Wrestling the Menesicks

I have many negative photographs that I am just beginning to explore. The quality is limited, but once I learn photo editing this will improve. Three negatives here, and two photos. From the top,

1964 ~Paddy MacNamara, Rory Pryor, Tommy Mac, & Mike Cacciolli on n/e corner of 83rd Street & York Avenue.

1962 ~backyard of 1616 York Avenue, Lennie & Helen Ryan with Patty Pryor. Yes, I had a backyard on York Avenue.

1967 ~ Sanita Hills Scout Camp ~ Joe & Dennis Menesick, Eddie Hauser & Artie Betz.

1961 ~Dennis & Joe Menesick, baseball in Central Park.

1961 ~ Rory pinning me to living room floor 517 E. 83rd St.

Happy Friday, Tommy

Safe at Home

I never shook Mickey Mantle's hand and that remains one of my few regrets.

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When I was 8 years old, Mickey stood right in front of me at the 86th Street RKO theatre in April 1962, when they made that silly movie "Safe at Home," to capitalize on the Maris & Mantle, M&M boys' 1961 home run derby. The Yankee team made appearances in several New York City movie houses to promote the film.

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I forced Dad to get to the theatre two hours early to make sure we were on the aisle. We had a quick burger across the street at Prexy's first. At seven o' five, word spread the team bus had pulled up in front. The Yankees came into the lobby dressed in suits & ties and marched down the right side of the movie house. Yogi Berra walked by me and stepped on my toe, but I didn't notice, though my father did and wanted Berra to apologize. It was strange seeing Dad pissed at Yogi.

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Elston Howard stopped in front of me, and put his arms behind his back like a military MP. Ellie saw I was having a baby over Mickey Mantle standing right next to him two feet away from me shaking in my sneakers. Dad and Ellie exchanged laughs over my dilemma, then Howard leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Say hi, he won't bite you." But I was too scared to say anything to Mickey. As the Yankees walked on stage for a final bow, I dribbled my opportunity away.

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Below is a letter I wrote to Mantle when I was 13.

Mission Impossible

It's 1943, the hallway of 1582 York Avenue is behind my grandmother. On the right of the hallway is the entrance to a candy store. On the wall is an advertisement for Mission Soda. It was good to see Mission was a favorite back then, because it was certainly a favorite for many kids in the 1960s'.

For instance.

Despite his record-breaking cheapness, Joe was no fool. If you had a candy store you must have ice cold soda. Kids boycotted candy stores that ignored this rule. The water temperature in Joe's cooler always flirted with the freezing mark. Sometimes, you needed to submarine your hand through a thin crust of ice forming on the surface. 200 bottles of soda buried deep beneath the sea, in a light so dim the eels bumped into each other. More than twenty different brands slept on the ocean's floor. With the cooler sitting on a foot tall base anyone less than four feet tall needed to lift himself to plunge into the Loch in search of Nessy. Unfortunately, I usually craved a bottle of Mission Cream. Mission soda was a local favorite with 10 different flavors. Mission's bottles had zero variation in style, texture or height. All Missions being equal led to a courage speech I'd give myself before each attempt. "You can do it. I've seen you do it. Do it." Shorter than the top of the coffin, I'd hop up, and swing my arm over its front wall. My armpit was now responsible for keeping me airborne. I'd sink my other arm into the icy water with a numbing splash. I was 100 percent dependent on my tactile skill for the bottle retrieval. My hand and forearm would tighten up before I achieved bottle depth. When I reached the wreck, my numb digits embraced the familiar Mission shape and pulled one up. Orange. "Ooooh," I moaned. Back down the bottle would go. I'd do my best to remember where I replanted it. The bottles were snug as sardines. I had limited time before my arm below the elbow lost all sensation. If my search stretched beyond a minute and my favorite soda remained unlocated, sensors went off. The front of my arm turned into a bottle-nosed dolphin. Using the pain impulses shooting through my hand, sonar signals would strike the bottles then return to my brain revealing vital bottle data. Rotating my arm in a corkscrew motion increased blood circulation allowing a brief search extension, but the water was too cold. Pride swallowed, I raised the last bottle I touched before my hand passed out. It was a Root Beer. "Grrrrr." I moved the second place soda gently from my puffy blue hand to my landlubber hand. I tucked my arm under my noncombatant armpit, rocking back and forth till warmth returned. With phony bravado, I grinned at my friends. A wicked pleasure swept through the crowd when someone chose a soda you knew wasn't their first choice. Everyone knew each other's favorite soda right behind knowing their favorite sports team or movie star. When I was in the hot seat, I sat there drinking the soda, faking enjoyment, saying, "hmmm" or "aaahhh", followed by a satisfying swipe of my mouth. I knew, they knew, I was lying. It didn't matter, I went down swinging. Addressing the mob, I'd say, "I do like it. I really do like it. I just didn't tell anybody."
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this is a section from My First Coffin, published in A Prairie Home Companion in 2007. You can read the whole story by hitting the link on the left.
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Yorkville Crossroads

