Category Archives: Street Lifestyle

It’s a miracle we all aren’t…

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It’s a miracle we all aren’t dead from horrible playground accidents. How many of us did summersaults over the bars on the BIG sliding board, or went down it standing up? How about jumping off the the witches hat (that pole thing with the circular seat suspended from it)or merry-go-round after you got it spinning as fast as you could? How many of you had playgrounds that had dirt packed hard as cement under the monkey bars that you would hang head down from? I can’t imagine a city now constructing a playground without the eqipment being made out of pressure treated lumber & a truckload of wood mulch under every piece of it.

I was the pogo stick champ…

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I was the pogo stick champ of my block. I could pogo down steps, up steps, off stoops, you name it. I sucked at hoola hoops but pogo was my thing. I grew up on 175th Street off MaCoombs Road in the Bronx. I went to PS 104 school. THere was nothing like growing up in those days of the early 60s.

Okay, you’ve given me more…

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Okay, you’ve given me more Brooklyn memories. It seems like my Brooklyn recollections are a shared collective across Boroughs and State lines. Of course there was the knishman. And no potato knish since then has tasted quite so right. There was also the Chow Chow Cup, which sold Chinese food in a cup that could be eaten. And there was the Good Humor Man who sold ice cream out of a truck. And of course the trucks that had the rides in the back of them. When I think of those trucks I can’t believe they never tipped over. All those memories of living in the City. Are my kids deprived because they won’t have them?

It’s me again — the person…

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It’s me again — the person who started this “ice cream, knish man, etc” topic. Just thought of something else. I remember the milk man, the Fuller Brush man, and the man who sold seltzer in big blue bottles. I remember going to the corner luncheonette (I don’t think they call them luncheonettes anymore), and buying egg creams after school. I haven’t seen one of those blue seltzer bottles in years. Several years ago, I decided to make an egg cream for my daughter (who has never seen or tasted a “real” one). I made it using Canada Dry seltzer. Wasn’t bad…but it wasn’t like I remembered. But now she’s a convert! But…she keeps asking me where the “egg” is in the egg cream. I haven’t a clue. 🙂

That was the question our…

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That was the question our parents always asked….. We had great organized playgrounds when we were growing up in the 60’s in suburban Cleveland but for some reason we’d always end up in my parents back yard…. Even though we’d continuosly break windows with the baseball (or other things) we’d still hang out in the yard. It seemed a magnet for all the kids in the neighborhood too. Where else could you develop “Mat Rash” by jumping into piles of packing foam or play wiffle ball with a badmitten raquet or participate in the ever popular action adventure game “DIE”, which pitted one “shooter” against the entire group to see who could fall off the garage, from a tree, down a hill into a creek, or basically DIE the coolest!!!! The best dead guy was rewarded with the chance to be the next judge and killer….What a game!!!

In the Forties (around 47),…

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In the Forties (around 47), in Hollywood. A salesman from Duncan YoYo would meet kids outside of school (elementary) and walk us, in a group, a long block up to the corner drug store. He would then demonstrate all the tricks he could do on a YoYo. He was very good at it, and of course you could buy a Duncan YoYo at the Drug store. I was able to do several tricks but could never to “rock the cradle”