Category Archives: Special topics
Jose Feliciano went to P.S….
My first real job was at…
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My first real job was at the A&P Supermarket on E. 31 street & Lexington. After school (in my senior year) I’d take the 4 train down to Grand Central and the 6 across the platform to 33rd street. It was there I learned about produce, dairy, stocking shelves, packing PAPER bags, working the cash register. I had to give out change and count it back to the customer… no digital display on the register telling me what was owed to the customer. Yeah and I learned how to mop and dry seven aisles of a supermarket. And, oh, I hated truck night. It would arrive around 7:00pm and we’d be done by 10:00pm. I had to take the train back to Bronx on a school night.
I, who has been known to…
She had the brightest eyes…
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She had the brightest eyes and smile that lit up like a Christmas tree when she was happy (which was most of the time). She’d come home from work, crack open a can of veggies to go with some hastily thrown together meat and grain (Thank God my grandparents lived downstairs and did the “real” cooking), while singing Dionne Warwick songs (You’ll never get to heaven, and Alfie, etc). She was tougher on me than a drill sergeant, but after a good interactive whipping, she’d kiss me, give me my favorite strawberry icecream, then let me (her oldest girl) hang out in her bed and watch a comedy past my usual bed time. She had an infectious laugh that made the doctors and orderlies in the hospital (where she was a nurse) fall in love with her. She loved to dance and sing. Over 300 hospital staff showed up at her funeral at age 29. We didn’t have many years together, but no one can replace my beautiful mom in my heart.
He made my life a living…
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He made my life a living hell. He looks exactly like the male version of me, yet he told everyone he didn’t know who that retard (me) was. He beat me up after karate class, yet he protected me at his own cost when a dresser and cabinet fell. My love-hate relationship for my big brother lives on.
This past Father’s Day I…
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This past Father’s Day I called my dad in Arroyo, PR and thanked him for teaching me how to switch-hit, hit the cutoff man (although I wound up being a second baseman), how to run the bases and I always remember him telling me “never go down looking, take a cut if you’re going to make an out”. My friends all learned something from dad and applied it to their “game”. My dad played stickball as a teenager in “El Barrio” on East 103 Street and Lexington Ave, the HILL. He later played for “Los Astros” softball team in the Bronx in the early 1970’s as their 3rd baseman at Starlite Park .
Since streetplay is mainly…
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Since streetplay is mainly centered around sports, I would just like to relate how great a baseball / softball player my Dad was. His name was Howard Friedman and he played on the baseball team at CCNY in the early 30s. He starred as a center-fielder, batted .310 over 3 seasons and was All-City. He had a beautiful, level left-handed swing. While I never saw him play regular baseball, we played on the same softball team when I was a teenager in the 50s. He could hit 300 feet line drives with a mushy softball even when he was older and could barely run the bases. While I never even came close to being as good as he was, he did teach me how to hit, which I put to good use playing not only softball (which I still do), but stickball as a kid in Queens. Jay Friedman Decatur GA
My first job was as a docent…
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My first job was as a docent (volunteer) at the NY Aquarium, later I got paid. I worked in the Children’s Cove, demonstrating horseshoe crabs and starfish and sea urchins in the kids touch tank. I’d flip those poor crabs over and show the kids their claws and stuff. Used to hang out with the older teenagers who worked the refreshment stands, and would always say hi to the dolphins at the end of the day. Don’t get much more Coney Island than that! It was fun. I remember having to wear white pants to go with my blue t-shirt, and I had a pair of those 70’s double-zipper types with flair legs.