I watch a lot of movies. Believe me; Sister, peace treaties are broken all the time.”
“This will be a calm re-enactment of a peaceful gathering. Thomas, the war paint is not necessary.”
“There might be trouble.” I said.
“You have one minute, mister. One minute, that’s it. Go to the bathroom and wash the ink off your hands and face. And don’t touch your shirt again. Your mother is going to kill you.”

Disgusted, I ran off.

“Don’t run,” she said.
“Make up your mind,” I mumbled.




I learned a valuable lesson that day. Cartridge pen ink doesn’t wash off well with cheap school soap. The nun sent two boys to get me. My head was buried in the sink.

“Sister told us, ‘Get him back in here if you have to drag him by his feet,’” Joey Skrapits said to the back of my head. “She’s not happy. What’s up?” Leslie Henits added. I turned around and showed them. I held my hands out. They were beginning to look white; my face, however, had an even blue tan. It seemed the washing, rather than taking the ink off, just moved it around.

“I can’t get it off,” I said.
“Holy crap, forget your face, look at your shirt. Joey said. It’s a gunshot wound.”
I looked down and moaned.
“You’re going to need Lava Soap to get that off. Come on, dry up and let’s go.” Leslie said.

As I crept through the classroom door, the entire class laughed their heads off. I tried to bury myself in the middle of the Indian tribe. I thought of opening one of the coat closets and spending a little time in there. My first stage appearance as Injun Joe was ruined. The only good part was: Sister Lorraine was laughing too. I was more afraid about her being angry than me being embarrassed. Once I saw her laughing, I calmed down. I almost forgot that my mother was going to murder me.

We did our little Pilgrim and Indian “everyone be thankful” speeches, and then we started singing, “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go…” I stared at the clock over the alphabet cards lining the top of the blackboard. The clock said, One minute to three.

Pop! My Mom’s incredibly angry face flashed over the clock’s face.

When I got home, Mom pounced. “What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“What happened to your shirt?”

Then she saw my face and her voice went up an octave.

“What the hell did you do to your face!”
“Two sixth graders started a fight in the schoolyard at lunchtime. I was leaning against a car right next to them. One of them had a box of pen cartridges in his shirt pocket. They were wrestling, two of the cartridges were crushed - and the ink flew all over. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt, but the ink got me in a few places.”
“A few places?” Mom said.
“Are you sure you weren’t refereeing the fight?
“No, Mom…no, no, no, I was doing nothing. Just standing there.”
“Where? In the ink factory when it exploded?”
“Take the shirt off and throw it away. Then come over here by the sink.”
Mom knew second graders weren’t allowed near ink.
“Thank you, God,” I whispered.

At the sink, Mom put Boraxo scrubbing powder on a washcloth and began making little circles on my face.

“Ouch” I said pulling away. “My face is being ground with sand.”
“Well, what else can we use to get this ink off? Stop fidgeting and stay still. If you let me work, it’ll be over one, two, three.”
“Big fat liar,” I thought.

Once clean, my face was a deeply embarrassed rosy red.

My brother, Rory, mocked me, “ha, ha!”

I gave him a knuckle when Mom wasn’t looking – a slight tap. He had a fever, so I held back a bit. I felt bad for him. On the verge of getting sick, there was no way Mom was letting him go with Dad and me to the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in the morning.

Part two of three tomorrow…

Do you like old New York City photos and street life stories? Then check out my 1960s memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood."Available at Logos Book Store and online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

The book has 135 Amazon five star reviews out of 135 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.

Ryan's Daughter Or Bust!

Rory says, "tomorrow night, my brother,

Thomas Pryor's Yorkville Stoops to Nuts will rock!

Neighborhood storytelling & tunes @ Ryans Daughter 350 East 85 Street.

Friday, Nov 5 @ 7pm
guests: Jeff Rose, Joe Dettmore, Fred Caruso, Eric Vetter & Courtney Hill.
Admission: $10, proof of vaccination & I.D.

The Growler, 1933

“Tommy, get the growler,” Anne said to her eight-year old son. The boy took the pail off the icebox in the kitchen. His four-year-old brother, Bobby piped in, “Let me, let me!”

