It has lately arisen as a prospect, if not as a priority, that I record in a more or less coherent fashion the principles and practices of my family, the customs and traditions that have defined us, even as they shift and change. It is to understand, to the extent it can ever be understood, our history; to address where we began; to consider those places and times now long gone; and to ask what might they have meant. Perhaps it became a question when James asked that I record my army experiences, or it may flow from its role in my soon to be unsuccessful novel featuring the old neighborhood. Where this inclination comes from is less the issue. How to proceed may be more to the point – though I expect, as with most things, I will not get to all I propose, and may steer it in ways I might not now intend. Too, I will pursue it in a random manner, another of my own customs, but one that has suited me to date. So, let us begin.
Traditions change because they should. To hold all of them in equal esteem, to think all must be transferred intact, is to make them a burden. Ours changed even as they were being implemented, but they changed in some instances more slowly, and did not end for some time. How we celebrated holidays may still linger, even though it is less recognizable that it had been. How we engage God has changed more dramatically, but only in appearance. How we identify ourselves, and what values we hold dear, are not so very different though we might not have articulated them before. What seemed fixed, immutable, had changed dramatically even as we watched. It happens. It is supposed to. We call it progress, and sometimes it is the right name to give it. Other times it is something else, but it is always change; and so there is no going back, except to visit – to look in on what was, but to know we do not belong.
I think many of these customs, traditions, practices or whatever we shall call them derived from our family, from the community or communities in which we lived, and from experiences we would subsequently have – experiences that might confirm some, cause us to question others and to reformulate the meaning of so much. It is evolution, I suppose; and, our children will re-interpret it even more. In time we would not recognize where we had begun, but then we began in the middle of it all, not at the start.
I was born into a family that was new to this country. My parents were from other places and had come here because other places had not sufficed. They may have been nice places, or not. The people they had known there – their families and friends – may have been good, kind, wise and wonderful, but not sufficiently so to make them stay. Or perhaps they could not stay. Perhaps there was no room for them, no place for their ideas, no way in which to realize their hopes and dreams. Maybe, they needed a new place with new people because they had outgrown home. I don’t know that this is so, but think it may have been, or could have been since each had family who stayed closer to, if not right at, their places of birth. They felt no need to be elsewhere, and became the people to whom my parents wrote, trying to convey what their lives had become, receiving in reply news of old places, older people and what had changed even there.
My mother once said she left home at thirteen, that she had been playing with the other children, rolling down the hill, when called in to be told she was going away, being apprenticed it seemed, perhaps because there was no room at the table. It seemed a cruel thing to do, and I’m sure it was, though they had probably interpreted it differently, making it seem an opportunity instead. She seems never to have gone back, though I suppose she might have visited when living nearby. She went subsequently to England, staying for a time with an uncle and aunt, but was soon away to America, where her older sister had gone. Mother arrived, as far as I can tell, in Baltimore but came at some time to New York. Whether she came alone or with, or perhaps following again, her sister I never knew. Lib may know, or Bob. Somewhere along the line I will have to ask – if only for the sake of completeness. Bob and Lib know such things. They are better carriers of our history.
Mother had been born in Ireland, but seemed not to think herself Irish, except on occasion – except on days when the specific memory drawing her was a happy or peaceful, one. She spoke well of her grandmother, who took time with her – time her parents may not have had, theirs being a great crowd of children (the actual number never has been clear, and when we thought we had heard mention of them all, another would sometimes emerge). She spoke too of her father, who delivered the mail, sang, and may have drunk a bit too. Tales exchanged at my Uncle Jim’s house seemed to include a number of cruel and bitter adults, against whom the children – or maybe just the boys – battled in ways they could. Children, in these stories, were always ‘being killed’ by someone. I think they meant being punished, but it had a violent sense to it that seemed intent on killing the spirit, if not always the body. It did not surprise me she had no interest in returning, even if only to visit and then even after many years. Ireland, by the time she might have gone, held none of those she loved and few memories to gladden her heart. Maybe it had become only a place.
My father had come from Canada, in what seems a round-about way. He had been working his way across the country, bringing in the wheat – a migrant laborer, though they may not have been so called in his day – when called home because his brother had died. His brother had died from a war-related condition, possibly having been gassed, but I never knew the details. Dad had been in the army, but not to the war, because he was too young. Apparently, he had been under-age when he enlisted. He served initially in the cavalry, learning to ride a horse; and then in artillery, which may have been horse-drawn. Where and how his brothers served is unknown, as are other details, about which I never thought to ask. Of course, when we do not know there is something about which to ask it does not help. I know he lived for a time in Detroit, was married in New York and that his wife died, as did a child, from meningitis. I believe he met Mother because of working with, or at least knowing, her brother. It pleased me that he was, in his nationality, unlike so many of the men in our neighborhood, especially since so many of them seemed an unsatisfactory lot. They were not evil, though perhaps some were; but they appeared dull, as though reading would be too great a challenge. I could be wrong, and ought not generalize; but, sometimes I do.
I went once with my father to his home. I think I was thirteen, but that may not be so. We went too with Mother and Bob, and I had gone with him and his sister, Ella. That time we drove, taking her car which had no radio, leaving us with three days of Ella repeating herself, or Dad singing. Ella would sometimes join in though a voice meant for singing was not among her assets. When he and I went alone we took the train, playing miles of cribbage and casino on the overnight trip. The occasion was the two hundredth anniversary of his town, an event that had attracted a number of folks, some of whom came by. They talked about things Ted had done, some of them quite funny and a few that could have been thought outrageous. Because he was called Mike in New York, I was surprised – and pleased – to learn that he was Ted as well.
