As a Brooklyn and Queens kid of the 50’s, I have to cast a vote for the one and only ball that any repected kid would use in my neighborhoods. You bought a Spaldeen (At Uncle Milty’s Candy Store). Period. That other ball would be like using some artsy fartsy chocolate syrup for an egg cream instead of U-Bet. And nobody bought a stickball bat. I couldn’t believe when they started selling them at the local stores!
The ONLY acceptable, official ball to use in my neighborhood in da Bronx to play stickball, punchball, stoopball etc. was the GREAT Spaldeen. We use to pick up two ball at once, hold them at about eye level then let them drop to see which one bounced higher. We’d do this until the candy store owner screamed “Hey you kids..stop makin’ my balls dirty”. Then we’d have to make a quick choice and buy it.
To Anonymous who wrote in June: Charlie Never Returned on the Mta was a song by the Kingston Trio. It’s still played sometimes on WCBS-FM 101 in NYC. I remember only two lines from a song we used to sing: “Hotta, hotta, chocolata……. Square cake, round cake, pizza pound cake..” Anyone remember this?
How about those little celluloid dolls that we bought for a nickle at the corner candy store(Berky’s,in my neighborhood ). This was before plastics, can you imagine? they had moveable arms and legs attached by a bit of elastic.We sat on the stoop and sewed clothing for them for hours on end, This was in the N.Bx.in the thirties . Are you out there somewhere Ruth Fox? Your father owned a lingerie factory and you had lovely scraps of silk and satin for doll dresses.
There are at least THREE vivid pieces of nostalgia in my memories of Bensonhurst in the 50’s. One was Ernie the Good Humor Man. He spent winters in Florida, but appeared in our neighborhood each spring in starched-white uniform, pushing a small Good Humor cart …no truck for Ernie. He actually knew all of our names and our parents’ names, never kept a book, but if you were short on change …no problem, Ernie actuall let you have a popsicle ON CREDIT!!! We also had a neat ol’ Italian guy who came around (can you dig it?) on a horse-drawn cart to sell fresh produce/vegetables. As unbelievable as it sounds HIS NAME WAS ACTUALLY “MR. BROCCOLI”!!! I’m sure the last item wasn’t isolated to Bensonhurst; we also had a guy who regularly came around with a pushcart selling junk toys. The stuff was pure crap, but we loved it. Remember buying “tatoo” transfers?
In my neighborhood (Brownsville, Brooklyn), a Spaldeen was 15 cents–too steep for a lot of kids. An alternative was an ugly, underinflated, evil-smelling, grayish-pink ball with crudely vulcanized hemispheres that we used to call the “eggball.” It got that name because, no matter where you hit it with a stickball bat, it’d go almost straight up, and oscillate wildly in an egg shape. Impossible to catch without it squirting out of your hands. Stickball games were won on lopsided margins on errors alone using eggballs. If we were really lucky, the local toy store or candy store would get a load of “seconds”–Spaldeens that were defective in some way, so they had “second” stamped on them. They were 8 cents or a dime, and were a real bargain.
Remember playing with “cutouts”? Paper dolls that came in books–the dolls were on the cover, and a whole assortment of clothes was inside. We cut out the dolls, dressed them, and sat on the top step of our stoops playing for ages and ages. A world of fashion and fantasy for a dime–or a quarter for the good, heavyweight cut-out books. My friends Maria and Starlet and I bought our cutout books at Miltie’s candy store (on Dahill Road, Brooklyn). We kept the paper dolls and the clothes in shoe boxes. We had whole families–I remember that my favorite “mother” doll was Sheree North! (Celebrity cutout books were big!) Her family was usually baby triplets, who came in another book. This was several years before Barbie dolls, and I suspect we had just as much fun with the paper dolls as girls do with their Barbies today (if not more!).
I grew up in the Bronx. I remeber that when you heard the “ting-a-ling” from the ice cream truck every kid in the projects would be shouting..” MOM…..BOB!!!!”. All the kids would be running to mom or waiting under the windows for some wraped change in TP. Doesn’t matter what the man who drove the trucks name was…to us kids it was BOB! Wonder if bob is still on time?
I remember that there were 2 tests you gave a ball to check it. First you bounced to see if it was dead or live. Second, you sqeezed it to see if it was cracked, soft or hard. Once, I was in the candy store and a little kid was buying an egg ball and wanted to check it out. He innocently asked the store owner: “George, can I squeeze your balls”. We cracked up and the kid did not understand why. Remember stoop ball and 5 boxes.