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.
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