Every corner is a crossroad. We all gravitate there to watch the river flow.

If it was 86th Street & York Avenue, you planted yourself in front of the Pharmacy, watching the rich girls strut down 86th Street to their fancy addresses, making sure they knew money could never make them prettier then you.

If it was 84th Street & East End Avenue, you could read the faces on the parents coming out of Carl Schurz Park...

"Thank God, it's over, those kids drove me crazy."

And examine parents faces going into the park...

" Oh, boy, I'm going to play catch."
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Up On the Roof

When this old world starts getting me down,
And people are just too much for me to face.
I climb way up to the top of the stairs,
And all my cares just drift right into space.
On the roof, it's peaceful as can be.
And there the world below can't bother me.

Up on the Roof (Gerry Goffin and Carole King)

All sides of my family made regular use of their tenement roofs. Spring, summer and fall, they played cards & music, read, swung on ropes, hid under canopies, raced pigeons, dried clothes, laughed, fought, made up. Extension cords allowed you to bring every electronic device to the roof except for your refrigerator and washer if you had one. Breathing the rarefied air on the roof, you laid your troubles down.

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Missing Rory

Dad took us on excursions all around the City. I have photographic records showing more mileage covered than the entire New York subway system. Rory and Dad's camera fell in love, and never stopped the affair. I'm always rediscovering, Rory for an instant, making a mundane place into the most exciting place on earth. He did it in Central Park. We lived 10 minutes away, went there 1000 times, if you look at Rory in the Central Park photos, you'd think it was his first trip to Disneyland. He did the same thing at Yankee Stadium (he hated sports), or in a snow pile. I know we had fun sometimes, but looking at these pictures confuses me, since a lot of the time things weren't so great and miserable stuff comes back. Seeing Rory's excitement in these photos keeps the crappy memories at bay. Not forever, but long enough.
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Johnny on the Pony

I lost both my hips. Their decline was due to poor genetic lotto and a thousand games played on concrete and asphalt. One stood out ~ Johnny on the Pony ~ a game of immense endurance and stupidity.

Game’s strategy involved one team (the pony) forming a long bent over row like a Chinese New Year’s dragon, while the other team lined up to jump on, as hard as possible, trying to collapse the pony. The pony started with one guy against a fence facing everyone else. He was the anchor. Next fellow would bend over gripping the anchor’s sides with his butt in the air. All others would follow suit till the line resembled Hannibal’s’ elephants stumbling over the Alps. Once the line formed, the Johnnies would begin to strategize….game usually included at least ten to a side, so ten Johnnies got ready to put their weight and flaring elbows on top of the prone ponies. Game ended when the pony collapsed or all Johnnies rode without falling off for a count of ten one thousands.

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For my hips, this game had the same allure as open battlefield surgery without anesthesia. Matthew Brady was seen setting up his equipment taking photographic stills of our events. The Johnnies usually sent their smallest first and they shimmied up the pony towards the anchor, then they sent their largest and aimed for the weakest links. Best area to land was no man’s land between the thoracic and lumbar regions. Hopefully, catching no soft tissue and driving yourself straight into bone. Attention was spent on developing jumping technique. Since the teams had ten or more, the weakest link might be bent over way up front. Therefore you wanted to attain maximum height and distance. You would study television cartoons trying to learn the secret of freezing in the air for a few seconds at the top of your arc….this is critical to allow gravity to pull your body back to the earth maximizing impact into your opponent’s neck and back. Once landed, you'd make grapes with your hienie ~ making big rocks into little rocks, grinding away at the millstone pushing your butt into the fellow beneath you, as if the chance of a single remaining air bubble between you and him would bring life as we know it to an end.