Swede with growler at the lake

Tommy turned the bucket over to his brother, and Anne went to the front window and watched the iceman’s cart rolling down York Avenue.

It was April 1933, spring’s early bloom, Anne needed fertilizer, and there was none better than fresh horse manure. Her plantings were her pride. In the summer, you could see the flash of color on the stone ledge from a block away. The four flower boxes stretched across both windows in a military row.

Bobby ran ahead of his brother down the stairs into the street. His mother leaned out the window and pointed to the target lying on the cobblestones. Not having a scoop, Bobby bent over and took one of his brother’s baseball cards out of his back pocket to act as his steam shovel.

Mom gave directions to her son.

“Too much, put half back.”

Tommy walked over to the German butcher’s window to stare at the hanging meats. On the avenue, there was only one parked car, the butcher’s delivery truck, and a debris container right in front of it. Distracted by his meat investigation, Tommy missed the delivery man slowly backing up to avoid hitting the container. The driver didn’t see the boy, and eased his rear bumper into Bobby who fell face first into the manure pile.

“Thomas, pick your brother up, and get up here, now!” Anne yelled as the truck pulled away.

Tommy ran over and lifted Bobby up and cleaned him best he could with a wet newspaper lying in the gutter.

“Wipe it off, wipe it off!” Bobby cried.

When they got upstairs, Anne whacked Tommy, “For not watching your brother,” then pulled Bobby by his one clean arm over to the washing sink where she took off his clothes and dropped them directly into the cast iron bathtub. After scrubbing Bobby and soaking the clothes, she moved the garments into a washing basin, and ran a fresh bath for Bobby and put him in.

Anne took the bucket and walked through the rooms toward the front and the flower boxes. On the way, she passed Tommy and asked what he was doing.

“Reading a comic, Mom.”

Moving the soil around with her single gardening tool, Anne thought about her family.

The Pryors at the lake @ July 4, 1931

She adored the boys, but the man, Tom, was a different story. Her feelings for him, once positive and strong, had cracked into little compartments. His bravado and promises shrunk down to faithless words with no action. Right out of the orphanage at 16, he hated authority and fought ceaselessly with anyone who disagreed with anything he said including his bosses, co-workers, shopkeepers, girlfriends, and bartenders.

He drank the little money he made away, and developed chronic pneumonia that was more here, than gone. Soon he’d be on his way to the TB hospital, she thought. The older boy, Tommy, saw too much, lost affection for his father and stopped accepting his kisses. The father coddled the youngest boy because Bobby adored him, and he was too young to understand the misery in the home. Anne was tired, tired of being mistreated, tired of working two lousy jobs. What she saw the previous night, walking home at midnight crushed her - Tom pinning a young girl against the wall of the Webster library entrance, hungrily kissing her, and roaming his hands all over. Pressed against the door, he thought no one could see him, but she knew his profile, his stance, and the way he rolled his neck to ease his arthritic pain, and he was mauling this whore on the spot where they first met in 1921 when she was fourteen years old. She was furious, but also felt shame and regret. ‘Why didn’t I leave this man the first time he hit me?’

Tom was driving a cab, a job with no boss, but who knew how long that would last before he got bored or fell ill and went off to the sanatorium.

Finishing her chores, on her only day off, she went back to the kitchen, gave the bucket a half-assed wash, placed it on the icebox and began making dinner for the family.

Six o’clock, they heard Tom’s whistling in the hallway, he came in and turned up the volume on the Philco Baby Grand Console, the family’s one luxury item. The radio costs $50, and was well worth it. The only thing he and the missus agreed on these days. He looked at his wife, only 27 years old, still pretty but her eyes and spirits exhausted. He knew why. He felt guilt and shame but hid them behind a practiced smile.

Al Jolson sang “Sonny Boy,” and Tom joined in, he loved the song and gave the nickname to his oldest son. Tom kissed his wife on the forehead, his little boy on the lips and nodded toward his older boy and said, “Sonny, get the growler.”

Tommy went to the icebox and grabbed the bucket off the top.

“Here’s a nickel, go down to the tavern and tell em’ to fill ‘er up.”

