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.

Father's Day 2008 at Coney Island/Neighborhood Bully Epilogue

2008 is the last year that the rides at Coney Island will be open. They're tearing down Astroland and most everything else. The only things that will remain from the Coney Island we grew up with are; the Wonder Wheel, Parachute Drop and Cyclone - but they will only be there to remind us, they won't operate. Thank goodness someone had the foresight to designate them as New York City Landmarks otherwise the condo developers would tear them down as well. Can you imagine what the people must be like who have the audacity to rip apart a great American institution that is responsible for embedding untold happy memories into the consciousness of billions of people - to put up beach-front condominiums? Growing up, they must have been very unhappy children. In any case, GET THERE WHILE YOU CAN!

In late May, 2008, my kids told me that they were taking me to Coney Island for Father's Day on June 15. It took a few moments to sink in but when it did, I realized what a great time this was going to be. "I'm in!" I said. Unfortunately my middle son had to work, so there was only four of us, including my wife.

Got a bit of a late start, pulling into a parking spot near the parachute drop at about 2:00 PM. No one had eaten lunch yet so we went directly to Nathan's to grab us some 'World Famous' dogs, corn, etc... Even though it was raining on-and-off, the lines at Nathan's went out the door onto the sidewalk, so we settled for the concession stand across the street from the Cyclone (which I could swear use to be Nathan's - can anyone confirm this?) where we had hot dogs, corn dogs, knishes and fries. Not bad. While we ate, we watched and listened to the people on the Cyclone screaming.

I pointed at the Cyclone and asked my wife, "So... you going up?"

"Have fun," she said. My two sons and I walked across the street and, since it was a raining, on-and-off kinda day, not many people were around and we were able to step right up to the ticket booth. It's now $8.00 to ride on the Cyclone. A re-ride is $5.00. If you ask me, it's worth it. Especially since it's the last time. (For more information on the history of the Cyclone go here)

If you're reading this it's likely that you are familiar with the Cyclone (and possibly the old Cyclone slogan - "HANG ONTO YOUR WIGS AND KEYS!"). You know that it is the world's most thrilling ride. What makes it so thrilling? Is it the fact that it's made of wood and appears rickety as hell? Is it the ratchety clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank... sound as the cars slowly make their way up that first hill? Is it the broad white beams that fly by just above your head as you zoom down the first, second, third and fourth drops? Is it the nonchalance of the operator as he carelessly slides the wooden brake handle back without watching what he's doing? Or is it something else? For me I guess it's a combination of all things seen, not seen and sensed during the whole experience. When you crest the first hill and are looking at nothing but the Atlantic Ocean, then a split second later are plummeting straight down that first drop with those damn white beams coming within inches of taking your head off... No wonder there is zero delay between when, at the end of the ride, 'the guy' says, "Re-ride... five dallah," and you say, "Take my money."

Then we hit the Wonder Wheel. The builders of the Wonder Wheel (built from 1918 - 1920) wanted to make sure you understood that it is the "WORLD'S LARGEST WHEEL (WEIGHT - OVER 200 TONS!)" so they devised a unique entrance. You actually have to go down on a ramp through a tunnel, down about 10 - 15 feet below street level, to access the entrance to the Wonder Wheel. Even with this 10 - 15 foot handicap it still rises over 150 feet into the air. In original marketing materials the logan was, "RIDE THE WONDER WHEEL, THE HIGHEST FERRIS WHEEL IN THE WORLD! FROM ITS TOP YOU CAN SEE THE EIFFEL TOWER IN PARIS." In fact the first Ferris wheel was built to rival the Eiffel Tower for the World's Colombian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. But you can't see Paris from the Wonder Wheel - unless I've always been up there on cloudy days... (For more information on the history of the Wonder Wheel go here)

This time my wife decided to come along. My two sons and I talked her into riding in a red car instead of a white car. You know what that means. The white cars are standard, stationary Ferris wheel cars that turn with the rotation of the wheel. A nice calm ride with a great view. The red and blue cars, however, not only turn with the rotation of the wheel, they also move along tracks from the outer edge of the wheel to an inside hub. So... you step into your car when the wheel has rotated so your car is at the bottom and as the wheel starts rotating again, then passes the point where your car is just over the 90 degree mark, gravity does it's magic and your car starts moving towards the center of the wheel. This is great fun and provides interesting black and blue marks on your arms (from when your wife hit you and said, "Why did you take me on this freakin' ride?"). But the fun has only just begun. Once the wheel is 3/4 of the way done with its first rotation you are are facing nothing but open air when your car passes the 90 degree mark on the other side of the wheel and runs along the track towards the outer edge of the wheel. Now THAT'S exhilarating and provides larger and more defined black and blues marks.

