Happy Birthday, Edward Edgar Ekis!

Happy Birthday, Edward Edgar Ekis!

We miss you, friend, toasted both sides!!!

Eddie Ekis’s mom worked at the local Five & Ten store on First Avenue. You know, the one with the mechanical jalopies and "Ride "Em Cowboy!" outside the store - a dime did it. On Friday nights, Asst. Manager, Ellie Ekis closed the store at 9pm. This put Mrs. Ekis home at 9:15.

our first album cover, Ed, Buddy, teepee

Sometime in 1969, on one Friday the cocktail lamp was lit at 5pm and the first wave would roll in. There were eight to ten regulars, a poker game always got going, and the music blasted. J Geils, “Looking For a Love,” “Floyd’s Hotel,” Jeff Beck, "Truth," Humble Pie, “Thirty Days In The Hole,” Black Sabbath, “Paranoid,” Black Oak Arkansas, “Jim Dandy,” Jacksons, “Never Can Say Goodbye,” Led Zep, “Everything,” The Who, “Who’s Next,” “Quad,” Beatles, “Rubber Soul & Revolver”, Sly, “Everything, “Billy Preston, “Outer Space,” and every worth while 45 single from 1962 and forward. O

Eddies' older brother Ginter had a doctorate in Entomology, the scientific study of insects. Eddie bought into science and loved exotic animals. Fall 1970, Ginter came home from a research trip to India with a gift for his brother - two Rhesus monkeys. Eddie named them Chiquita and Toto. Eddie caged in the tiny tar roof of the beauty parlor under his second floor apartment. They loved beer and lived in a cage in the kitchen and had a terrace out the window when the weather was nice. A porch for everybody. If the weather was right we’d move two chairs and a bottle of Yago Sangria out there and hang out with the monkeys, but if they didn’t like the music they went cuckoo crazy nuts and pulled our hair. We carefully made our record selections. Toto & Chicata hated Black Oak Arkansas.

At five to nine everyone knew the drill. The brown bags came out and all the empties into the garbage. Ekis ran to the turntable for our “Go out,” last song. We'd march out of the building, on our way to somewhere that was never as much fun as Ekis's house.We sang along:

I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking,
Somebody help me find my baby,

I said I got to find my baby right now.

Happy Birthday Eddie, we miss you brother, whole lot.

Yvette, Joe & Eddie

Eddie warming up

Gerard, Eddie & Karl

Chris, Gerard, Nick & Eddie 1966

Ed, Gerard & Arlene

look pretty happy to me, Ed & Arlene

Buddy, Ed, tp

Lamstons, 1958

3 Idiots

1977 Ed & tp St. John's Rugby Club

tp, Ed, Jeanne Aument

Yesterday's party

 St. Stephen's Pineapple Bowl winners ~ 1974 Yorkville's Football Champions. 

1974 Yorkville Football Champions

St. Stephen of Hungary Champs

Yorkville Champs

A Perfect Day

Thank you, "Mr. Beller's Neighborhood" for publishing "A Perfect Day."  My New York Giants first Super Bowl memory. 

“Tommy, want some action?” Al said to me on the school bus.

“No, the Giants are favored by 9 ½ points.” I answered.

“What about over and under, it’s 39 ½?”

Now he had my attention. The Giants would keep the score low through ball possession.

“OK, twenty times under,” I said.

“Good boy!” Al smiled.

So I bet one hundred dollars that the combined score of both teams in Super Bowl XXI

would be 39 points or lower.

It was January 25, 1987, an 80 degree perfect cloudless Sunday in California. I was

headed for the Rose Bowl to see the New York Giants play the Denver Broncos. The trip

started two weeks before. The day after the Giants won the NFC Championship game I

called airlines for a round trip to Los Angeles. They were sold out. Instead I bought a

reservation to San Diego. Over the next ten days, I tried to locate a game ticket and had

no success. On the Thursday afternoon before the event I began calling travel agencies to

try to sell my flight back to them. The first place asked me why I was selling. I told her I

couldn’t get a game ticket.