A difference between my parents was that Mother was among the oldest children in her family, but Dad was youngest. He was the last in a long series, and had several sisters who seemed to have cared for him as child, and would as well later on. He hadn’t had to move, making room for someone else; but he did have to go. The little town seems to have become even smaller, and he needed more room. Mother was at the end of a family chain where she was among the care-givers, tending I suspect to those who followed her. It was a trait she would never set aside, and at times she seemed neglectful of herself, feeling perhaps less entitled to things than seemed fair to want. During the war, and after, she would send packages to her sister in England, and would think what neighbors and others might want. She would provide for us, wanting us to have what she thought we might need or want, though I hadn’t always such needs, nor did Bob. She never sat more than a few minutes at supper, being up to provide more of something – whether they wanted it, or not. No one would ever, even remotely, think her selfish – but it was unbalanced, too. A bit more selfishness, or rather self-care, might have done her good.
People in our neighborhood worked. They worked hard, and not always for the money they might have earned. Few men went to work wearing ties. They left early and came home late. Women worked too. As soon as I was in school Mother found something to do. She had been a seamstress, and used that skill, or others she had acquired. I recall her caring for families, and the Gafenkus (whose name may not have been spelled anything like that) in particular. He was associated with the U.N., a representative from Romania. Madame was French. They had a little poodle, Napoleon, whom I cared for the times I went with Mother to their home, a penthouse apartment on upper Park Avenue. One day I took Nappy walking, but rather than wait for the elevator we went down the stairs, only to find the door locked at street level. We walked back up, to ride down. After a trip or two around the block Nappy was worn out, ready to sleep through the rest of that day and into the next. When mother left the Gafenkus, Madame gave me a Gibson guitar.
I took lessons for a time, but never learned to play as well as one might hope. I could play melodies but hadn’t learned the cords. The music school, which was above some stores on Dyckman Street (the Alcaro School, named for its founder, a gentleman who always seemed he had entered the wrong profession), had a concert one evening at which everyone played. In the guitar band the aim was to get it over quickly, and indeed we did. Of the three or four playing one may have known what to do, but we soon drowned out his contribution. People applauded just the same.
Mother eventually got a job at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. I was by then in high school, or almost so. She worked in the pharmacy, cleaning bottles, putting ointment into tubes, seeing that the others had assistance, managing contact within the department, defusing conflicts that might arise, doing what needed to be done, addressing needs as they arose, or responding to whatever she might be asked to do, or assumed needed doing. To visit her there was to sense she was more necessary to the day-to-day operation of things than were the pharmacists, and in some ways that may have been so. She knew everyone worth knowing, throughout the building. People in maintenance, supply, security and administration knew Sheila well. Mother also became supplier of medications to some family members and to select friends, filling their prescriptions, bringing them home in a bag. She also brought home a supply of pills because the colors were attractive, but when they arrived they didn’t fit the décor as well as they might have, so out they went.
When at Saint Catherine’s, I got a call asking did I need furniture, and at the loading dock two fellows helped me put file cabinets on the roof and chairs in the back of the car. Those fellows, and Mother too, assumed the hospital did not need whatever they re-directed, and that may well have been so. The furniture would have been thrown out. The pills were overpriced. They were, I think, practicing a form of occult compensation; but, more so they were caring for one another. It was, they realized, the right thing to do. She eventually retired, receiving a monthly pension that might sustain a modest person for two, perhaps three, days.
Dad worked as a warehouseman, and later as a checker. At one place, the Terminal Warehouse, he went to work one Monday to find it closed. They had over the weekend gone out of business, and because it was unlikely their closing was a surprise to management, it could be assumed that they hadn’t the courage or integrity to let anyone know. He was out of work for a time, then took a job at Mitchel Field with the postal service. It was a long trip to and from, but there was nothing else to be had. I remember them talking of perhaps having to relocate, and one evening there was mention of Alaska. I doubt there was any intent to do so, and it seemed farther even than I wanted to go, yet I wondered sometimes what it might have been like to make such a journey, short-lived though it surely would have been. Eventually, Dad got work at Seagram’s, and there he stayed until he retired. Seagram would send a turkey for Christmas, and all that went with it – including a fifth of White Horse Scotch. Dad might have a drink for the holiday if there was someone to join him, but otherwise not; so the whiskey always went to someone else, though who I couldn’t say.
Work was defining. It said not who you were, but at least what you did. My first job was a summer of caddying, for which I earned a hundred dollars. Marty Loughlin and I traveled together most days. We would hitchhike from Dyckman Street to Elmsford, the site of Fairview Country Club. Why we went there rather than someplace closer I could not say, but it was not a terrible trip, though I recall an evening when we left there late and were hours getting home.
My next job, delivering the Journal-American, I inherited from Marty who was moving on to become a cashier at Grand Union. Jim Shaw was the driver, a nice fellow who could think of nothing favorable about the customers, the stores where we would drop off copies of the paper. He would yell things at them, promise them extra papers he could not deliver, complain about them – as no doubt they did about him; but, he was essential to their business, and the power of the press was such that no one could complain. My job initially was to ride the running board, jumping off as Jim slowed, to drop the papers on the new stand, yelling, ‘Journal!’ to the folks inside. Then back on the running board, as Jim pulled away.
It was less exciting when the panel truck wore out, and Jim switched to a station wagon, which I rode on the tail gate. I moved then to delivering the Post, giving the Journal job to Jake, who fit it well. From the Post I went to being a messenger for an advertising agency. It was where Don Brennan worked, and when he went to the mail room I took over his role, delivering to companies using the services of BBD&O, and to those in the media who would deliver its messages. It was an occasion to walk all over downtown. Two of their clients were Readers’ Digest and American Tobacco. When Readers’ Digest published an article suggesting cigarettes were dangerous, they were dropped as a client lest the larger, more powerful, tobacco company be offended. It was how business was done, and no one seemed to mind – except those working on the account that no longer existed. Their jobs went with it.
And, I worked pumping gas. One of the men working there was somehow related to Mother’s cousin. It was nice because of the people there, and the customers who came by. Too, it was on 183rd Street, home of Taki 183, the first of the graffiti artists. Seeing his work, I thought we had once been neighbors.
