Club Houses

Back in the day, one of the neatest things we kids on my block did was to build club houses in our backyards. We'd scrounge around the neighborhood looking for bits of lumber and 'what-have-you' lying around in piles of garbage and vacant lots. When we had enough to begin, we'd start hammering away. Not much future planning happening, you understand. The ultimate shape and size of the club house was totally dependent on the scraps we were able to find in the garbage and lots. I remember one of the clubhouses had a white silo/chimney on the side, courtesy of one of the neighbors on Hendrickson Street who threw out an old hot water heater. It didn't have a practical purpose, but man, did it look cool.

When we first moved into the neighborhood, I think Billy R, one of the 11 years olds, built one. Then Big Chris, then Glenn. This was all over the span of a few years. The wheel came 'round and it was my turn.

I didn't have to look far for scrap lumber and other nuggets. My dad saved everything (it's now seven years after he passed away and we're still cleaning crap out of the garage). Little Chris and I began construction with some other guys pitching in here and there, but it was mostly the two of us. The design was similar to the above right picture - only it had a flat roof and a wider doorway, but no door. We decided to put a ladder on one of the sides for easy access to the lookout post on the roof. You never know when bad guys will try'n sneak up on your club house and you want to see them far enough in advance so you can snap into a quick defense mode.

Not having had experience in building a club house before, Little Chris and I didn't know much about cross supports and other structural stabilizing features we might have used in the building of the club house. We simply hammered in as many nails as humanly possible and thought that would hold it together. Before climbing up to the roof for the first time, we gave it the shake test - each of us grabbing a corner of the club house and giving it a hearty shake. Like a ROCK, baby! It was time to check out the view from the lookout post.

Grabbing our binoculars, Little Chris and I climbed up to the top of the club house to survey our domain - my backyard and all the others to the right and left. My mom was in the house on the phone - your could hear her laughing at something someone said on the other end of the line. My dad was doing something which made a loud humming noise in the garage - probably welding. It was a really great summer day.

A few minutes later, while we were taking in the sites and sounds, Little Chris' three-year-old brother Curt came waddling into my backyard. He was a cute and curious little kid. We big kids all looked out for him - especially Little Chris. Curt stopped in front of the club house and leaned way back so he could look up at us. "Watcha doin' up there?", he asked.

"We just finished the club house and now we're looking out for bad guys," we replied. Curt then walked into the club house to inspect our work.

It couldn't have been any more than 30 seconds after Curt walked into the club house that it began to shake. I can't say what caused it - Curt was too little to push against a wall and cause such motion and Little Chris and I were just sitting up there quietly, minding our business. But shake it did, and a few seconds later, the club house totally collapsed.

"CURT!," Little Chris yelled, as we got to our feet and ran around to the front of the club house.

There standing where the doorway had been was Curt - completely surrounded by two-by-fours, nails, shelving and other lumber, and completely untouched. It was like in that old Buster Keaton film; where the house falls down all around him? (Click Here)

Epilogue - Many years later (in 1989) Curt was out in San Francisco on business. While he was there, a tremendous earthquake hit that killed nearly 100 people and injured thousands, destroyed a good part of the city and postponed the World Series for 10 days. Bridges collapsed, highways collapsed... it was a mess. As I remember the story from Little Chris, Curt was staying in a hotel that was pretty much leveled. What saved him was the fact that he stood in a doorway - much like he did that day in my backyard club house.

2 lives down, 7 to go.

The Invisible City

Ever since reading North River, a few months ago, I've been on a Pete Hamill kick. The next book I read was Forever. He continues to blow me away. Unbelievable stuff.

Indisputably "Mr. New York," when it comes to writing of all kinds, Pete Hamill was born in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He's been a reporter, columnist, foreign correspondent, editor-in-chief, journalist, author and more. (As a side note, he also joins many other great thinkers on President Richard Nixon's list of political enemies.) In his writing, Hamill paints pictures of realism that we've all felt about 'our' New York, Brooklyn in particular, but were never been able to put into words.

At the moment, I'm reading one of his books published in 1980 titled, The Invisible City; A New York Sketchbook. It's a collection of short stories, or, what the author calls "sketches". The stories take place in most of the five boroughs but the majority seem to take place in Brooklyn. Particularly the grittier tales.