Tommy liked going down to the “Old Timers” where the regulars treating him like a regular and he could grab half a cheese sandwich off the bar. Back in the apartment, he passed the bucket to his father. The growler tipped full with a frosty head of beer. Tom poured a glass for himself and took a long pull.

Anne, with her elbow on the table and her hand at her chin asked, “How’s that beer, Tom?”

“Pretty tasty. Want some?”

“No, it’s all yours.” Anne said, and the older boy covered his mouth hiding his smirk. It was an inside job.

Story published by Opium Magazine

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsha1an45nakhrq/Opium-Magazine-Growler.pdf?dl=0

"Getting to Know You"

Today is my parents wedding anniversary or as I refer to it the anniversary of the opening volley at Fort Sumter. My parents battled over anything. The 1954 New York story below depicts one of their classic brawls. It’s an excerpt from my memoir, “I Hate the Dallas Cowboys: tales of a scrappy New York boyhood.”

The apartment in Woodside overlooked the No. 7 El and the Long Island Rail Road. The two train lines crisscrossed, and one train rattled over another train all day long.  It was March 1954, a year after Mom’s ketchup-smeared death on the kitchen floor.

“I need food!” Patty pleaded, rubbing her big belly in the kitchen.

“There’s plenty of food,” Bob answered, playing with the bunny ears on top of the living room TV.

“YOU’RE A LIAR!” Patty opened the refrigerator and eyed the contents for the fifth time in five minutes.

“There’s no food-food, only junk. I want bread, I want bacon, I want Hellman’s mayonnaise!”

Disregarding her request, Bob shook ice into the spaghetti pot that was chilling his six bottles of Rheingold. Wiping his hands on a dish towel, he definitely heard Patty’s next statement: “Get off your bony ass and get me food!”

Bob ignored this, too. It was “Friday Night at the Fights” and he’d just settled in – first round, first beer. Desiring perfect comfort, Bob moved a hassock over to put his feet up. While doing this, he missed the left hook that sent one of the boxers to the canvas with a thud. Unfortunately, Bob’s man was down. So was Bob, $20. After the stiff was counted out, the telecast went to a commercial. Disappointed, but now available for chores, Bob wrapped his arm around his extremely pregnant wife’s head.

She pushed him away. “Get off. You know I hate anyone touching my head.”

Bob bent over, kissed Patty’s cheek and asked her softly, “What do you need, Hon?”

Patty reeled off five items, and aimed her lips up to kiss Bob on the mouth.

Back from the store, Bob put his beers in the fridge, washed the pot and put water on for spaghetti. Grabbing a black frying pan, he made two bacon sandwiches with extra mayo on Silvercup bread. After serving Patty both sandwiches, he took a beer and joined her at the kitchen table.

“So, we’re decided on baby names, right?” Bob said. “Marc Anthony if he’s a boy, and Alison Leigh if she’s a girl.”

Bob smiled. Patty did not.

“You’re so full of shit. The girl’s name is fine. When you name the boy Marc Anthony, be sure you walk carefully over my dead body. Because that’s the only way that stupid guinea name will ever appear on my son’s birth certificate.”

Bob’s expression fell.

“Oh, cut the crap and get that stupid puss off your face.”

“So what name do you want?”

“Rory,” she said.

 “Huh?”

“R-O-R-Y, Rory.”

“Like Calhoun, the movie cowboy?”

“Yes, it’s an old Gaelic name meaning Red King.”

“Red? Our hair is black. It’s a girly name – you’re guaranteeing he’ll get the shit kicked out of him.”

It grew quiet. The only sound in the room was Patty’s low hum. She loved bacon.

Fracturing the silence, Bob said, “It’ll be Rory when Brooklyn wins the World Series.”

“I’ll alert the press.”

Bob said, “Give me an alternative.”

“Nope,” Patty said in between bites.

“Then I’ll give you one: Thomas.”

“That’s inspired.” Patty pointed her sandwich at Bob. “I thought we agreed, no fathers’ names?”

“It’s my brother’s name, too.”

“You mean we’re going to name him after Stone Face?”

“That’s my compromise. You’ll get to name the next baby.”