Another of my jobs was, with Jake and Chris, at Thrifticheck and Thriftimatic, where we were hired for a summer to print names on checks. We had been recruited by Ed Daly, a fellow who had helped out at football, and was a member of the Thrifticheck team – though he seemed uncomfortable working in a tie. Ed was a nice fellow, and hiring us was a kindness on his part. The equipment was primitive, more like a mimeograph than anything else. It was operated by cranking a handle and feeding checks into it one at a time. After several hours interest waned and it seemed less important how centered the name might be, and whether the check was put in correctly so that names were as likely to appear in any corner, and sometimes on the back of the check. Such errors were infrequent, but might go uncorrected.
The office was on 41st Street, a block from the Library. We would lunch on the steps, watching the world go by. Then back to the office-workshop, where another man – the salesman or perhaps president of the company – would present himself each afternoon. I expected one day he would walk through the room to dive out the window, as he realized Thrificheck was going nowhere, that he may have had a pretty fair idea, but it was one that could not be realized with the equipment on hand, or with the trio of printers he had engage. Fortunately he never did, even though by mid-summer it seemed clear to us, and to Ed, the company had nowhere to go. In August the job was over. By September the company may also have ceased. Ed, if he had any regrets, never said. Instead, he bought a general store in Columbia County, where he truly belonged.
The neighborhood was largely Irish in its makeup. There were others, of course. Perhaps, there were many others, but our grasp was limited to what we saw – or chose to see – on our block, and would later see on those around us. There was a variety of people. They had come from different parts of the United States, and from all parts of Europe; but, not all were equally valued. There was in the neighborhood a sometimes less subtle form of prejudice. It grew from anxiety, from wariness, from discomfort with anything or anyone different, and because new themselves many people were apprehensive. Those not like us threatened us. They could take our jobs; they might want our homes; they might interfere in who we are, what we do, what our children might become. It was, of course, stupid; but no one was as secure as we might have wished they were. No one asked was difference good or bad. They simply assumed it must be bad, or that it could be – and there was no willingness to take a chance.
Among our neighbors was Miss McCarthy, who lived with her brother --- a club-footed gentleman one rarely saw. Miss McCarthy (whose name was Mae, though only after knowing her for twenty years did Mother call her that) worked in a bank, and cared for her brother. When he died, we apparently adopted her, or she us. The Halkenhausers, the Hersheys, the McPartlands and Lawsons shared our floor, as did a woman with two children and gentleman callers, some of whom stayed. They were known as George I, II, III and IV.
Mrs. Hershey’s door was always open. She listened to soap operas as she did her work, She worked also at Woolworth’s, though I think part-time. Mr. Hershey had been in the Navy, and when Bob joined he trotted out his uniform in solidarity. It was a very tight squeeze, and sections of Mr. Hershey did not fit at all. Mrs. Halkenhauser lived closest to the stairs, and I recall hearing her peep-hole clicking open each time I passed. The Halkenhausers were first to have television, a small screened affair that required a magnifying lens through which we could see an enlarged version of the blur that was received on the tube. On it I saw Menasha Skulnik, a Yiddish comedian and others I did not recognize, and do not recall. (Why I remember Mehasha Skulnik eludes me). The McPartlands, Owen and Bridie, had a dog. The beast was called Friendly, after a dog he had once had; but, friendly was an unlikely description.
In our building too were Mr. and Mrs. Lowenstein, who had come from Europe, I think before the war, but perhaps not. They always dressed well, as though whatever they encountered should be thought a formal affair, one deserving attention and respect. They took an interest in me, and on more than one occasion I was invited to join them on pilgrimage to Hyde Park, the home of President Roosevelt. My parents may have come too, or maybe not. I was struck by their sense of what they owed this man, by what they had received through what they thought his openness to them, his realization the nation belonged to no one, but was a gift given us all. There was a peaceful sense about their devotion to one another, and to this man who in their eyes represented freedom and generosity.
We lived on the fifth floor of what had seemed an almost elegant building, one with a courtyard in the center, one with grass and trees. Though there was no elevator, the stairs were clean, the property well attended by the superintendent who lived in the basement at the side of the building, but more so by a man named Tony, who apparently slept beside the boiler. Being on the top floor gave us access to the roof, and there people would gather on summer evenings, to talk on into the dark. It was also where I walked the dog when there wasn’t time to take her anywhere else. On the roof was one of the places Mother read to us, and to the adults who might listen it, sometimes moving a bit closer in the process. She was able too to quote yards of poetry, and taught us to love words.
People in the summer left their doors open, but that was not always an invitation to come in. People needed a reason, and would knock. The adults called each other Mr. or Mrs., with few exceptions; and in some instances even the exceptions were more those of acquaintances than of friends. Their formality assured order and protected boundaries, as did the need to knock even if the door was open. Though apartments rather than houses, and maybe because we lived so close together, people were protective of their homes. They knew those living on their floor, a few others in the building, some on the street, but mostly families centered on themselves.
This meant us, and my mother’s family. My father, we knew, had family but they were somewhere else – in Canada, or Connecticut, which seemed as close as might be the moon. We did have a visit from his brother, Bill, and Bill’s wife Blanche. Bill was short, and his teeth fit poorly. He seemed to think traveling meant taking the subway, without having to come up to the street. Traveling under various sights was as good as visiting them. Blanche was nice, as was Bill, though I recall him saying very little. Their daughter and her husband would come too. We went with them to the Statue of Liberty, and to Staten Island, to Lib’s home. Perhaps because some died in the war, and others never married, there were few cousins from my father’s family. Bill and Blanche’s daughter and son (named for my father, he was killed in an automobile accident) were the only ones.
My mother had two sisters living in New York – Mame and Kitty. Her brother, Jim, lived near by -- in Kingsbridge, where the Bronx begins going north. Mame was, I think the eldest. Where Kitty fit I don’t know, but she was close in age to Mother and to Mame. They seemed to get along well, except when they didn’t. Mother would visit them. While I don’t recall Kitty’s family coming to our house, Mame and her family came for holidays.
