Christmas over the years- boy will this take some time.

Christmas over the years- boy will this take some time.
      If You think the milk business entry was long, talking about Christmas over the last 60 years will take some time too.
     I started this entry as a blog in 'New Life'. After it went on for several feet I thought it more appropriate to edit it for there and do the long version here, so you might feel you've heard some of this before, but it won't be the first time I've repeated myself.
     Christmas in the 60's was a magical time. When I was a kid the sure sign Christmas was close was when the Sears Catalog came in the mail. The two, three, eventually four of us would take the catalog and either fold down pages where we wanted something or show it to our mother at a time usually she was busy cooking dinner or something like that.
     In the Catalog there was always a ham radio set up. It was always one of the most expensive gifts in the catalog. Every Year I would always tell my mother I wanted it and she would always say it was too expensive. Looking back on it, what the hell was I thinking I was going to do with it. The Ad made it look so cool, but how much fun would it have been on Christmas day to use?
     The next Sign Christmas was coming was a pine tree appearing in our backyard. I guess my Dad would pick one out from a place he passed on his route, or maybe, more likely he knew someone and they sold/gave it to him. The Tree would seem to sit outside for ever. Some Years it would snow and how were we going to bring the tree in all covered with snow and would all that snow ruin the tree? Finally my Mother would start to move around the furniture, a sure sign Christmas was coming. The  tree is up, now the trip to the attic to bring the ornaments down.
     When I was young, a trip to the Attic was like going to a whole different world. It was strange, different and not easy to get to. To start the Trip, the cellar door is opened. Four Steps down to a small landing, where the back door was at one time, then half a dozen stairs further down into the darkness where all the monsters of your childhood resided was the dark cellar. Back at the top of the stairs on the Right wall leaning against the upper landing and the top step was the ladder. Two thin pieces of wood with slats cut in them for steps. The Ladder leaned quietly in it place, a veteran of many trips between the top cellar step and the upper landing to the attic. When the Ladder is put in place, I swear it will fall between it's two points and tumble down into the black hole of the cellar, the Creatures of the cellar would chuckle at your misfortune, looking forward to scaring you in their darkness.
     My Mother puts the Ladder of death, it's top angled to fit comfortably against the edge of the upper landing, A wave of amazement flows over me that it is not too short. Mom climbs up the ladder first, saying something about only one person on the ladder at a time. What does She know that she is not telling me. Her Voice is muffled and distant, blood is flowing fast and thick in my ears. A steady thumb of my heart is all I hear as I take a test step onto the bottom rung. In the distance my Older Brother says something about a chicken, I don't understand. The Ladder wobbles a little left and right. It knows it has a five year old virgin in it grasp. I look down at the suddenly distant steps to the cellar.The Shelves against the wall on the left starting at the lower landing disappear into the darkness of the cellar. Full Shelves filled with can goods tended by survivors of the great depression fill my vision. Halfway to the upper landing with the kitchen floor too far away to touch and the upper landing still out of  reach the Ladder of Death smiles at me. It shakes back and forth, a distant voice is talking about a chicken again and he sounds impatient. The Ladder gives a heavy shake, I brace for the fall into the darkness of the Cellar and the creatures living there. My older brother has gotten on the ladder and wants me to move quicker. I hear screaming, it must be my mother screaming, the ladder of death is giving away she is going to lose both of her children. I hear the words, 'Get off the ladder, it's going to fall. It gets louder and suddenly I realize I am screaming like a girl at my brother. He attempts to push past me, but the horror of my brother going first is worse then the ladder falling. I scramble up the ladder onto the upper landing. Being up there feels no safer then the ladder. The Upper Landing is crowded with stuff that didn't quite make it up into the attic. It gets more crowded when my brother get up there. The next part of my journey is scary and a little tricky. There is a small homemade ladder on the wall to the right, which I am to climb, it's short, but once I am up about two feet, I must turn to the right and head above were the ladder is. So if I slip from the short ladder and miss the upper landing I would assuredly hit the ladder, breaking it and tumble down into the dark of the cellar and the creatures in the dark. I hesitate and my brother pushes in front and climbs up saying something about a baby