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As the pile grew the moans and groans of the pony filled the air like a children’s orchestra at their first ever practice. From the top of the mountain, the sounds below played in your head like a beautiful siren song. If it was a particular strong pony the Johnnies went to the Tower of Babel strategy. With less than three jumpers in the shoot, all the Johnnies would begin to gather at one location in the chain, usually over he who could use the most relief. Once the spot was chosen, the Johnnies would gravitate to that point assuming classic Greco-Roman moves to cling together. The tower would rise at the perceived weak spot. Unintelligible orders and exclamations, flying out of the ball of human, braying and swaying like a deranged fire hose, while underneath the ponies began acting like a band of rogue elephants readying a stampede of the defenseless village.

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Non participants played a recurring game ~ try and grab a sound fragment out of the pile and convince others it was English… “I understood that one, it was Freddy, and he said, ‘Christ, get off my foot and stop grabbing my balls.’”

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The tug of war would roll on until the pony broke, or the Johnnies rode the pony for the required time. It was hard to watch and not play, but if you did, you were rewarded with a show that combined all the best elements of a tragic ballet with a terrific car accident. A collapse was a beautiful kaleidoscope for your five senses, rich complex detail. I imagine Sam Peckinpah would not have developed his keen eye for transfixing violence into a sumptuous slow motion dance unless he witnessed a bunch of Johnny on the Pony game-ending collapses.

Would I do it again? Absolutely.

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All our Johnny on The Pony games between 1962 & 1975 were played in the Hockey Field in Carl Schurz Park, or down John Jay Park. Photos above are Carl Schurz, John Jay, and the east side of York Avenue between 84th Street & 83rd Street.

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More Cheese! Poll Results

Hi Folks, thank you, to everyone who voted. I deeply appreciate your ideas and suggestions.

be well, Tommy

Here are the final results:

Nostalgia ~ family & neighborhood (68%)

More Photos (65%)

Nostalgia ~ general (62%)

Surreal stories (34%)

Serious essays (31%)

Music (18%)

Sports (15%)

Less Photos (0%)

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the orginal request:

Hi Folks, I want to improve the blog, and I need your help. Please take the poll on the left and let me know what topics you most enjoy: Nostalgia, general and/or local to the Yorkville, Manhattan neighborhood; current events, serious essays, surreal stories, music, sports, photos, more or less, etc.

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If I've missed something, please email me.

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I aim to focus on areas you'd like to see me open up.

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I deeply appreciate your input, and I'll consider all your suggestions.

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Thank you, Tommy

A Nice Italian Wedding & Mama D's @ Thursday Night

Here my Italian side, the Cuccia's (landed at 1403 York Avenue in 1896) & the Gallopo's (landed in Lido, New Jersey about the same time) gather for the wedding of Phil & Jennie in 1945. Several men who would be there, are not there, because they are still in World War II military service. Everybody looks happy, and knowing 90 percent of the people in the photo, they weren't faking it. Most here, thoroughly enjoyed living and rarely sat down between work and their interests. Most of my endurance and stick-tuitiveness comes from this end of the family.

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On top, in the cutout photo, are Bob Pryor (Dad) & his cousin, Dottie Gallopo (both 16 yrs old).

The bottom cut out is my grandmother, the former, Anna Cuccia with her brother, Joe Cuccia. Joe's nickname was Cheech he played baseball with Jimmy Cagney and his brother Bill on the Yorkville Nut Baseball Club. They also went to PS 158 together. Joe worked with the Long Island Press for many years at Queensboro Plaza. He played centerfield for their softball team. I have box scores. Joe made it to 42 years old as a bachelor, he lived on and off with his sister, my father's family at 1582 York Avenue, then Joe married a very pretty Italian woman named Mary who wrote cookbooks. Joe smoked Guinea stinkers, a long and twisted Italian cigar. They smelled awful.

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Ride Your Bike

I have an event today, no bike riding, but here are some shots from yesterday and a few weeks ago on the bike. Central Park, Coney, Hudson River, south and north, East Village and the Brooklyn Bridge Beach, you can catch the beach at low tide. Ride your bike, see the City.