They were the best ever. I know if you're from Brooklyn you'll remember this too. Up the block from our building at 328-59th st. was a school, P.S. 140 and around the corner P.S. 118. Little did I know as a kid just what those buildings would become to me.
Going to start from third avenue and up and around. I remember well the Korn and Alwell families. I don't want to over state this but pretty sure each family had seventeen and nineteen kids. I do know and remember very well which family had kids who other kids seemed to be afraid of, and nope not saying which one. Me? I liked them all, but yeah, I was still shaking in my shoes when one girl in particular came around. In Later years I re met a few on line and now can say I think I was just a plain ol' scaredy cat!
My block was on a down hill street, like in San Francisco? You could look down and see the New York Harbor, and during the night hear the fog horns from ships passing through. I loved that sound. It made me dream. When kids think they can't dream because of where they live and who they live with, well all it takes sometimes is a fog horn. I used to dream of going to Norway and Switzerland. I wanted to see those giant snow covered mountains and hear people talk with those so kool accents, see the costumes during festivals and celebrations, and trolls at Trondheim park. I really wanted to see Santa Claus in Norway and feel that cold Norwegian air.
We had such big apartment buildings you would think how do you ever get to know everyone. Well you do, but you just know them all differently.
The first two girl friends were Barb and Helen. Now if I recall right, Barb was more my sisters' friend and Helen mine. But just about every day in the summer they would walk up and across the cobblestones street and sit on the stoop, or we'd walk down to their stoop. As a kid I was amazed at the friendships, and many times I'd take a back seat and listen to them all yak so much. I was more of a giggler. I could laugh at anything. Now that made people mad, which made me laugh more, especially in church. I still do that, so I have to get up and leave. Oh well. One day years later on a train in Brooklyn when I was still scared of my own shadow, I was telling Barb about this perv who would get close to me and rub his briefcase up my back, and me? Well I would move and then he would move, all teh way until I got off at my stop or changed trains. Then it happened with Barb there. It was so rare that anyone stood up for me, I wasn't sure that's what it was until aftre I got off the train.
I see the perv coming near me and tell Barb. She tells me quietly don't move. He starts, my eyes get big and I get stiff as a board in fear and suddenly Barb brings attention to him and what he's doing. She yells out loud, what teh hell do you think you're doing you sicko? You keep your hands off her! Every day you do this, get the hell off the train! She said a few other things too, but, uh you know, words kind of crude. Wish I could have said them:)
He moved and she made us move too, following him for a change. Boy that was so, so kool. He got off at the next stop and never bothered me again. barb got off teh train before me and when my stop came, I floated up the steps, just feeling lighter, thankful and wondered how she had such courage. As I neared my building on Broadway aross from what was going to be the Twin Towers, I walked over to teh new site, looked at the pictures and thought, I bet Barb feels that high now. to me she was like superwoman. I'll never forget, Thanks Barb!
Then there were the characters of adults in my building. Burt who wore an eye patch, withdrawn cheeks kind of like Jack Palance, and of course Pete across the hall from our family. Pete lived with his "aunt" Helen, uh huh we thought, some aunt. She probably really was. Poor old aunt Helen about ninety, white hair sticking up and balding always wore only a long white slip with one strap always slipping off a shoulder.You remember that too don't ya? She always seemed to cling to things like she stuck her finger in a socket. Pete smoked stinky cigars and had lots of cats. Many nights he was seen carrying a big brown bag of large cans of beer. We knew that meant he'd be calling, yelling and meowing with the cats, feeding them all night long.
Then there was a big family on the top floor, not mentioning their names. Poor family, not as in money, but sad. The youngest girl was always messing her pants, digging and digging and scratching her head. That family had lice more than anyone I think and we were told to stay away from then. The old man as he was known was a pot-bellied beer drinker just about every night. He threw garbage out the window, landed on our clothes lines and boy if anything got my mother mad, that was it!
Up the stairs she'd go, knocking on the door and tell who ever answered that she just washed clothes and..and ya know what she got in return? More trashdumped out the window. They just seemed not to care. Old man also peed out his window all the time. Us kids stayed out of that alley way. Oh by the way, we finally did solve the trash out the window problem -after a few more weeks of Old man's trash throwing, some tenants saved all their trash. One day, and this was aftre his wife passed away, we knew he was sober and was doing wash and cooking, a rare thing but his son told us. So on that day we all went to the roof. Ah yeah, ya know what's coming. Only on eperson had wash hung out that day, Old man. Suddenly like a storm, our trash just flew from the cans landing on the lines all over his wash. That did stop him.
Now they had a son whose name I won't mention also, not even his first. He has such pretty eyes, longer than long eye-lashes, short dark hair and could throw a punch as good as any boxer on TV He loved his mom so much. When she'd walk down the street, looking beat tired carrying a bag of groceries after working all day, he'd run up and grab her bag, hold her arm and try to hug her all at once.
As I remember it, she died about forty of breast cancer. That didn't stop the little girl from messing her pants, peeing in all the baby carriages under the stairs, and picking her nose, wiping on baby carriage sheets. Things stayed the same, or at least they seemed to until I heard one day the brother who could throw a good punch had an operation. It turned out to be true and he is now she. I'll always remember him/her as a nice, good-hearted kid.
Continued later tonight...don't forget click an ad please
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