After the Wonder Wheel we cruised around the boardwalk for a while, tried getting into the Freak Show - which was closed - and took some pictures of places I want to remember. Take Cha-Cha's Bar and Cafe for instance. Where else but Brooklyn would you see a sign that offered "Live Entertainment For The Hole family". Who's the Hole family? Courtney Love and Frances Bean Cobain?

It being Father's Day, I was looking forward to a nice meal out too so, after seeing all the sites we wanted to see at Coney Island, we headed over to Buckleys' on Nostrand Ave and Ave T in Marine Park. Great Irish grub and fixin's. I had a funny feeling who I might see at the end of the bar, but didn't say anything to my family until I was sure he was there. Sure enough, at the end of the bar, holding up the wall, was Jimmy C, the neighborhood bully of days gone by. As we waited for our hostess to tell us our table was ready, I pointed him out to my family. My wife said, "No way. That guy's got to be 65/70 years old." So I looked a little harder to be sure. I knew it was Jimmy when his bloodshot eyes did their version of lighting up in recognition. He knew it was me and I knew it was him. I almost sent over a drink, but...

Our table was ready so we sat down back in the dining room to eat a great meal.

Cheers!

Super Skates!

Hey, anybody out there remember Super Skates? Not the RAD new two-wheel, in-line, roller blade models, but the old four-wheel kind?

These were awesome! You didn't need a skate key or anything. Simply make one adjustment with a screw driver or pliers underneath and the spring loaded mechanism inside would wrap any pair of shoes or sneakers you owned, in a cocoon of locomotive splendor. It took about 10 seconds to put these on and you were rolling down the asphalt.

The image above/right shows a pair that had, what looks like, rubber wheels on it. The version I remember had metal wheels. I must have worn out a dozen pairs of these growing up. Sometimes the bearings went first, but sometimes one of the wheels would actually wear through completely. If either of these happened while you were skating down the street at full speed, the skates would stop dead, but you would keep going - usually right down onto your knees and face.

Memories of big ugly scabs are dancing in my head.

Neighborhood Bully - The Fall

... continued from Neighborhood Bully - The Chink in the Bully Armor

As soon as the kids on the block realized that there was life after standing up to Jimmy, he gradually began separating from us. I'm not sure if it was on his part, our part or what. I don't believe it was a conscious thing. I think that as we got older and more mature and physically able, we were interested in and did things that Jimmy couldn't. We were all becoming different from Jimmy.

We each have our 'thing'. The thing that sets us apart. Big Chris' thing was his outstanding athletic abilities. Billy's thing was that he could shoot pigeons - and even robins - with his homemade bow and arrow (but that's a story for another day). Jimmy's thing was his cruelty and intolerance for people that were 'different' from him and his group. He'd always seen himself as the ring leader of 'the Irish kids' on the block. And from the lack of tolerance for 'things different' he had always shown in the past, he began seeing himself as different. Jimmy didn't know how to accept thing that were different - even, as it turned out in later years, himself.

There were times now when, after a day of playing pole to pole, we'd go hang out on Billy's stoop and listen to WABC (W - A - Beatle - C). Jimmy would show up once in a while. Sometimes it would be fine - Jimmy wouldn't insult or try to push anyone around. But other times he would try to recapture a little of that bully edge of his.

One day he did something that really pissed off Little Chris. I don't remember what it was (probably something clever about Little Chris' mother) but I remember Little Chris letting him have it verbally. "Jimmy, You are a big fat idiot," he said. This time he didn't storm away to his house giving Jimmy any satisfaction. He stayed on the stoop with the rest of us, shaking his head as if he felt sorry for Jimmy. And Jimmy didn't do or say anything back.

Then - and I can't remember if it was the same day or a day or two later - Jimmy did something to piss off Billy.