“I have one,” she said.

“How much?”

“$375.”

I swallowed and said “Yes.” Face value was $75.

An hour later, the messenger arrived and I examined my ticket.

Gate B Tunnel 27 Row C Seat 111.

Possibly the worst seat in the 101,000 capacity Rose Bowl, but I was going to see the

Giants.

I left the next day and prearranged staying with my friends Al and Janet an hour from

Pasadena. The problem was traveling from San Diego to a hotel lobby in Irvine where

Jane and I had worked out a pick up. When I landed, I started working the rental car

counters. A guy my age said he was driving to San Francisco. I told him if he dropped me

off at my hotel on the way north, I’d pay his first day rental. When we got near the hotel

he pulled the car over to the shoulder and said he was late. He took my money and left

me on the side of the road. I climbed down the embankment and over a fence into the

hotel’s parking lot. Jane was in the lobby when I ran in. It was 3 a m. The game of my

life was only 36 hours away.

Jane found companies running buses to the Rose Bowl. I bought my ride for $15. At noon

on Sunday, I was on a yellow school bus, with one other Giant fan and 40 Denver Bronco

fans. I was excited and surrounded by the enemy. I waved goodbye to Al and Jane. They

looked like proud parents, except for the fact that Al was counting on me giving him

money to pay his bookie if I lost the bet.

Gliding over the California roads the bus was a happy land where Bronco fans, the other

Giant fan and I joked together. The New York guy shared his blue tortilla chips with me,

and kept asking, “Would you like another Giant chip?”

Off the bus, I strolled around the Rose Bowl a few times to kill time and I ran into Andy

Rooney in his lucky Giant raincoat. We talked about our love for the Giants and old
Yankee Stadium.

Stepping through the dark tunnel into the Rose Bowl my heart smacked inside my chest.

My long suffering was over. The New York Giants were my father’s and my unbreakable

link. Our passion for football was unconditional. When I was 7 to 9 years old the Giants

lost three consecutive NFL Championship games. Turning 10 in 1964 I knew that would

be our year, the Giants, Dad and me. But they stunk, and kept on stinking.

By half time, I sensed victory even though the Giants were losing. In the third quarter the

Giants exploded and led 26-10. Thinking of my dark fan days, thinking of my Dad and

me going, watching, listening to hundreds of Giant games together I started to well up,

but then I remembered my bet. My stupid $100 bet. Every time I had a good thought

about what was happening on the field I also thought 4 more points I lose my bet.

As I’m having these feelings, the Giants are driving towards my end of the field. On a

trick play a receiver ends up wide open. Phil Simms throws the ball to him and I’m

mumbling, “Drop it! Drop it!” The receiver catches the ball and my heart lifts then drops

at the same time. How could I ever root against the Giants? Best day of my life and I
tarnish it.

Final score was 39-20. I couldn’t wait to talk to my father. Back on the bus: silence and

40 broken Bronco fans, me and the guy with the blue chips. The Rose Bowl had only had

two exits and all the VIP’s left first. We idled in the parking lot for an hour. I felt like I

was in a funeral home on wheels. I could hear sad heaving coming from the grim Bronco

fans. A tall woman had a tear rolling down his cheek. I felt bad for them but remembered

how many times I had sat in their seat. Once in a while, the Giant fan and I would look at

each other across the aisle and exchange a quick hand raise, a small yip and one word “Giants!”

Several hours after the game we arrived back at the hotel. I called Jane and asked her to

delay one hour so I could celebrate at the hotel’s bar. I put money down and a sea of blue

started forming around me. I remembered something important and slipped away to

make a collect call.

“Dad, we won, I love you.”

“I love you, Hon.” he said and we both hung up.

Spotless Cleaners

A ten-year-old simp walks serpentine into his father's trap.

Nearing the 1964 Christmas break during my fifth grade, thirteen inches of snow blanketed my street on a late Thursday evening. Losing a school day to the elements was a beautiful thing.