could do this. I slowly stand on the first rung of the ladders three steps. I can look down into the wall cavity and I briefly wonder if someone could fall down there and get stuck. I reach for a hand hold and realize the only thing I have to grab to steady myself is the floor. I bend at the waist plastering myself to the floor, my legs stumbling for the second rung. When I find it I claw at the fibers of an old rung and haul myself over the edge. I'm not William Parry arctic explorer, but I've reached the summit and it's an amazing place. A World unknown to me. The chilly Air mixes with the smell of Old Books and Toys put into storage and forgotten about. My Mission is to retrieve Christmas ornaments. A medium sized box is shoved into my hands. It says Tree ornament 1962. It's crossed out and Village 1964 is written below it. I examine the box, it is familiar. It is the box the  Christmas Turkey comes in my Dad's job gives away each year. There are several old Turkey boxes filled with ornaments for the tree. The Boxes are piled in front of our exit, yes it is time to retrace your journey. Do You remember climbing somewhere and when it was time to go back down you can't remember how you got up there making it impossible to get down? My older Brother jumps off onto the landing. I imagine the words, "Geronimo" come out of his mouth. He lands with a thud on the upper landing. My Mother goes next telling my brother and I to hand the boxes down to her. She climbs down the ladder it shakes, but does not fall. I gently make my way down onto the landing being careful to place each foot securely onto the next step. I look for places to grab onto . Several years from now a carpenter will put some wood near where I'm going down that make excellent hand holds, but now all I can do is hold onto the floor and hope for the best. The upper landing has never seemed so far away. I blindly stretch out a foot, further and further. The Landing seems to move further and further away. A Toe comes into contact with the wood. tension and fear are replaced by relief. I will not fall today and die.
     In all the years I went up and down the ladder no one ever fell.
     The Christmas tree needs to have a fresh cut to help it take in water during it's two or so weeks it will be up. A fight between my brother and I over who will get to cut the tree was a tradition almost as much as going up stairs to get the decorations. My Brother, being the oldest usually got to cut the stump. In later years it would be mine to do until it was passed to my younger.
     Inpatients was as much a part of the holiday as gift giving. After the tree was in its stand, my Mother had to make sure it was straight and all the L bolts in the stand  were turned as tight as possible. Then a rope or string, whatever was found was used to tie the tree to a nail that had been put in the wall specially for the purpose. A step back was taken  to admire the job, the smell of pine filling the air. Was the Tree tilting any, did it look safe. Had to make sure if the cat jumped into the tree it wouldn't tip over.
     It always seemed easier to set up and decorate the tree. Opening Boxes of ornaments, finding the exact right spot for each, with the joy of Christmas still in the distance, but growing closer. Boxes with Young Tom Turkey embossed on the side, gifts for the Thanksgiving tables of the past from my father's employer filled with all the trimmings of Christmas would be gathered from the attic and piled in front of the tree. A box filled with the village. Houses, a church and light that would light up the houses memories from my mother's childhood.  A box with the nativity. Camels, one with a broken leg, wisemen, shepards, Jesus Mary and Joseph. I always wondered what Joseph felt about all of this, his wife giving birth to the son of God. Did he ever wish God had picked someone else? 
      In the boxes of ornaments were all the traditional ones we'd had for years. Ones my mother had made, a few my dad had brought and some real old ones my mom said were my fathers from when he was young. It's funny in the 60's we bought some cheap ornaments to  put low on the tree so that if the dogs hit them and broke them it would be OK. Now fifty odd years later they are some of the ornaments I treasure the most.
      I've told this story before, but it belongs here too. Back when I moved out of my parents house my mother gave me one of my father's ornaments his family would ut on their tree. I don't know anything about them except they are old. I don't even know if they went on his tree or if they were from Uncle Willie's tree. All I know is they were considered old when I was a kid and when my mom gave me one back in the nineties I vowed to keep it safe for ever. Ever year I would put it up on my tree and when I got married I'd put it up on my wife's and my tree. Then we adopted the girls and I put it proudly on our family tree. Now what happened in about 2015-16 was going to happen one day and Nastia there is never a time I blamed you for what happened. It could have happened to anyone including me. In fact one year it did, but the ornament hung on long enough for me to grab it.