Now... Billy was a quiet Irish guy from Brooklyn who thought he was an American Indian. I told you... homemade bow and arrow..? a story for another day, but I had to give you that background so you would understand that Billy was a patient, stoic, long suffering guy who hardly ever had words with anyone. If you pissed off Billy you must have tried hard.

"Little Chris is right. You really are a big fat idiot, Jimmy. Now get the f' off my stoop."

(These were the days when you mixed your "...big fat idiot..." phrases with your new found curse words like "Get the f' off my stoop," and it sounded tough. Ah, the good old days.)

Jimmy put some effort into a smirk as he walked home alone but we all felt the wind beginning to blow in a different direction.

The homes on my block were two-story, single family, detached homes with garages in the back yards at the furthest part of the property away from the street. They weren't all exactly the same; there were slight variations in the style and width of the houses. Some of the garages were one-car some were two-car. The next block over, Coleman Street, who's properties rear ended the rear ends of our block's properties had the same arrangement of garages in their back yards, but because the properties were identical but back-to-back, the garages alternated position. (Click here to see what I mean.)

As you can imagine, this presented a unique opportunity for garage hopping - running along the rear property lines of homes on Kimball and Coleman Streets, 10 feet up in the air, bouncing from garage roof to garage roof. You tried avoid doing on Saturday night, though, when Mr. Mullins had been drinking.

There was this stretch of garages behind Billy's house that we liked best because there were a few trees there with limbs hanging between garages. We could swing out onto the limbs like Tarzan and land on various garage roofs. One big limb hung over Billy's back yard in plain view of the street via the driveway. One day, soon after Billy and Jimmy's altercation, while on top of Billy's garage, and carving our initials into the trunk of the largest tree, someone had 'a great idea'.

Billy no longer lives at this house. He's since moved on and has his own place now, as we all have. His family's moved down to Florida, and I personally haven't been in the backyard for a long time. But once in a while, after visiting with my mom who still lives on the block, I slow my car down while driving past Billy's driveway to see if I can still make out the words;

"JIMMY C IS A BIG FAT IDIOT"

... carved into the branch in foot-high letters. Sometimes, in the fall, when the leaves have fallen, I can.

I'll never forget the look on Jimmy's face when he saw it for the first - and as far as I know, the LAST - time. Totally defeated. Shoulders hunched over, I saw thoughts flashing across his mind; He couldn't climb fences - forget about trees - and there was no way for him to reach the limb to scratch out the words. None of us were going to take it down; we'd put it up there. For a hundred years, people would know that JIMMY C WAS A BIG FAT IDIOT. He turned and for the last time, I can remember, walked away from us towards his home.

Not long after this time, the guys on the block got older, went to different high schools, colleges, got married, etc... I saw Jimmy once or twice after the events described above, walking down the street, but never saw him again - until Mother's Day 2004.

There's a nice little neighborhood bar/restaurant on the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Avenue T(?) with good traditional Irish food, which my mom loves, so for Mother's Day I took her there for dinner at about 2 in the afternoon.

As we waited to be seated, and our conversation lulled, my eyes drifted around the restaurant and landed in the bar area, where they became locked with a person sitting at the end of the bar. This person had been snickering about something with the bartender but when he saw me he immediately froze. He stared at me with a guilty suspicious stare, his shoulders hunched and he quickly glanced at the floor. I continued looking at him. His appearance was that of someone who had spent a great deal of time in this bar and many others. He was so pale as to be nearly transparent. The only color in his face was provided by broken or dilated capillaries beneath the surface of his skin. His hair was thin and snow white. He was no longer fat, but emaciated. I had heard from Little Chris a few months earlier that there had been a Jimmy siting, and he wasn't looking too good, but I had no idea he was this bad. Jimmy looked half dead.

I don't know what could have been done to make things turn out differently. It's easy to say that Jimmy brought it on himself. He was the older kid and initiated the cruelty and other crap he came up with. It could be a very complicated discussion in trying to figure it out, or you could simply say...

Sometimes bad things happen to bad people.

Neighborhood Bully - The Chink in the Bully Armor

... continued from Neighborhood Bully - The Rise

As I said, Glenn getting hit by the car and Jimmy's reaction was a turning point for me. I've spent many years asking myself, "Why didn't I stand up to Jimmy more when he was; beating up little kids, berating other people, cursing out people's mothers, [insert your own rotten deed here], etc...?" It would have saved Glenn alot of heart ache - not to mention multiple major surgeries, therapy, etc... But better late then never... I started to now.

