Category Archives: Locales
Professionals are called…
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Professionals are called “speliologists.” Amateur enthusiasts are called “spelunkers.” Bored high school kids from Pennsylvania are called “cavers.” I grew up in the part of Pennsylvania that sits on top of limestone caves. My friends and I would go exploring the caverns between Kutztown and Reading. Never mind what went on down there. Suffice to say, whatever county police department had jurisdiction above us, no law enforcement official ever got his uniform dirty following us down our hobbit holes. You had to wear old clothes. Cave dirt cakes on and doesn’t come out. We’d bring down flashlights and candles, tunes (cassettes, or course, as CDs hadn’t been invented, 8-tracks were so-last-year, and radio was obviously out), lunch, and whatever else we needed. The acoustics were perfect for Rush, Foghat or Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow. There was a reputedly bottomless well of near-freezing spring water. I wouldn’t say we were environmentalists, but we did endeavor to leave the caves pretty much as we found them. There were some kids — from the colleges I think — who didn’t have the same level of respect. Graffiti, cigarette butts, garbage — OK, this doesn’t sound so terrible to anyone who grew up in the five boroughs, but out in America it was kind of disgraceful.
I remember great, big,beautiful…
One special memory is very…
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One special memory is very vivid when I was a youngster. Coming from the lower east side of Manhattan, we weren’t anywhere close to any beach or swimming pools. We were too young to travel to the beach by ourselves. So, on really hot evenings, the older men in the neighborhood would turn on the fire hydrants and sometimes put a hollowed out garbage can over it, so the water would spray up. And we would all take turns running under the rushing water. Many times, we slipped and hurt ourselves, but it was all worth it JUST to get wet on a hot sticky summer night in New York.
Grew up on Wilson Street…
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Grew up on Wilson Street and Lee Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Attended Boys High School. Most friends went to Eastern District or Seward Park High School. Most of us played punch ball with a “baby line.” three steps to Germany, Johnny on the Pony, Chinese handball and box ball. We read and traded comic books. “Action Comics, Detective Comics, Marvel, King Feature Comics and read the comics in the newspapers. Dick Tracy, (my favorite), Smiling Jack with Fat Stuff losing a button to a ubiquitous chicken who followed him everywhere. Saturday matines for 5 cents we saw a chapter (Tim Tyler’s Luck or Flash Gordon) the Paramount News (Monkees do the craaaaziest things,)two or three features, a cartoon and sometimes a door prize announced from the stage. I could go on forever and include the radio programs for which we raced home from the school playground to hear.
I gotta tell ya, the hair…
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I gotta tell ya, the hair on the back of my neck stood up after reading some of the stories.I grew up in Jamaica, Queens( born in 51 ). The way the world is today, we need more sites like this. Skelly was the best! We would fill the cap ( beer caps ) with melted crayon then rub real hard on the sidewalk ( aerodynamic ):) After going around back and forth and making around center,( if you landed on a line you started over )the thrill of blasting was the best! This is great!!!!! Keep it up. I’m gonna look for pictures right now. Thanks
I, too, lived in Brooklyn,…
A major snow storm in 1960…
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A major snow storm in 1960 shut the schools and gave us enough snow and time to build a series of igloo-like structures with connecting tunnels all along our Brooklyn street. We were a bunch of happy and wet,young “Eskimos.” It also gave us the best opportunities to go down the ever-terrifying COMMANDO HILL on our shiny sleds, in cardboard boxes and on our tushies.
When I very young in Coney…
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When I very young in Coney Island, I would go to the Boardwalk with my grandmother, who was originally from Roumania. Some of the merchants on the boardwalk were gypsies; my grandmother told me to stay away from them because they would steal small children. This terrified me but not enough to mitigate the fascination their exhibits generated in me…memorable was a bird, (I think a mynah or parrot) that hopped the length of a stall and picked the correct card. There were also strange contraptions that people were pushed in…I never did but always want to get in….
I got my first kiss in the…
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I got my first kiss in the basement of a synagogue in Canarsie during the bar mitzvah reception of my older brother’s friend, Larry Wolfman. I had just come out of the ladies room when one of Larry’s friends grabbed me and pulled me into a phone booth. And then he did it…he shoved his face into mine. I was a very round chubby nine year-old. He was a much more mature and experienced thirteen year-old. He walked away with a big smile. I ran away with a bloody lip. It was totally yucky!!