      I think it was 2015, might be another year. We were decorating the tree. Nastia picks up an ornament that is near my dad's. The hook of one of them catches on the other. Like I said it happened to me. This time as the hooked ornaments come up, they seperate and my dad's ornament flies off and hits the hardwood floor shattering into a million pieces. I look at it disbelieving it has shattered so completely. I knew right away what has happened and that it was no ones fault. Nastia is real sorry and apologises to me. I know it is a mistake and I'm not mad, but yes I am sad. It was something I wanted to keep forever, but my daughters are more important than that ornament.
     In the 60's there were two types of bulbs that were used during Christmas. The Large bulbs, about half the size of a banana were the outside only bulbs. The smaller ones about the size of  the size of a good sized grape were for the tree. The Colors were the basic, green, red and blue. Sometime in the early 60's bubble lights were added to the lights on the tree. I could look at a decorated tree, watch the lights blink softy on and off. The Bubble Lights in red, blue, green and yellow bubbling away. Occasionally You'd go over and straighten a Bubble Light that had tilted and wasn't bubbling. They like pinwheel cookies became symbols and to this day invoking warm memories of early Christmases.  I remember sitting on the old Couch in the old living room with my mother watching the newly finished tree. It was a magical time.
      I went to West Nyack Elementary school. Every year the school put on a Christmas play. In it all the kids would sing songs. I always hated it. I didn't like getting up in front of groups of people and having their attention on me. But each year just like Christmas, there was the Christmas play. We also did a Christmas event in Church each year. It was more religious. The play was in the evening near the last day before we had our break. The break was from a few days before Christmas until the Monday after New Years. It was freedom from getting up too early and it meant Christmas was ever so close.
       One year, I must have been four or five my Dad takes me and Karl to go Christmas shopping. We go to John's Bargain Store in Central Nyack. It was located just past Waldron Avenue on the right in the set back strip mall. You enter and the store was filled with wooden bins of toys. I'm sure there were other things there, but I was a kid and all I was interested in were toys. The three of us went one night and my Dad helped us pick out gifts. I don't remember much except realizing to our horror that Karl and I had given my mother the same gift, a night gown. How could our father let us do that. I don't remember ever trying to do something about it. And of course it was one night gown and it was from both of us.

       Christmas eve filled with so much anticipation













       Setting up the Christmas Tree has become a chore. Way back in the before time (When is that?, Well I guess that was when it was fun to put up the Christmas Tree) it was fun to put up the tree.
     Since I have known Teri, she has had something against putting up Christmas Trees. The first year We were together, my Mom gave her a small tree put put up in her apartment. It was a foot or so tall, fake and of little bother. She at first didn't want to take it. She thought since she was not celebrating Christmas their it was not necessary to have any Christmas decorations. She took the tree and put it up in her cramped little Apartment.
     I'd been out of my mother's house for a few years before I met Teri and I'd had a Christmas Tree every year and begun collecting Hallmark ornaments for the tree. More about that later.  The Trees had always been real and full sized. My Mother gave me some ornaments for the family collection to start me off. I chose several of the ornaments that I had memories of putting up on the tree. A bird with faded paint, some thin glass ornaments that when they were bought were felt best put on the bottom of the tree so if the animals knocked them off and broke them who cares. They now held a place of value in my heart. The most important one was an ornament so old the writing was barely legible. It was silver and one of m,y Dad's. I wrote in another blog, in an other life about how I imagined it came to the family and then how It was given to me by my mother and several years ago broken purely by mistake. One of those events, that no matter how you spin it could of happened to you, it just happened to someone else.
Teri's and my First Christmas together she suggested we not have a tree. "Why have one when We are not going to be here" She said. A Valid point, but I wanted one and I needed  one. It wouldn't be festive without one. So We got one. It was a real tree and Teri didn't like the mess of it. Needles falling off it every day, watering it every day and the fire hazard. We came to a compromise, fake one year, real the next. We did it for a few years until one year I thought, "Man real trees are a pain. let's go fake." so We did.