Mame had married Heinrich, who had retired from the navy but was called back when the war began. Mame and Lib came to live with us at least for a time. Lib is my age, and seems more my sister than my cousin. She is, like Bob, an historian of this crowd. They lived, and Lib still does, on Staten Island which while it can be seen from Manhattan, has always seemed a distinct country, more rural than not. When we visited it meant a ride on the ferry. Sailing from the Battery to Staten Island was as near to an ocean voyage as most would ever come. Standing at the front of the ‘ship,’ the waves breaking against its bow, the wind against us as we leaned into it and the water so dark, it seemed worth the long subway ride and the bus trip that would follow.
Growing up, Mother and I would meet Mame and Lib in town, where the ladies would shop along Lexington Avenue and streets on east of there, second-hand shops. They could appear more elegant than their roots suggested they should be, and seemed to themselves more like donors than recipients of what these shops might offer. The stores were sponsored by, or were in fact, charitable institutions to which the wealthy had given last season’s gowns, suits, shoes, clothing, books, magazines, knick-knacks, furniture and furnishings of all sort. While Mother and Mame poked through the stock, Lib and I would sometimes read, usually the National Geographic of which there were great stacks; and each one seemed spoke of the adventures of Richard Halliburton, who would be flying into or out of Timbuktu, or a similarly grand and mysterious place. In years to come I would wear suits, shoes, a tuxedo and shirts from ‘The Friends’ and other such places thinking I looked elegant, and perhaps I did.
Kitty had married Harold, which seemed at times an odd pairing. Harold was a police officer, and a person distinct from the woman he’d married. Were it not for golf there is no telling what he might have done instead. Like her sisters, Kitty was not without pretensions, but hers seemed grander – except when at Peach Lake. They lived, with their three children – Joan, Dick and John (often called John Barry, perhaps because their last name was Maurer and so he could seem almost the star, John Barrymore, but that is speculation) – in Long Island, another trip by subway and bus were we to visit. But, in the summer they retreated to a cottage at Peach Lake, and for at least part of the season so did we all. It was where I learned to ride a bike, to square dance and to swim. It was Harold’s role to teach us swimming, and we learned. Bike riding and dancing Lib taught me. That I have never danced well is not her fault.
Bob, I think, spent more time there than did I. He and John did quite well together. Each was and is an outgoing, conversant and entertaining person, welcoming of new adventures and people they had not yet met. I, as you no doubt know, am not so vital, and am content with those I already know or when I meet someone who seems like one I’d already met.
In years to come, Mother and Dad would buy a place at the Lake, the Paine cottage across the road from Kitty and Harold. It was to be where they would retire, and for a time Dad did, but Mother was not anxious to retire, and it seemed an isolated place when summer had ended. There was no one with whom to have tea, no stores or church to which she could walk, no one who was not a long-distance call away; and, so the experiment ended – as it had to. When at last they both stopped working, they learned to be together closer to where they had always been. At some time in the sixties, Kitty and Harold moved into the neighborhood, taking an apartment on Arden Street. It was, I think, where they had begun. Mother and Dad moved there too, and were followed by Miss McCarthy, their neighbor by then of many, many years. They would not move again.
On Vermilyea Avenue, there had seemed always a crowd. Looking out the window there were, at least in the warmer weather, people – adults, children and old people – on both sides of the street, and in between. I didn’t know all of them, but recognized most. It was a residential street, as were most other than Broadway and the streets that acted as the neighborhood’s borders – Dyckman and 207th Street. At one corner of Vermilyea, however, was a delicatessen on one side and a candy store on the other. The delicatessen, Sirett’s (which was surely spelled differently than this) was a ‘milk and bread store,’ purchases being limited to necessities not worth a trip to the super market. It was a family-owned store, in which they must have worked at least fourteen hours each day. Opposite Sirett’s, toward Broadway, was what was called a candy store, but it sold cigarettes, newspapers, magazines, soda and the owner was rumored to take bets as well. Outside of the candy store, the name of which may have been Bill’s, if it had any name at all, was a public phone used by most people who hadn’t a phone in their homes. We didn’t, but most of those we might have called may have had none either. I remember when we finally did get one. I was in school, and old enough to wonder should we record each call, its length, the date on which it was made or received – so exotic was this new instrument. I suppose Mother used it most of the time, since Dad received no calls and made none. I didn’t either, until I was well into high school; though Bob probably made use of it.
Across from Sirett’s, toward Dyckman Street, was a bakery. The name I recall is the Blue Bakery, which does not sound like it should be so. I don’t think I was ever inside. Across from the bakery, toward Broadway, was the public school, P.S. 52. It was a large building, and with the surrounding yards, it covered half a block and more. In the summer, the building was open for a recreation program, called ‘summer school,’ though nothing remotely academic happened.
The yards were for stickball or softball, and perhaps other games too. The softball field (though of concrete rather than grass) was across from the fire house, and because there were few fires they had a very good team.
Softball games were played between teams from different streets and were not formed into a league. Instead they played when they had someone to play, and it was often for money each side would put up – five dollars, and sometimes ten. Or, for beer in some instances – though there would never be drinking at the game, unless it was played down by the river, and for fun rather than with anything at stake. Too, people just played to play, but more often the game of choice was stickball, the pitcher throwing to a strike zone painted on the wall. The batter, would be awarded bases on the basis of how far he could hit it, with balls on the ground being singles no matter how far they might go. Stickball allowed for teams on one player per side, though there might be more.
It was also played on the street. Pitches were on a bounce rather than thrown on a fly. Instead of speed, as he might when throwing at a wall, the pitcher would count on the bounces he could cause – making the ball move right or left, or having it drop. After hitting the ball, the batter would run to bases, home and second being manhole covers if they were at appropriate distance with first and third being marked sometimes in chalk but more often they were cars, or car handles, that seemed to be where bases would have been. The field was long and narrow, and fielders would be on the sidewalk as well as on the street. Once in a great while a car might come through. It would either wait until the pitch in progress had been thrown and fielded, or players seeing it would interrupt the game to let it through.