Patty swallowed a large bite of mayo, with a little bit of bacon and bread attached to it. She chewed slowly, wiped her mouth, and said, “OK.”

On March 20th, Patty gave birth to an eight-pound boy. When the nurse let Bob into the recovery room and he saw Patty cradling the baby, he started to cry. 

“Oh stop your blubbering and give me a kiss.”

“How do you feel?”

“Not too swift,” Patty said, wiping sweat from her brow.

Bob, lightly rubbing the baby’s dark hair, asked, “How’s Tommy?”

“Doctor said he’s fine. Isn’t he beautiful?”

Bob picked up the wrinkled, red-faced boy. He thought the baby’s head looked like a grapefruit. A gorgeous grapefruit. Bob held the baby for a long time, then returned him to Patty.

“I have to fill out the birth certificate. I was thinking about Robert as a middle name,” Bob said.

“No,” she answered.

“Why not?”

“You picked the first name. I pick the middle name.”

“No, no, no, you get to name the next baby.”

            “No, I get to name the next baby’s first name, and you get to name the next baby’s second name.”

“But…” Bob said, uselessly.

“No buts.” Patty closed the discussion. “Tommy’s middle name is Rory.”

That night, Bob temporarily parked his anger over Mom’s choice of middle name, and hailed a cab to his old Manhattan neighborhood. He celebrated his first son by dancing on the bar in Loftus Tavern on 85th Street and York Avenue. A month later, the boy was christened, Thomas Rory. When the priest repeated the boy’s second name, Bob rolled his eyes.

A year and a half later, Thanksgiving 1955, Bob and Patty told their families they were expecting again. Throughout the pregnancy, Patty kept Bob in the dark about names. He begged and whined for hints. Late in Patty’s term, Bob tried to bribe her by hiding candy bars around the apartment, promising to reveal locations only if she told him the name. Patty never cracked.

On June 20th, Patty gave birth to a perfect boy. Bob dropped Tommy off with Bob’s mother and went directly to the hospital. The room was dimly lit; the baby was sleeping in Patty’s arms. She gave Bob a weak wave. He went over to kiss mother and son. Patty gently held Bob’s arm, keeping him close. She tilted her head, signaling him to lean in so she could whisper something. Bob pressed his ear to Patty’s dry lips.

“Rory, his name is Rory,” she said.

Bob backed away. “That’s nuts – we’ve already got a Rory.”

“Shush! Middle names don’t count. You promised.”

Bob knew he’d been had. In desperation, he blurted, “His middle name is Robert.”

“Who cares?” she said.

Patty settled back into bed, gave Bob a sly smile and squeezed her Rory tight.

Nan's Two Birthdays

Cuccia family s/w corner 75 St. & Ave A @ 1906

My grandmother Nan Rode’s four-room railroad flat faced York Avenue in the front and a backyard in the rear. Leaning out her front window, I could watch my world pass by. Leaning out the rear window, I could see Yorkville as it was long ago. In the backyard was an old two-story house surrounded by five-story brick tenements. The house, built around 1890, looked like it had fallen out of the sky and plopped onto a stray witch. Somehow, it had escaped the tenement explosion in Yorkville in the first two decades of the 1900s, a frenzy primarily triggered by speculation about the underground IRT subway coming to 86th Street and then proceeding farther north. (The speculation, of course, ultimately proved true.) As buildings rose around it, the old house, with its worn porch and crooked chimney, just sat there. I enjoyed this relic from the past and imagined it there in June 1906, when my grandmother was born in her family’s apartment only eight blocks away, at 1403 Avenue A. Above is a photo of my great-grandmother, Giovanna Cuccia, with family members sitting in front of their fruit stand at the southwest corner of 75th Street and Avenue A (later named York Avenue in honor of Sargent Alvin York, a World War I hero). Giovanna, third from right, is eight months pregnant with my grandmother. 

It looks like a normal old photo, but it led to a bona fide miracle: the month after it was taken, Nan was born and she had two birthdays, July 23rd and July 28th. I learned this astounding fact at age 10 when I went to my grandmother’s house to see what was up.