     The Fake Tree we used for years required you to put up a three piece center pole, then take a lower branch, smooth out the needles and limbs, then put it in the correct slot. Each Branch took several minutes to straighten after it had spent eleven months in a bag.
      A new Tree was purchased two years ago. It has two separate strings of lights already hung on it and all you have to do is set up the three pieces of the tree, the branches are pre-hung along with the lights. Of course, you still have to smooth out the needles and branches.
      This piece was not supposed to be the length of 'War and Peace' so I am sorry I have rambled.
      On the night We,Teri decided to set up the tree, a discussion between Teri and I erupted, yes discussions can erupt. It centered on the thought from Teri that the Tree had to be put up on this night.(December 9) before it got too late.
       In fairness We have done a bad job of getting decorations up in a timely manner. We scoff at the people who put them up just after Halloween, We laugh at the amateurs who insist just before Thanksgiving is acceptable. "Fools!!" We decry, "How can You have the Christmas spirit when we have not even celebrated the day of giving thanks declared by Abe Lincoln, himself after the Civil War!" "Cynics, money lenders, Store Owners you all...." I guess I've gone off topic again, sorry.
     After all that decrying, suddenly it's the week before Christmas and We are the only Christian house without lights. Even the Jew have their Hanukkah lights up. So in our hast We put up some lights on the house, never the way it was planned, try to stick stakes in the frozen ground to hold down the light up deer (really feel Christmasey doing that) and finally the tree gets up. After it is all up and We sit back, we wonder why we waited and didn't do it sooner. Ah, life is funny.
     Well, Teri wants to put up the tree on December 9th, Sunday. It had not been a day of rest for me. I started cookie baking because just like the Christmas tree, cookies never seem to get baked like they did back when I was a kid and my mom would set aside a day to do it with us. I started out with my Christmas cookie, the pinwheel cookie. I don't know how or why I associate this non denominational cookie with Christmas except it was baked around Christmas one year and I guess I loved it and decided I needed to have it again when I thought about cookies for Christmas the next year. After that I made Russian nut balls. The Name  get Nastia's attention until she hears nuts are in them. Crazy Kids, one day she will grow up and realize life is incomplete without some nut, relatives or from a tree, it doesn't matter. I thought I was making Teri's favorite Christmas cookie, it was not her's it was her sister's, opps. And finally I made Raspberry chocolate bars, but I put all of the raspberry jam into Nastia's cheesecake that I had, so I used Blackberry Jam. It was almost as good.
       So I guess after all of that I was tired. Plus We went to see a real good movie called......

S

Styles

I became aware of styles as a young kid of maybe six. The Beatles were really about then and they wore these matching suits with no collars. There might be a picture of them on one of there album covers.
      About this time the 'Mod' clothing style came out. I remember it featuring wide belts and what I thought were really cool looking hats. I remember my brother Karl finding it funny that a friends mother had gone out and bought him a Mod style belt, a thick, maybe three inches across and the kid didn't own any Mod pants that the belt would fit. It seemed a week or two later the Mod style was gone and I'd not gotten very much time to participate in it. I'd maybe gotten a few pairs of pants and a belt. Never gotten one of those hats.

Characters of West Nyack

When I was young West Nyack was full of characters. They were so common place I never realized how unique and special that time and they were.
       One of the first that come to mind is not even human. Ranger the horse, who lived at the corner of West Nyack Road and West Street. From my earliest memories until he was gone sometime in the 70's Ranger was part of West Nyack. The house he lived at might have been part of the farm owned by Emil Klein. Emil Klein sold his property, apple orchards and swamp land to a developer in the late fifties, early sixties and the development was born. Adele, Hunter Place, Louise Drive all were part of his property. My earliest memory of the property is in the spring when we went down to the Hackensack River to go fishing and we walked through all the turned up mud. The land had been totally stripped bare of any living plant.
     Ranger was one of the constants in my life, I never thought about him not being there until one day he wasn't. I don't know how long he was gone. I didn't like to walk home from school that way. It was the long way and even though you got to pet Ranger it was not something I did often. It was more likely I'd pass Ranger when I was walking home from Sunday School and I didn't do that often.
Ranger was a very mellow horse. If he was out you could go right up to him and pet him on the nose. Sometimes you could pick up some hay that was scattered around and he'd eat it. He was a good old horse and one of the characters of West Nyack.