So.... take a trip don to the local library, pick up a copy and settle down for some Brooklyn memory-inspiring reading. Pete Hamill = great.

Little Africa and the Mets

Haven't written in a while. Between vacation and work kicking my butt... Here goes.

Once upon a time my 'cousin' (what we used to call 'shirt-tail relative') Charlie and I were off on an adventure to, what, in the neighborhood, was known as, "Little Africa". I suppose many kids had their own Little Africa. Ours was across Avenue U from Marine Park.

Little Africa was an area of marshland consisting of high grass with paths running through it. It was like walking, or riding your bike, through a tunnel of grass because the grass was so high you couldn't see over it. The whole area occupied approximately 20 acres and was partially surrounded by a body of water, which I believe is called Gerritsen Bay. See Here. They've cleaned it up a bit lately. There is a nature conservatory there now.

But back on this particular hot August afternoon, in 1969, Charlie and I were riding our stingrays through the winding paths when we discovered a clearing down by the water. In this clearing lay 30 or 40 HUGE concrete blocks, each about the size of a tractor trailer. The blocks were haphazardly strewn across the sandy landscape and were lying on top and across each other randomly, creating small caves and crevices. Perfect for 12-year-old kid exploration! Safety be damned, we immediately dropped our bikes in the sand and dove right in.

Inside the caves the sounds of traffic on 'the avenue' were gone. All you could hear was wind whipping through and water lapping up against blocks partially submerged in the water. We were in our own little world and it was great.

After exploring the caves for several minutes, we came upon a trail of empty beer cans, and figured, "This has got to lead to something good," so we followed. The trail led us to a room about 20 feet square. Light filtered in between some spaces between the blocks. Through some random positioning coincidence, off in the corner was a 'table' formed by a partially buried block. Upon further examination we found, on top of the table, a collection of what seemed like thousands of girlie magazines. EURKEA! Up until this point the only time Charlie and I had seen a picture of an actual breast was courtesy of that blessed subscription to National Geographic magazine that my parents received monthly. Now we'd hit the big time. We spent the next several hours (it seems like) carefully determining which of the magazines were our personal favorites. The photos and articles (yeah, right) aside, most contained those bizarre ads in the back. The one I remember most clearly was the one with the picture of a uniformed nurse holding a condom between her two hands. The index finger and thumb of one hand pinched the tip of the closed side of the condom and index finger and thumb of the other hand spread on the inside of the other end. The caption reading something like, "These scientifically developed ribbed condoms contain thousands of tiny fingers which will urge her to let go!". Classic.

After carefully selecting our favorites, we rolled 'em up, stuck them in our back pockets, like comic books, and headed back to my house for closer review.

While Charlie and I were getting our hormones charged up, my Uncle Charlie (Charlie's dad) and my dad had been adding a porch to the back of my house, which was positioned directly under my bedroom window. They had already finished the deck and roof, and were in the middle of dragging bundles of shingles up to put on the finishing touches, when Charlie and I returned from Little Africa. If you've ever done roofing you know that it's grueling work - especially in the dog days of summer. Looking back, it must have been so energy-tapping that dad and Uncle Charlie must have been concentrating on the work, and weren't talking. The family car was gone.

Sensing no adult presence in the area, Charlie and I headed up to my room.

Sitting on my, bed we poured over the girlie magazines with gusto. We became totally absorbed in our observations of female anatomy and tuned out the entire world. I'm not sure an explosion out in front of the house would have pried us away from our treasure at this point. When the shadow fell across the floor in front of my bed, we were totally oblivious. I don't know how long we were observed for, but when Charlie and I heard my dad's booming voice say, "What you readin' there boys?" coming through my bedroom window we nearly jumped out of our skin. We immediately looked up, with GUILT written all over our faces in capitol letters, to see my dad leaning in the window watching us. How the? What the? Oh yeah. The porch roof. Busted! It must have taken me 30 seconds to come up with what I thought was the perfect out. "Sports Illustrated," I said.

Dad wasn't stupid. Even if he was, there was no way he didn't know what we were looking at. Still he allowed us to keep face. His reply was more classic than the ad with the nurse. He said...

"Oh yeah? Do they think the Mets will go all the way this year?"

And they did.