In the summer of '68 or '69 most of us kids on the block were at the point where sports - particularly baseball, stickball & hockey - were big in our lives. There is a variation of stickball that you need a wall for. You drew a rectangle on the wall with chalk (representing the strike zone) and the batter took his place in front of it. The faithful Spaldeen got pitched in and... In the box - strike. Outside the box - ball. Ground ball caught - out. Caught fly - out, etc... With the previously mentioned specs, it's obvious that the only place you could play this version of stickball was in a school yard. So more rules; Over the fence - home run. Top fence section on a fly - triple. Middle fence section on a fly - double. Bottom fence section on a fly - or a ground ball not caught before it hits the fence - single. The school yard behind PS 207 on Fillmore Avenue was perfect for this game.

The small - to some - obstacle was that the school yard was not always open. The gates were chained up and locked from the end of the regular school year until summer school started up in July, when the kids going to summer school had exclusive rights during the day. At the end of their school day the gates were chained up and locked again until the following school day. Sometimes people would use a bolt cutter to make a small hole in the fence, so you could squeeze through, but that would only work for a day or two. They really took care of the school yard fences in our neighborhood. So the only alternative was - over the 12 foot high fence.

One summer afternoon, someone suggested going up to the school yard to play some stickball. "YEAH!" the chorus replied, except for Jimmy. His reply was "Stickball is for faggots." We looked at him like he had three heads, then grabbed our Spaldeens, broomsticks and bikes and headed up the street.

After arriving at the fence, we all chained up our bikes and began scaling. Big Chris - of course - was the first one over. Then Billy and Eddie, then me and Little Chris - not necessarily in that order. We all landed on the other side of the fence and looked out to see Jimmy still there struggling to get his foot into one of the square-shaped holes of the chain link fence. "These stupid shoes my mother bought me... I can't get my toes in the fence," he said, "the toes are too wide."

"Go get some sneakers, then..." someone replied.

"Who wants to play stickball, anyway," Jimmy said. "Like I said, it's for faggots," and he got back on his bike and rode away.

Looking at each other, we shrugged and forgot all about Jimmy the minute the game began. It was the next day when the whole scene was repeated - this time with Jimmy wearing sneakers - that we started smelling something rotten in Jimmy-land. We didn't discuss it between us until the same thing happened yet again. There was a chink in Jimmy's bully armor. He was afraid or unable to climb over the fence because of his weight.

When the autumn came we started playing street hockey. The Rangers were hot that year (Eddie Giacomin, Rod Gilbert, Brad Park, etc...) and so were we. Naturally Jimmy had all the hockey equipment - goals, goalie stick, pads, etc... Based on our summertime experience with Jimmy not being able to climb over the fence, we realized that Jimmy wanted to play goalie so he wouldn't have to move around. One day we were playing when Jimmy refused to admit that someone had scored a goal on him. He said, "I'm taking in all my stuff if you say that the goal was scored." Almost in unison, we all said, "Go ahead." And he did. We got a couple of garbage cans and - side by side - that became the goal. We set up in front of Jimmy's house and saw occasional movement behind his curtains. He was watching us play.

At some point over the next few weeks, must have been World Series time, Jimmy called for me and asked if I wanted to throw the ball around. I said, "Sure," and met him in the street with my ball and glove. My baseball mitt was something left over from the 1930s/1940s that my dad had used when he was a kid. I wish I still I had it today, but at the time we didn't have the money to get me a new one, and I was always embarrassed by it. It wasn't long before I missed one of the crappy throws Jimmy had thrown to me and instead of taking the blame for throwing a stinker, Jimmy said something like, "If you had a real baseball mitt, instead of that piece of shit, you would have caught that."

A year or two earlier I would have gotten embarrassed and taken it, but since my experience with Glenn combined with the fact that Jimmy was losing credibility with everything in the neighborhood, I told him to shove it where the sun don't shine and went back into my house. He stood there with his mouth open and I felt great. Jimmy had lost his perverted edge.

Then it started getting nasty, and for once, we weren't the victims.

To be continued...