         The next character of West Nyack is Louie. I don't know much about him. I don't remember his last name or when he left town. The only memory I have of him is his high pitched voice and the fact he rode a bicycle.
      During the summer, kids being kid, when they saw him riding his bike they would yell out to him in a high pitched voice, "Hey Louie" and Louie being Louie would yell back in his high pitched voice, "yeah, fuck you." Like Ranger, when Louie left town no one noticed.
       Alex Faulk Loss

Sports, but mainly baseball

      Across the Street next to the Marsico's house was an empty lot that Joe Marsico's brother Junnie was supposed to build his house on like Joe did on his lot. Junnie just never got around to it and for many years it was one of the places everyone played baseball. The early years of  baseball on the lot were games filled with four of the five Marsico kids, Karl and I, Louie Lafasciano, sometimes Brian Cockcroft.
     One time my cousin Joe from Queens came up and played baseball. His first time up he got hit by the pitch, so he took first base. Next time up he gets hit with the pitch again. Everyone on the opposing team starts yelling he is trying to get hit to get on base.
     In most games balls would bounce off the side of the Marsico's house. Every time that happened someone would yell, 'Chippsies' which was shorthand for everyone to chip in to fix the damages. No one ever did and the Marsico's, with five boys were tolerant of it even when Louie Lafasciano smacked a wicked line drive off Joe Marsico's driver's side window putting a big crack in it. Louie yelled chippsies as everybody ran.
    We also played ball in the street, in front of the Seagerist's house across from were the swamp touched the road. It's now Phillips Lane. Someone painted first base and third base on the road, probably Gussie Seagerists. We'd go into the swamp to locate some old wall board we called chalk board and would draw home and second in to play. I guess it was our pregame warm up. One time Steve Marsico, I think Mike and myself were playing ball. Steve was up at bat, Mike pitching and I was around second fielding the balls. It was slow and I was not paying attention. I was leaning over with my glove hand hanging loose between my legs, when the ball was pitched. Steve hits a screaming line drive right into my glove. Several inches higher and I could have sung soprano in the choir.

      Behind home plate on the Marsico's field, after Mr. Marsico's burning barrel were the Pine trees; grown to be harvested and sold for a Christmas that never was grew taller and taller each year . In the later years when all the kids seemed to have grown up and it was just Mike and I, we would play wiffle ball. I think Mike invented the version of the game we played. There was no pitcher. The Batter threw the ball up in the air and swung at it. It had to reach a certain point, I believe it was a willow tree to be a single and it had to be on a fly so the fielder could have a fair chance to catch it. A double was past second base. A couple of bricks set in the ground that someone had put in a lifetime ago. A triple was past or at least into the three pin trees near the end of the property. And finally, a home run was out into the street. Some spectacular running catches were made running out into the street robbing the batter of a home run, cars be damned. Back then it was not a suicide trip to run blindly out into the street like it would be today. Back then kids did get hit, we were lucky.
     One game baseball I remember playing in as a young kid of about eight. We'd got full teams of kids. I'd singled and was on first base, It was cold and I was wearing my church or school jacket, a long jacket, I think it might have been my coat for church. The ball was hit and I run to second base and begin to head for third and realize I won't make it and turn around. I slip and fall flat on my face. I struggle like it is life and death flaying around to get back to second. When I get there the team in the field is walking off to hit. I guess I didn't make it back. One of these days I have to ask someone.

     As the years passed the older kids got into other things and baseball interest faded. Mike and I would play Wiffle ball on that field, but it never reveled again in baseball glory like it did in the early to mid-sixties.
      When Mike and I were older, maybe early teens a new generation of kids became available to play baseball. Now instead of Mike and I being the youngest, we were the oldest and set the tone for playing. We played in the back field, as it was called behind my parents house. In the future it would become my garden and then Eric's house, but in the early seventies, it was were we played baseball. The Kids who regularly joined us were the Donovans, Annette, Darleen and Joey, Timmy Sullivan, Eric, my brother, sometimes Kevin, Mike's brother. I might be leaving some kids out because it felt bigger then this small list. Maybe it just felt bigger. Playing baseball back there was safer then running into the street, but back there did bring it challenges. I was a big kid and sometimes I could hit a baseball into the Passenata's backyard on West Street. The people who owned the house facing West Street and backed the field. One time Mike threw the ball from the outfield and I took a swing at it and bounced it off their roof. Mrs Passenata would keep the balls. One time I did ask her for the balls back and she gave them telling me she just didn't want anyone to get hurt.