Friday morning, my friends and I mushed over to Central Park towing our sleds through the middle of the street. Milking the day to the last of the light, we rode every hill until our feet froze. Back from the sleigh ride, I plopped down outside my apartment on the hall stairs and began undressing. Mom refused to let me inside the apartment. She, slush and dog poop were mortal enemies. As I worked my top layer off, I heard my father's familiar step coming up the stairs.

He mumbled to himself, "Damn, I forgot the suit." Noticing me, his eye focused on my half untied snow boots. "Tommy here's the ticket, hurry to the cleaners. I need that suit for the wedding."
“OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhh,” left my mouth as I rose slowly.
"Go!" Dad ordered.

I death marched down the stairs. Dad behind me, "FASTER they're going to close in 5 minutes."

When I got there, Joe, the Spotless Cleaners manager was turning off the lights. Smiling with an edge he opened the door.
"Come in Tommy, be quick, I want to get out of here." 

Deed done. I earned a slow walk home. A slow meandering trek through every snow pile between the store and my building. Walking deliberately, I was Hannibal's elephant moving over the Alps, going knee deep with every step. I moved the suit to the back of my pea coat, resting the hanger's hook on the back of my collar. This left both hands free for better balance. My serpentine trip created swirling desire paths over each snow pile.

Calculated attention paid to each hill stretched my normal five-minute trip home to half an hour. With the satisfaction of a Sherpa's job well done, I danced a jig and rang the bell in the vestibule harking my return and an incredible urge to pee. Running up the stairs, Dad greeted me at the door, "Where the hell were you?"

I said nothing, smirked and turned my back, offering Dad his suit from its resting-place on the nape of my neck. I ran into the bathroom, worked off my jeans, long johns, and two pairs of underwear just in time.

Stepping back into the kitchen, Dad met me face to face at the bathroom door holding up the suit.
"Nice jacket. Where are my pants?"
"Huh", I mumbled.
"My pants, where are my pants?"

A clothes hanger never had as thorough an examination as the one I put that hanger through. The pants were not on it, in it; on top it, under it. There were no pants. The jacket, the jacket was good. Two sleeves, pressed cleaned, all that. But the pants, the pants made no appearance despite multiple prayers under my breath. I was the baffled volunteer from the audience looking for the rabbit in the hat and finding it unbelievable it was gone.

Dad put his slacks on and said, "Lets' go."

Down to Hades we descended, third floor, second floor, first floor, no pants. Hallway, no pants. Down the building's stoop, no pants.

Dad, "So which way did you walk exactly?"

This is where it got tricky. I set a new record for a dramatic pause. My mouth agape, he asked again, "Exactly - where - did - you - walk?

Words failed me. I didn't even try. I owned too many fruitless experiences responding to similar requests from my father. Trying to answer unanswerable questions to even begin thinking about opening my mouth. Left with nothing to say I showed him my exact path. Every nuance. Every turn. Every double step. At one point, I did the cha-cha one up, two back, one up. I was possessed. I mirrored my entire walk never measuring how pissed off my path of greatest resistance home was making him. When Dad and I had these special moments an eerie stillness set in. No yelling, no accusations. Only the 'look' with sharp orders.

"Stop."
"Go left."
"Here?"
"Are you sure you weren’t under any cars?"

Hill after hill we climbed towards the avenue, policing the grounds. Despite the fact, Dad's pants were charcoal and the streets contained nothing but white snow, he insisted we walk very slowly. You couldn’t miss ‘em. The cleaners were closed.

Walking back to our building, same story. Every hill walked serpentine with the look and the short barked orders. After one last look under the car directly in front of the house, we marched the stoop and began our ascent to Hades, second floor, third floor, fourth floor, into the apartment. Passing through the door, Dad gave Mom the look and then me one more look for good luck. He went directly over to his jacket on the hanger with the plastic still on it. Dad held it up – then draped it over his arm. Together they resembled Michelangelo's Pieta. I think he was saying goodbye. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw him talk to the jacket.

