New York Giants Enter The Twilight Zone

Having your team in the playoffs this deep into January is like being in a happy Twilight Zone episode. Say the one where the guy and his dog avoid hell and end up in heaven together. Yeah, me and my dog in heaven together that’s where I am with the Giants right now.  Food taste better, music sounds better, girls are prettier and people that rub you wrong brush off like lint. On the other hand, getting knocked out the playoffs at this point reverses all these feelings like a bad Twilight Zone episode where Billy Mumy turns me into a Jack in a Box because I didn’t laugh at his stupid joke.

 

Sunday against the 49ers is the Giants fifth straight seventh game of the World Series after the Jets, Dallas, Atlanta & the Packers. One and out.

It doesn’t get better.

Pictures that cheer me up.

83rd Street Chocolate Milk Tasting Contest

The day after Thanksgiving 1961, Mom picked Rory & me up at my grandparents (we had stayed over) and took us shopping at Sloan's Supermarket on York & 86th Street, looking for sales on leftovers from the holiday.  Inside the store, Rory and I began torture.   I loved Cocoa Marsh. Rory loved Bosco.  We fought in the aisle over which chocolate syrup to throw in the cart to take home.  Mom said, "Throw them both in, or you die now."  Then, Mom grabbed one of her comfort foods, Hersey's Chocolate Syrup.

That afternoon, we egged Mom into a chocolate milk tasting contest adding Hershey as the third choice despite its weak appearance in a tin can rather than the other two brands’ fancy glass containers. Cocoa Marsh had a lion on top of its push squirt spout. Bosco had a clown. I was scared of clowns. Even little ones on top of food products. I think a Twilight Zone episode spooked me.

.
The three of us took turns wearing blindfolds and made three glasses of chocolate milk using the three types of syrup. Rory cheated and peeked. He loved Bosco. I cheated. I loved Cocoa Marsh. Mom didn't cheat. She loved chocolate milk. Mom drained her three glasses in three gulps leaving nothing but her smile and a chocolate mustache.

The Hobo On 85th Street ~ 1960

Halloween night 1960 ~ Rory, Mom, Nan Ryan & me visited my Aunt Joan's apartment at 321 East 85th Street. Rory was a Cat & I was a Hobo. We bought my Bum mask for 39 cents at Woolworth's and raided my grandfather's old clothes for my costume when he went out for a walk. He didn't miss a thing, as predicted by my grandmother.

321 was a usual haunt for Mom, Rory & me. Mom visited her sisters, Joan & Barbara, two to three times a week. Counting my two grandmothers, I had five mothers.

The now pictures are all of 321 East 85th Street's stoop this past week. As you can see, hardly anything has changed in 50 years, including, I still dress like a hobo.

That's Alison in her Halloween ghost costume in 1988. Here's a silly poem I wrote for her years ago.

“Dungarees be Free!”

Hot summer night, a run on the track.

Fear struck hard! I turned my back.

Adjusting my eyes to see what was there,

A little fat man with long green hair.

“My debt I’ll collect,” he snarled at me.

I proceeded to run up the nearest tree.

“I have all night you may as well come down.”

Before he finished his remark, I fell to the ground.

'What do you want, leave me alone!"

Knelling over me, I smelled his cheap cologne.

“You borrowed my jeans and I want them back!”

“They're dungarees, they are not slacks!

You’re a fruitcake I don’t own any jeans.

Go far away your breath stinks like beans."

I rushed home, as he jumped up & down.

“You’ll never be safe. I’m not leaving town.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y

***********************************************

My Halloween story, "The Ghost that Haunted the Basement," is in this week's Our Town newspaper. If you like the story, please leave a comment at the paper's web site. Thank you, Tommy

http://ourtownny.com/2010/10/27/the-ghost-that-haunted-the-basement/