    The best memory I have of playing baseball at the back field, it's around dusk in the early 70's, we are in the fifteenth or so inning and are leading by some redickulous score of 31 to 27. It's summer, no too hot, we're playing baseball, life is perfect. The Shadows are getting longer, mother's are calling for their kids, my mother whistles instead of yelling for us. Everyone says just one more inning. I get a hit, I'm running the bases. It's fun, it's summer, we're young and life is good. This is why baseball will always be a great game no matter what the owners and the player's association do to ruin it.
Bowling:
      I started Bowling as a young kid. Karl and I would walk to a Saturday morning bowling league from sometime in September, because everything restarted in September, after summer and went on through until late May or early June. We bowled at the King Pin, the largest bowling alley around. It had thirty-two lanes and every weekend September through June it was packed. We bowled in the junior league and teams consisted of four kids, all boys. I don't know if girls bowled then, or if they had a seperate league. Karl and I would walk over to the King Pin in the morning around nine. It was located across the street from Miller Dairies on the site of the Palisades Center. It would be located about right in front of the main doors to the Route 59 side of the Mall.
     A game in the sixties, at that time cost 35 cents, you played three games for a dollar five. I got an allowance of a dollar fifty. After paying for bowling I had forty-five cents left enough to buy some candy with what remained.
     The average I remember having, I don't remember the year was 45. I was not a great bowler. I'd start on the right side of the lane, stagger step toward the left as I went forward and throw the ball somewhere down the center of the lane, if my aim was good, if not, into the gutter.
     My Style changed over the years, the stagger step went, I moved over to the left side of the alley. I developed a curve, because everyone said left handers have a natural curve, so I had to. As I got older I got a fingertip ball because everyone said they were better.
     Once when I was getting a new bowling ball the guy drilling the finger holes asked if I wanted a fingertip grip, I said yes. That was how I started using a fingertip grip. I knew it was the grip pros used so I figured why not. Sometime in 2017 or so I looked up on the internet how to bowl with a fingertip bowling ball. Why did I waited so long.
       In my late teens and early twenties I'd watch the pro bowling tour to pick up tips. That is where I learned to bowl to a mark on the lane, not the pins. How to get a seven pin being a lefty and a lot of other great things. Still even during this time of my life I was only an Okay bowler. I averaged in the 150's. Mike, Rob and I would go bowling when we were about seventeen, again at the King Pin and we would do this every Saturday around Seven at night.
       One Night, We were about seventeen someone, it wasn't me goes to the bar and gets a drink. After that the other two of us get up the nerve to do the same. After that bowling took on a different meaning. We'd start bowling, if we bowled bad, we'd start drinking early, if we bowled good we'd start drinking later. We became regulars at the bowling alley. We got to know the people at the concession stand. There was this one girl who worked it on Saturday nights who I thought was nice. I'd get food there and she was friendly, but not in that way and I was friendly hoping she would be friendly in the way I wanted. It never happened.
       I don't remember how it started, but we decided to get a trophy. Who ever had the best scores for the night got the trophy. We called it the Champ Of the Week or C.O.W. Mike and I went to the trophy store in New City, yes there really was one and purchased a trophy.
       I rarely if ever won the trophy. One night after I'd won it for the first time in a very long time and after I'd been drinking, I think Mike drove us home that night in his Oldsmobile, I get out of the car with the trophy in a bag. I don't want to lose my grip on it so I toss it up in the air a little bit a catch it and have a better grip. This is something I always used to do and never had any problem doing it. This time I was drunk and only paying partial attention to what I was doing and yes, I missed it. It lands on the tar of Mike's driveway and breaks. The first time I'd had the trophy in months and I break it. I take it to the trophy store in New City, yes there was one and he fixes it up and it look better than it originally was. Rob and Mike liked the new way it looked and for several weeks they asked me if I'd break other things they own so I could get them repaired. Bowling on Saturday nights eventually ended like all things it just sort of faded away. And we went on to do other things.