"We have closed many bars together, old friend." Dad sighed, “I will miss the way the secretary at Pepsi looked at you, on me, when we did our sales calls."

Dad said no more about the suit.

Two weeks later, I'm playing in front of my house and Dad comes walking up the street. Getting closer, I see he has on a charcoal jacket. Oh God, I'm thinking, he bought the same suit again. Not good.

"Hi Dad, is that the suit. It looks great. Did you buy it again?"

"Nope, same suit." Dad said with a smile, "Every suit comes with two pairs of pants."

####

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 or online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

The book has 136 Amazon five star reviews out of 136 total reviews posted.  My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs. 

"Nice Jacket, Where Are My Pants?"

 A slice of winter, to cool you off.

From my Our Town column in 2009.

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, 15 75 York Avenue or 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. 

Dad Lights Up

Being with my parents together meant entering a war zone. The space was negotiated rather than shared. Rory and I played an assortment of survival games. One essential game was “Mum.” We’d try and see who could go the longest without saying a word. Whoever lost got a punch in the arm. Dad invented “Mum” as an antidote for his frequent hangovers. He liked it quiet when he wasn’t speaking. His hangover cocktail of choice, TV and a long game of “Mum.”

Once, in 1960, it was the TV that was caught in one of my parents’ many crossfires.

It wasn’t working and time was of the essence. Game seven of the Yankees-Pirates World Series was less than two hours away. Dad had pulled the set away from the wall and had taken the rear panel off with a screwdriver.

“You know nothing about TVs,” my mother said. “Call Dominick.” 

“It’s a loose wire or a blown tube, I know it.”

“Thick as a brick…” Mom said and left the room. Dad stuck his tongue out. I was betting on Dad in this match. Whatever broke, he fixed it…my toys, bike, everything. 

While Dad operated on the TV, I paced back and forth with my hands behind my back, so I didn’t whack anything. I was nervous about whether we would fix the TV in time. It was Thursday, a school day, but Dad had let me play half a day of hooky from first grade so I could see the game.

Dad and I watched all the games together. Dad got excited when the Yankees won. He did the same thing when the football Giants won. I wanted to bottle that excitement and keep it around for the bad days. I learned to root when he rooted. I learned how and when to yell at the TV when the teams played poorly.

Concentrating on my hands, I nearly took a header when I walked into his toolbox. I danced myself back straight up.

“Tommy, go sit down.”

“Can’t I help?”

“No, when I’m done, you can help me push it back and plug it in.”

“OK,” I said, kicking one of my feet into the other.

Finally, Dad said, “That should do it.” 

I began to help. I knew he told me I could help him with two things. I didn’t remember which thing came first. When I thought Dad was done, but his head was still inside the TV, I stuck the plug back into the wall socket. 

Dad lit up. The Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center came to mind. 

“I killed him,” I whispered. I had heard the story of Mom staging her death for Dad before I was born, but this wasn’t an act.

I stared down at my father. His eyes were glazed over, but open. This was good, because I didn’t think you could be dead with your eyes open. My brain switched positions. 

“If he’s not dead, he’s going to kill me.”

Looking him over, I saw he was dribbling and his belly was moving swiftly in and out. My heart was racing in time with his belly. I touched my chest.

“I’m so dead.”

Rory popped his head into the doorway. His eyes were wide open like Eddie Cantor singing “Making Whoopee.” Once Rory saw that Dad was alive, and that I was probably going to get into trouble, he slipped backed to his normal alert signal, crying. Only then did my mother come into the room from the kitchen. She lifted Rory out of the way and looked down at Dad.

“I told you to call Dominick,” she said with a headshake.

After Dad pulled himself together, we called Dominick. Mom grinned and Dad fumed. After a long game of Mum, Dad said, “Tommy, let’s go downstairs and wait for Dominick on the stoop.”