Cars were not rare. But, neither were they common. Car owners could be assured a place in front of their homes, and one at least – Mr. Turolla – apparently stood by the window watching to be sure no one sat of his fender. Dad bought a car when I was in high school, a green Plymouth he parked in a lot at 215th Street. It was for weekend use.
People instead took the bus or subway, or they walked. We would regularly walk through the park, over the bridge, on into Riverdale and down Broadway as a Sunday stroll. I would do it with my parents, or with friends. Too we would walk down to the George Washington Bridge, and across, going then up the Jersey side for no other reason than to take a walk. We walked to some places because we could go more quickly than could the bus or subway, which had to make stops along the way; and because waiting for it would have been waiting, when we could instead be moving. As we walked we could see what there was to see, even though we may have seen it thousands of times before, or we would talk – though what we said was perhaps what we had said many times too.
There were seasons – marbles was one, and cards was another. All of a sudden there would be people playing marbles, trying to roll one through the opening in a cigar box to win whatever the bet might be, or trying to hit someone else’s with your own; and cards, in their season, would be flipped, traded or collected. Even if there was no intention of trading it, a rare card would be shown to someone who could appreciate it. I was not a grand collector, and didn’t recognize those that had greater value – unless someone was anxious to trade for it, and what they would trade were usually ones too common to be worthwhile. No one benefited from ten of Herman whatever-his name was, that fellow from the Phillies or maybe the Reds who seemed to be in every pack, holding his glove as thought ready to pitch.
Up by school there was street hockey – though our skates were likely to come off at any time. Skates were clamped to the front of one's shoes (sneakers were not solid enough to hold them, but they loosened with time and always came undone). On Vermilyea Avenue, and other streets too, skating might be in following chalked mazes or just going fast with no destination, no rules, no aim other than to be going. Basketball was played in the park, as was tennis – though I never thought to play it. The park was as well where baseball and softball diamonds were found, and on the lower field was what may have been intended for soccer, but became a place where a hurling ball was hit by a serious-faced and sweaty Irish man, who had brought it from home and who may have maintained a connection through his mighty swings.
Baseball meant CYO teams, though there might have been other leagues too. For whatever reason we watched from outside the seating area, rather than sitting down. I think it may have provided a better view, but if we sat we might not have as readily moved on. Softball, played usually on Sunday, was a league in which each team was sponsored by a bar. The players were men in their twenties and thirties, and some who were older, especially those who could pitch, spinning the ball by the motion of their hands, or clipping it on the seam of one’s pants. They threw very hard, and very fast; but batters were often as good as the pitchers, and some who were less quick learned to bunt and run. Everyone fielded well, and could throw straight. A team from our league (it being ours because it played in our park) beat Eddie Feigner’s team – a four man touring team who had been quite famous at the time, with Eddie able to make the ball do anything he chose. He would pitch blindfolded, from his knees, from second base, between his legs or behind his back. He did those things, but he wanted to win as well. On that night, in Croak Park (a place where Irish games were seriously played) he didn’t.
The park – Inwood Park -- was ours, and belonged as readily to others who played there, or walked there, or sat on its benches. It was along the Hudson River side of Manhattan, and ran into Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters, which while separated only by two blocks or so was a distinct entity; and for whatever reason seemed a place where one walked, or one where older people sat, or visited the formal gardens at the top (more a part of Washington Heights than of Inwood), a place to which others came because of the Cloisters – a reconstructed castle, housing a medieval museum A gift from the Rockefeller family, it featured Tapestries of the hunt and capture of the unicorn. I recall also a knight’s sarcophagus and a statue of Saint Denis holding his own head – which may not have been Saint Denis at all, and what he carried could have been something else. Fort Tryon was also the setting for a scene in ‘The Hustler,’ but it required no additional fame.
Our park was a block away from Good Shepherd School, which we all attended, and perhaps five blocks from home. It could be entered from any point, Isham Street being the more formal place, at which stood a soda and ice cream stand, owned by a cranky man whose name was Joe (sometimes called Joeshack, his place of business – the shack – having become in our minds an aspect of his being). I don’t suppose he was cranky, at least not all of the time, but he did have that look. It was perhaps the only place selling Good-o soda.
The park had paths, of course, but as children we never used them. We would blaze our own trails, or follow what could as readily have been those of Indians, or maybe animal tracks. We were cowboys, soldiers, savages or whatever we chose to play. We climbed hills so we could run down them. We hid, even if no one was searching for us. We acted out what we had seen in the movies, or what came to our imaginations. We would play, as we got older, games where one team would hunt for the other, but the hunted could also free any who had been captured; and so it was not uncommon for the hunters to never have a chance to hide. We played these same games on the street, where hiding places included back yards, cellars, roofs and alleys.
Baseball came important at some time, though playing it was beyond my skill and there were few opportunities. Little League had not yet been invented, and if it had I’m not sure I would have liked the regimentation, and coaches who may have become annoying. We lived within walking distance of the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium, and tickets were sometimes provided by the Police Department’s Athletic League. I preferred the Polo Grounds and the Giants. When television arrived I would rather watch them, though the picture was such it was not always clear who was who or what they were doing. When the Giants won the pennant I was on my way home from school and heard Russ Hodges from a radio at the Cities Services gas station at the corner or Broadway and 204th Street.
Family was important. Friends were essential. They were people who lived on our street, until we left that street to be somewhere else, at which time friends were those we found there. My earliest friend, or the earliest I recall, was Philip Schwarz, who lived on the first floor in our building. We would be friends through elementary school and for the first year of high school, at which time Philip’s family moved to Long Island. He was a gentle person, which may sometimes have been hard to be. Together neither of us had to grow up more quickly than we might have. Philip’s parents were young, compared with those of everyone else. Too, they had television, and a grandmother who visited, but who was called something other than Grandma, thought I don’t recall what. Others’ grandparents had been left in another country, along with brothers, sisters, cousins, traditions, resentments and pain. I’m not sure how Philip and I met. We were surely not introduced, and our playing together was unarranged. Bob Strong was another friend. Bob lived across the street, but I don’t think I knew him until we went to school, and then only in later grades. Bob had interests I had never considered. Among them was building model planes and flying them. I suppose he wanted to someday fly, and I hope he did. While we continued to live across the street from each other we lost contact when Bob changed schools, leaving the parochial high school, first for a private school and then going to George Washington – a good school for many, but perhaps not for Bob.