       Around the time we turned sixteen Mike got himself a car. It just so happened that Yankee Stadium was being rebuilt. We decide to go down and take some pictures of the stadium. We head down the Deagen and miss the exit. My in my panic takes a picture as we pass. We circle around and park. We are walking around the Stadium and a construction guy sees us and asks us if we want to come in and take some pictures. We are thrilled to death and scared. We walk in behind home plate take a handful of pictures and leave. We were too scared to wander around the ballpark and take all the pictures I could image taking now. One of the biggest regrets of my life. If I ever invented a time machine that would be the first place I'd want to go. I'd never go to Dallas in 1963, I read Stephen King's book 1963 and I know that doesn't work out to well.
       The Stadium opens and we start taking trips down there. I don't remember the first trip to the rebuilt Stadium really. I think it was a day game.
        I remember the first and only playoff game I ever went to. It was in the 70's, the Yankees were playing Kansas City and it was at night. During the day Madeline, Karls wife says she has two tickets her Dad got and I'm thinking she is going to give them to me. I am heart broken when she says she is going to the stadium. Then out of nowhere and I don't remember where, two more tickets become available. I don't know who's they were or where they came from. I think Bobby Hamilton, Ruth's first husband had something to do with them. I call Mike and off we go. The Yankees won the game and went on to win the World Series, it was a great year. I think it was 1977 or 1978.
      I've detailed somewhere else how at the drop of a hat we'd decide to go to a Yankee game. Games started at 8 PM. Sometime around 5 PM we'd stop in a Ken Lemm's Deli and get roast beef heros. Back then the price of that sandwich was $3.75, now when I get one it's $10.50. We'd head down to the stadium and I don't ever remember telling my mother we were going. We'd get down there and it was all different then it is now.
      Back in the old old stadium, the original I remember going down with Mike and his dad. We went to the ticket booths and Mr. Marsico would ask what's the best you have. The ticket guy would hold out a large hand filled with dozens of slim white tickets. Tickets that would send my mind racing. What amazing seats would he have for us to sit in. Maybe a place close enough to catch a foul ball or get an autograph.
        One time in the early 80's I did get close enough to get an autograph. His name was Rick Stelmazick. He signed it Stellie or something like that. He was a catcher, I think. He was never up long enough for me to learn to spell his name correctly or remember what position he played..
      Another time he had press passes. I remember being Phil Mushnick or maybe it was Phil Peppe as we walked in. Knowing full well a pimply faced teenager looked nothing like either one of them I kept eyes straight ahead so as not to make eye contact with anyone who might take umbrage at my use of one of the Phil's press passes. No one cared, it was just what was done. It was all different then, more relaxed.
      When Mike, Rob and I would get down to the stadium, we'd park in the new parking garages that now seemed to ring the stadium. We'd buy tickets at the ticket booth just like his father used to and I always felt that the ticket guy was holding out on us. The seats were good, but there must have been some tickets he was hiding in his pocket for 'special people', people who'd ask for them or maybe pay a little extra for them. Now I might ask if he had any tucked away for 'special people' and how could I get them.
       After tickets, we'd walk up to the gate, hand our tickets over to the ticket taker and walk in, just like that. No bag search or metal detector to walk through. Back then we were all a little more sane then we are now. Once in the stadium, straight ahead behind a little lectern like structure was the score card guy. He'd be singing out, "Scorecard Peen-sel, Scorecard Peen-sel" We'd usually buy a scorecard and score the game. It would cost somewhere around a dime or maybe as much as a quarter. It was thin and had a few articles and ads in it. In the middle was the score card. It would list ten or twelve inning incase the game went to extra innings. Once I scored a game that went fifteen innings, the longest I'd ever gone to, it was exhausting and not so much fun after a while, but I started it and I was going to finish it.
       Beer and food was sold at a few kiosks around the park and by venders walking around the park.