On the stoop, we didn’t talk. Dad was sore at me, but not in the mood to yell or lecture. He didn’t look well. His hair stuck straight up in places it usually was lying down. I stared at the top of his head for a long time looking for any sign of smoke. My nerves were shot. When I’m nervous, I do lots of talking. Each time I felt my mouth start to open, I’d put both my hands over it. As my worry grew, I began to eat my fist. Dad looked at me like I was nuts, but I just kept chewing away on my hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said.

I tried to answer through my fingers. “Nothing, everything’s fine.”

“I can’t understand a word. Get your hand out of your mouth and tell me what you’re saying.”

Freed to talk, I let ‘er go.

“I want the Yankees to win by 15 runs. I want Mickey Mantle to hit four homers. I want a Yankee parade. I want Dominick.”

I slumped against Dad’s side. He put his arm around me. I pressed my head against his chest to hear his heart. He squeezed me twice. I squeezed him twice.

“Dad, I’m sorry I almost killed you.”

He started to laugh. He pulled my head up to see my eyes. He stopped laughing when he saw I was crying. His look changed. His face was so full of love it scared me. He started to cry a little and put my head back on his chest. He kissed the top of my head. I liked when he kissed me. After a couple of minutes, we started to talk. He asked me whether I had learned a lesson.

“Yes, always push the TV back to its right spot before I plug it back in.”

He laughed and said, “Yeah, something like that.”

We got itchy waiting for Dominick. Our heads craned over the stoop railing to see all the way up the street. Dad stood to stretch. I stretched too. I saw Dominick’s swinging right arm before I saw the rest of him. He rounded the corner with his magic bag – the black leather one with the secret parts to make our sick TV well.

Mom met the three of us at the apartment door. Rory was standing between her legs peeking out from under her housedress. He looked like a little Samson ready to knock Mom’s legs down and collapse the temple.

Mom spoke to Dominick while looking directly at Dad. “Dominick, it’s so good to see you. Your ears must be burning. Bob and I were talking about you earlier today.”

My father’s lips moved noiselessly. I was a certified Mom & Dad Lip Reader.

“I will get you,” he said.

Dominick knelt behind the TV. Mom stayed in the kitchen with Rory. Dad and I stood behind Dominick. Dave Seville and the Chipmunks were on the radio singing, “I told the Witch Doctor, I was in love with you, boom, boom, boom, boom.”

It was 40 minutes to game time. Dad studied Dominick carefully for two reasons. One, to avoid further eye contact with Mom, and two, to collect important information so he could make the repair next time.

Dominick finished in 20 minutes. We’d see the pregame show!

After Dominick drank some iced tea, I carried his bag with two hands to the front door. I stood at the top of the hallway stairs, watching him go down and around each flight, saying good-bye and thank you to the top of his head several times. I stayed there until I heard his last “So long” fade as the lobby door shut behind him.

I ran back into the living room as the Gillette razor commercial music signaled the start of the World Series broadcast.

I dove onto the couch, swinging my legs crisscross over Dad’s lap. Looking back over my shoulder, I spied Mom’s head in the kitchen’s doorway. She made a funny face and wiggled her nose. I made a face back acknowledging she had won the battle.

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, 15 75 York Avenue or 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. 

"The Irish Riviera"

Thank you, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood for publishing my new story, "The Irish Riviera." 

"On a muggy summer morning in 1961, with my parents still asleep, I crept into the kitchen and turned on the oven. I was seven years old..."

Rockaway memories warm my soul. 

This is my 20th Mr. Beller's Neighborhood story. 

My first, "Developing a Habit", May 2006. 

That was the kick in the ass I needed to push my writing forward.

Thank you, Tom & everyone in the MBN family.

 Your site makes our city shine.

My family at Rockaway back to 1924. Plus a few 2012 shots taken three months before Sandy.
 

Rockaway The Days

 The Rockaway Beach photos here and in the link below were taken July 2012 three months before Sandy crippled the peninsula. This glorious New York City summer beacon recovered and thrives again.

Rockaway public photo album July 1, 2012.

Some of my favorite scenes.

Rockaway the days, forever.