Nan & me 1955

“Hi, Nan.”
“That's it?”
“I said hi.”
“Where’s my ‘Happy Birthday?’”
“I wished you a happy birthday on the 23rd and made you a card. It’s right there on top of the TV.”
“Today is my birthday, too.”
Involuntarily, my head started shaking. I was used to my grandmother’s inquisitions but I didn’t understand this one.

“Nan, I don't get it.”

She explained.

Nan was delivered in her family’s apartment by Saveria Palermo, a midwife from Yorkville, on July 23rd, 1906. But Saveria was lazy, and when she filled out the Board of Health birth certificates the following Monday, July 30th, she used the same date, Saturday, July 28th, for all the babies she had delivered that week. That’s why Nan had two birthdays, July 23rd and July 28th.

Lazy Midwife filled this out

Neither Giovanna nor my great-grandfather, Antonino Cuccia, knew English, so they never fixed the certificate. But they always celebrated Anne’s – Nan’s --birthday twice. She was the baby in the family and a spoiled brat. She told me this with pride.

Anna Cuccia, 1913, Communion at St. Monica's

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.

The book has 133 Amazon five star reviews out of 133 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.

Flam & Flam

My Uncle Jack and Aunt Anna were having marital problems in the early 1940s. Their fighting hit a new high in their East Harlem apartment when Aunt Anna found half her house money missing from the flour tin. She chased Uncle Jack out of the house with a ladle full of dog crap, down the stoop and up First Avenue to the entrance of the 138th Street Bridge. Jack ran into the Bronx using the roadway’s passing lane.

After catching his breath, Jack not wanting to waste a good trip to the Bronx, continued walking north up to Yankee Stadium where he caught a doubleheader with the Cleveland Indians. DiMaggio went 4 for 7 with two walks and five RBIs. Jack spent $2.75 of Anna’s house money on Franks, beer, a ticket, a pennant for the kid, a program and a five cent pencil to keep score.

When Jack got home, Anna had put a chair against the door locking him out. Unfortunately, she also locked out her son, John, who after begging his mother to no avail to let him in stayed with my grandparents on 104th Street in their new East River Houses, Housing Authority apartment.


After much consultation with everyone on their block, Jack and Anna decided to get professional help from Flam & Flam, a 106th Street law firm, famous in the neighborhood for resolving family crises when folks were broke. After discussing their plight with Freddy (the brains in the outfit) and telling him they had one dollar for a divorce, Freddy rocked back on the legs of the library surplus chair and thought it over, then he popped a hand off his bald head.


“I’ve got it! A house divorce! It’s the rage in Philadelphia. When couples want out, but can’t afford it, the courts can grant a house divorce (no they can’t). You live together, but you’re not married (you are). You can tell everybody you’re divorced, but by a tiny technical thread you’re not really divorced. So I only have to charge you a dollar. Give me a dollar.”

Stingily, Jack gave Freddy Flam a house money dollar. Anna watched the money change hands thinking about kicking Jack’s ass right there in Flam & Flam’s office.

Anna buried Jack in Calvary Cemetery in Queens in 1978 after 13 years of conventional marriage and 37 years of house divorce thanks to Flam and Flam.

Next Friday, Ryan's Daughter, Sept 21 Dettmore & Pryor Salute 45 Singles @ 7pm

Next Friday, here we come...

Yorkville Is His Home

My Dad's best friend, Walter, 93 years old with severe memory loss, moved two weeks ago from his 1942 railroad apartment (yep, linoleum as old as Methuselah) to a beautiful one bedroom in Yorkville. Walter, 93 years in the neighborhood. St. Joseph's, Commerce High School, NYU, Navy,  48 years with Pan Am Airlines ending with a long ride as the Director of World Wide Maintenance. He's travelled to 35 countries with photos to prove it.

After losing most of his memoryWalter hoarded. His clean organized new space is unusual to him but he's getting use to it. The guy loves our neighborhood. 93 years in Yorkville. More to come. 

Walt with chums on roof of St. Joe's @ 1936

east river

517 E. 83rd where I grew up

Here are photos of Walt at St. Joe's in the 1930s, Carl Schurz, his favorite park and 83rd Street where I grew up.

Walter had a Sister Beatrice. No kidding.