At some time I began to spend more time at the corner of Vermiliea and 204th Street, where people were somewhat older, closer to my brother’s age than mine. I knew them, and had played with them when all of us were younger, but they had aged, now being more on that edge of development now called adolescence. They were probably in high school too, but tolerant of me, and more. I was there, but not invited to parties that were held at people’s homes, and I had other things to do or places to be as well. I was not as interested in just standing around as were those who had moved into that practice, or the socialization that seemed so essential. I liked the games, box ball being one (two, three or four could play, each having a section of the sidewalk which was formed as boxes when built; and they bounced a ball between them, with a point scored against whomever could not return it after one bounce), and king or king-queen another (played against the wall – in our setting the wall of the post office – each person had a box, but his territory extended from the wall to the street. The king served, and had the box farthest to the left. If he, or anyone else, could not hit what was hit to him, he would have to move to the end of the line). Among the best players was an older fellow who refused to grow up. His name was Fritz, and his last name was long, ending in –inger, I believe.
We also played punch ball, wherein one's hand took the place of a bat; or we hit the ball against the curb or off the steps of the stoop, the stairs leading into a building. In punch ball, people ran to bases; but when playing off the curb or stoop, bases earned were determined by the number of bounces before it was caught.
I remember three incidents in particular, at that corner. The first was someone throwing a ball to see could he throw it over the roof, but hitting instead the window of a gentleman who took offense, which led of course to his window becoming the usual target. This continued until one night he came charging down the stairs, chasing us while yelling, ‘I’m going to put you in the sink.’ It made no sense, and I don’t think he was armed. We ran as a courtesy. I suppose people still threw at his window, but less so.
Another day someone had somehow let go of her child’s carriage, with the child on board. It came toward us, picking up speed as it came down the hill. Joe Cahill, who was from another street but had begun hanging out on the corner, stepped in front of it and caught it. He had not tried to grab it as it went by, which is perhaps what others might have done. The child may have had a better time, but it was a unique event and perhaps more rapid than he would have chosen. If he was unsettled, he was nowhere near as upset as his mother had been. After saving the child, Joe dismissed it; lighting a cigarette to suggest smoking was of equal importance. One did what was required. It was not to be thought significant, since it was expected. That was a near universal rule. It would be silly to become demonstrative, and only rarely did anyone do so.
The third event was an argument between two people in which I at the end felt a need to decide where would I stand. Bob Strong and John Stapelton argued over I don’t know what, and it led to fighting, with Bob wounding John. If there is sportsmanship in fighting it was lacking at the end of this one, and I felt I had to decide who I would walk away with. I chose Bob, because no one else would, but also because I felt responsible for him being there. He was my friend more than anyone else’s, even though in this instance he was wrong. That too was a rule: if someone was with you, even in those instances when you might rather he weren’t, you were responsible for him; you would ‘take his back’ if trouble erupted, as you could expect he would do for you. After that incident, I remained friends with everyone else as well, and Bob began soon to spend time in other places, with other people; but, it was time for me to also find someplace else to be.
It didn’t happen right away, but I was open to a change.
At some time we had gotten a dog. The family had had one before. Blackie was her name but I have no recollection of her. Some people had thought her nasty, but it was more a rumor than an agreed upon fact. I wanted one, and had for some time. Mother and I had toured the shelters looking for a dog like Lassie. She was probably relieved when none was found. Dusky (whose name Mother provided) was of a litter born to the dog of a neighbor of my Uncle Jim. I went to select her and recognized her right away. I brought her home on the bus, the driver saying I might have to pay an extra fare were she any bigger. She soon became Dad’s dog in fact, but remained mine too. Dusky was with us for many years, dying when I was at seminary. When she died, Dad and Mother couldn’t bear to keep the chair she had slept on, wrapped in a blanket Dad would hold while she turned around and settled in. Dad would sit there to read the paper or to watch television, but when it was bedtime, Dusky would get up behind him to let him know it was time to go.
She went wherever we went, and if we had to stay over, as on our trip to Canada, Mother told the inn keeper a thoroughbred was staying the night, suggesting they should be quite proud. Dusk joined my parents for tea, after the evening meal; and she sang on occasion too. A small dog, she had a deep voice and would bark at any sound near our door – which discouraged neighbors just dropping in, Jehovah’s Witnesses and anyone else she thought might not belong. The exception to her barking was one night when Bob came home from the Navy, having been a while away. One did not, she realized, bark at family. I would take her out, to meet my mother on her way from work, or Dad when he arrived. If there was a package to be carried, or the newspaper, Dusk would do so with great pride and satisfaction. It was in her nature as a retriever, which we thought perhaps she was. Too, I would take her walking in the evening as a way to be out.
Church was an important aspect of our life, if only as an obligation. No one missed mass, though coming in late to stand at the back counted as attendance. Everyone dressed for the sabbath, and stayed dressed, with ties and jackets for the rest of the day. People went regularly to confession, and there was an annual mission, at which a priest from somewhere else spoke nightly to the congregation – sometimes separated into men and women. Each talk was begun with a joke, which was sometimes the only good thing one heard.
Because attending parochial school we had class in religion each day, centered on the Baltimore Catechism which laid it out as questions and answers, leaving no room for discussion. Things were more absolute. The same lack of grayness filtered into other aspects of life where things, people, beliefs, opinions were either right or wrong. There is security in absoluteness, even when unwarranted.
The priests were Paulists, missionaries to America. Some were old, and perhaps here in retirement. Others were in transit, between assignments, or taking to an urban mission for a year or two, and sometimes more. Several were nice. Fr. McFarland was a favorite, and Fr. Mannion. Fr. Powers too, I think because he was young. Others were not so nice, and perhaps took pleasure in being cantankerous – hopefully they did, since they took no apparent joy from anything else. In like manner, the Christian Brothers who taught us from fifth grade on. (Sisters of Mercy taught the girls, there being two distinct schools in the one building).
Some of the Brothers were pleasant, and took an interest in the kids; but others were unkind. The same may have been true of the sisters, but I had no occasion to know. When we went to high school a similar mix would be there, only moreso. It is unlikely the public school could have offered a stranger batch of teachers, but we were never to know.
In the early grades we had women teaching us. I liked the teacher in second grade, though I remember nothing about her – Ms. O’Halloran, who may have been in her first teaching job. I recall only that she was kind, and that she took our picture. She gave one of them to me, but I folded it to keep it safe, and so it lost its value as a picture. She was followed by an ignorant woman who called the children things such as ‘fat heads’ – an odd term given her own size. She was followed by a woman who seemed quite short, and who wore glasses thick enough to suggest she could not see. In fifth grade was a woman touted as mean who turned out to be benign.
Looking back at the Brothers who taught sixth through ninth grades, one seemed undone by the students, who were unamenable to his attempts at control – he may not have realized who he was dealing with, thinking us more reasonable than some of us were; another was cruel and ignorant, and never forgave me for overhearing his wailing from the dentist’s office; and the third was a good man who may have been realizing he had taken up the wrong profession.
I suppose willingness to follow unquestioningly, to do what one was told, to believe what was provided, to accept the answers in the catechism and to believe there were no questions other than those it had raised, served some of us well, but not many. At least not for long.
After elementary school was high school. There was none in the neighborhood, at least no parochial school, and so we went elsewhere. The antipathy toward public education was unrelated to the quality of the public schools, though there was a sense they were not that good since they would accept those who had failed at the parochial schools. It was more a question of going where Catholic kids went, although there were no similar schools for Protestants, Jews, Muslims or others (had we realized there were religions other than what we already knew). I went to Cardinal Hayes, where Bob had gone. Each morning I took the A train down to 145th Street, and the D back up into the Bronx – to 161st Street and River Avenue, the home of Yankee Stadium. From there is was a walk across the park to school, an all-boys school as was the rule. Our first year we went instead to St. Bernard’s, on 14th Street. (Hayes had annexes around the City, and so it was in fact a three-year school).
Traveling by subway was not a new experience. Nor was traveling without parents. We’d done that for years. What was new was meeting new kids, new kids from the neighborhood, ones who had not always lived on our street.
I have presented this tale as though one event occurred and another followed, that first was family, then friends came along, followed by Church and by school; but, that is not so. It is not how any life unfolds. All things happen all at once, and each while others were going on. There are junctures of course, moments in which transformations occur – some of which we recognize; but in general, the processes transpire, each seeming natural in its progression, and each intertwined with all else life contains. Some things are more important. Some require closer attention. Some are readily dismissed, or have become routine. At each moment we are part of family, a friend to someone, ignorant or contemptuous of someone else. We are members of this Church, attend that school, come home, go out, wonder, worry or become aware. It tumbles together, sometimes seeming to evolve, as though a pattern were in place; but, most days just happen. We don’t question them. Instead, we accept this as life – which, of course, it is.
To return to that day when high school was opening other doors: I met two fellows, brothers and in fact twins, Dave and Peter Brehm. While being twins they were quite different too. Dave was more serious, more intense while Peter was freer in how he responded. They had gone to public school. I thought perhaps I remembered them from Confirmation some years earlier, a time when public school kids joined us, but just for the day.
Somewhere in the course of our knowing one another Dave asked why didn’t I join them where they hung out, why didn’t I ‘come around sometime.’ I thought I might, and eventually did. So too did others. It was as though a moment were waiting to occur. In preparation for it people were moving, gathering, getting ready for whatever would be. Looked at from the outside it would seem inconsequential, and to the observer nothing was there to see. To us, however, it was a fateful day – or week, or perhaps a month or more; but within a very short time there we all were, standing on Broadway, in front of Schifani’s store, as though we had always been there, and would be there forever. I wondered was it football that drew us, but that came later. We were there already, doing nothing grand; and much of the time, doing nothing at all.
We would stand around, talking – usually about nothing important. Everyone thought himself funny, and wry. We were sometimes funny, but wryness, cleverness, subtlety were rarely in evidence. We walked, we played some ball. We smoked, went to parties, sat in the park, and sometimes drank beer. We expressed unwarranted confidence and doubts about which nothing could be done. We supported and sustained one another, as we entertained each other and developed friendships that would become the basis for much that followed, and the standard by which so much else would be measured. We did it all without knowing we were doing any such thing.
Jake, Steve and Howie came from Cooper Street. Chris came from the part of Vermilyea Avenue closer to Dyckman Street. Richie just showed up, having come from ‘downtown.’ Jackie O’Keefe and Mike McCue, were from Academy Street, just around the corner. Others wandered in from farther away. We displaced many of those who were standing there when we arrived. To them it may have seemed as it did to the Romans as barbarians began to drop in.
It would be hard to write a novel or history of our experiences, to relate what we had found; but people couldn’t wait to get there, to leave school where we might have friends, participate in activities – athletic or academic -- so we could stand instead in front of Shifani’s, or around the corner on Cumming Street. Some even came back at night, to stand and wait, in case someone else came along.
The football team developed because adults in the community thought there should be a team. It was sponsored by the Settlers Club, a group whose purpose was rather vague. Drinking beer was undoubtedly a factor, but not the only one. It was political in some sense, and social in another. The people starting the team maybe wanted to be coaches and needed kids to make their wish come true, or they wanted to provide us with what they had once received. Whatever the reason, we became a team. More guys materialized, itinerant players. They came from the Heights, from below Dyckman, from Seaman Avenue and Post. I don’t know how they knew, how they heard the call; but there they were. People did not have to play well, but they had to play. It was an aspect of one’s identity, and its absence would leave a void too grand to go unnoticed. The coaches – Bill Kane and Ernie Peters – had coached others, and while they had real jobs too, life centered on the game.
Jake was best, as he was at most things. He and Chris were guard and tackle on one side, offense and defense. They had the capacity to ignore obstacles, to disregard pain, to recognize the importance of each play, and of doing it well. I played fullback and linebacker. There were big guys who couldn’t hit, or take a hit from the other team’s players; and there were little guys who could dive into the fray with great delight and effectiveness. The quarterbacks couldn’t throw as well as they thought they could, so most times we ran the ball. We made mistakes since few of us had played before, and most had little understanding of, or interest in, subtleties of the game. Running, tackling, blocking – straight ahead.
The first year we lost all of the games but one. One was enough. The next year we did better, and the third year – with the addition of players whose age and experience was greater – we were undefeated, unscored upon, but it wasn’t as much fun. The team disbanded then. Chris, Jake and I went to another, the Rams whom we had played against, but it was by then at the end.
Sometime during our season with the Rams we went with the coach, Frank Gilhooley, to a game at the Yale Bowl. Frank was, as were Jake and I, a student at Manhattan College, though he had taken several years of work and the Army to get there. I don’t recall who Yale was playing, though it wasn’t Columbia, which was our neighborhood college team. We had seats at the top of the stadium, where we could see poorly and receive most of the wind’s force. Afterward we went to Mory’s, the place of his tables not too far from the site where Louie dwelt. We had a beer and a wander through it – I think so we could realize how truly superior we were to those seated around Mory’s tables. And, indeed we did.
There was another life too: school. I did well enough, and liked aspects of it. I wasn’t fond of the teachers and thought several quite stupid, but I liked a lot of the guys I met there, and for a while I ran track. I took an interest in literature more than other things, being disastrous where science or French was a focus, unless the teachers could infuse them with interest, which was rare. I recall the teachers who did nothing, like the sophomore English teacher who each morning read the newspaper as we were to be reading the text. He was a fool, of course; but not a surprise. I remember others who tried to do their jobs, though we may not have been open to what they thought we should know. Theirs was the harder job, since they expected more of us and of themselves. They had not settled into early retirement. We had too a teacher whose devotion to Senator McCarthy, and others of that sort, dominated his class. Like a missionary, he found ways to urge his beliefs on us. To a degree he was successful, until years later when reason intruded.
After high school, college. It was assumed we would attend college, though few of us had a sense what college meant, what it might require, and what we should study. College was an extension of high school. We dressed the same – with the same jacket and tie we had worn already for four years. We traveled to and from on the subway, and came home to study at the same kitchen table.
I went to Manhattan College, as did Jake. It was a lovely place, but I hadn’t a clue. Not knowing what a liberal art might be, and being hesitant about seeming either liberal or artistic, I settled on business, never having considered engineering. I did well in some of the arts courses – religion, philosophy and literature; but could still be in Spanish I and Accounting I, had I continued at Manhattan. I took them days, nights and summers with no success, and little interest. By sophomore year I had had quite enough, and in celebration of the feast of Saint John Baptist de la Salle, founder of the religious community teaching there, Jake and I joined the Army. A very wise decision.
We were two years away, and when those years had passed so had other things too. The place to which we returned was different, as it had to be. No one was around, or if they were they shouldn’t have been. They had become settled, old in their ways, with nowhere to go, or no realization the neighborhood no longer breathed as once it had. It was not, as it could not be, the place we had known.
What did it mean. What had we learned from those years. What did I take from them. I sometimes think we learned what was good, and we made it our own, as we recognized what was wrong and how to avoid it. I learned there was prejudice and fear in the neighborhood, and that we needed neither. I recognized an invitation to hate differences, but that it was offered often by those too ignorant to have valued opinions. I saw a number of people, friends, who gave too much to alcohol and got nothing in return.
Too, I learned that friendships are more essential than are other things, that ‘we band of brothers (and sometimes sisters too)’ could trust and care for one another, could love one another – though no one would dare suggest such a word -- and that we did. We shared essential aspects of being, never having named what they might be. I saw my parents were good, strong, kind people who had decided their lives would be secondary to what Bob or I might need, but we never asked for anything, knowing it might not be easy for them to provide. I knew people could be wrong, but it was all right that they were; that those in authority – teachers, priests, religious, policemen, politicians and others claiming power – could be wronger than most; but we could tolerate them still, unless their arrogance intruded.
I learned rules that made little sense, such as the one that states if there is a choice between a hard path and an easy one we should take the hard one. It makes no more sense now, but I recognize its influence still. I learned also that we should do what is right, even if it is costly; if we don’t do the right thing every time, we should recognize where we have failed and try again; that we should respect ideas and have opinions, being open to changing them too; that if people ask things of us, we should provide them if we can; and, we learned our country was made up of decent people, but that the government could be wrong, weak and frightened; and in so being it could do great harm. The same has been true of church, where the emergence of its humanity has been both difficult and a relief from the suggestion it was too ethereal to be anything but right.
I learned I could make mistakes, and that some were costly. I recognized the value of ideas and words, of reading and writing, of wondering too. I saw there were fewer absolutes than there pretended to be, and still there were far more than we needed. I acquired a sense that money is not insignificant, but neither is it so important; and that we are better if we care for one another than if we think we must always win. I learned work is important and dignified by the labor invested in it, rather than by the salary paid. I learned too late there were many I should have thanked along the way, but didn’t. In those years and in the experiences they contained I learned about me, but would have more to know. In time, I may have become less recognizable, but not as much as I might have.To try to explain what it meant, to even report what happened, seems hard since it was more than it appeared to be. Maybe one had to be there, but some things are universal, less reliant on where or how we learned them than that we did. The importance of family, and of friends, of values that seem taken from a John Ford western, of loyalty and trust, of affection, caring and recognizing what frightens us too – these were to be had where I lived. Perhaps in other places too.
Derry, New Hampshire
December 30. 2004
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