Beer, as I said in another blog posting was some swill I didn't like like Ballantine beer. You got the time, we got the beer, oop, that's Miller beer. Ballantine's got the flavor that says, hey friend do it again, Ballantine beer. Their logo was three interlocking rings like what a cold glass of beer would leave on a bar if it was put down  three times. The beer at the stadium was sold in paper cups with plastic tops and cost something like $3.75.  Venders would walk around the stadium with large racks filled with cups of beer, all were yelling beer here, get your beer here. At the West Nyack Inn I cold get a glass of beer for two bucks. What they sold you at the stadium was twice the size, but it was also almost four time the price. And there was no seventh inning shut off a sales. I don't think drunks were more civilized back then, it was just the powers that be and 'other types' hadn't taken notice. We'd drink, we'd sing along with the national anthem. Rob doing is best Robert Merrill. Robert Merrill, I think was an opera singer and a big Yankee fan. He'd sing the national anthem, then take in a game in premium seats. I'd do that any day in his position. Billy Joel would take in games, he'd occasionally include them in his songs. Paul Simon would be there too sometimes. I was never there when they were though. The later half of the 70's and most of the 80's were amazing.
       After the game, thoroughly trashed we'd head for the car. We were in no hurry. The parking garages were never made to let people exit quickly. They were made to keep the Yankees in the Bronx. We'd hang out at the car mostly playing beer can hockey. And yes it was what it sounds like. We had a beer can crushed down for a puck, Mike was always the goalie and Rob and I would kick the can towards the goal which was the cement wall at the end of a parking spot recently vacated by someone who thought the best way to leave the stadium was to get in the line of cars as quickly as possible and wait. When traffic thinned, we'd get in the car and head home.
      I remember the last game I went to in the original stadium. I was young, maybe fifteen or so. I got it into my head that I wanted to go. The first thing I needed was a driver. I asked around and my cousins husband at the time Tommy Mezzasalma agreed. Now I needed to see who might want to go. I don't remember all the specifics of it except that I bought tickets, a bunch of them and suddenly at the last moment people are not wanting to go. I don't remember who the original group was supposed to be, but it ended up that Tommy's sons, Mikey and Tommy were going, then Tommy wasn't. I told big Tommy that I had no one else for the ticket, si he told Tommy he had to go. My cousin Kenny went and I had a ticket for my best friend Mike to go and for some reason Mike the biggest Yankee fan ever didn't want to go. The group of us went down, I don't remember parking, I just remember having a camera and taking as many pictures as I could think to take. I wanted to remember and record as many things about the original stadium as possible. We sat in the upper deck on the third base side, the nosebleed seats. They were considered box seats and cost four dollars a seat. Remember this was 1972 and a six pack of soda in cans cost $1.25. I don't remember who won. I used the pictures for a scrap book I had going about the rebuilding of the stadium. I have it stuck in with all the family history stuff. It had a white cover on it. As of 2019 the cover is loose and on the verge of falling off.
       I don't remember the last game I went to at the rebuilt Yankee Stadium.
The first game in 2009 when I went to the latest incarnation of Yankee stadium, I went with Mike and we sat behind the plate in the very last row. The back of our seats touched the design at the top that you see outside. It was a great day being there. That whole year the stadium was sold out and those seats were the only ones we could get. We walked around the stadium before the game. I'd wanted to see batting practice and maybe see if I could get a ball hit into the stands, but the stadium doesn't open up that early any more. When we got in we walked around discovering all the wonders of the new stadium. The Museum, that was not open and I think you needed tickets to get into and Monument Park that closed a half hour before the game started. We missed going to both the first time there. It took several years to get to Monument Park (2017 I think) and just this year (2019) we got to the park extra early with tickets to go visit the museum and have a hands on tour. Yes we got to touch Babe Ruth's jersey as well as Aaron Judge's. At the end of that first game in 2009 at the new stadium Mike and I continued to walk around me taking more pictures. About a half hour into our walk we are asked to leave. I don't remember that in the old stadium, maybe it was true. In the past We'd leave the stadium when our beer was gone and we couldn't get more.
      During the last 70's We were able to get tickets to opening day. Somewhere around, probably in the family history, Yankee stadium branch is a blue opening day coffee cup I got celebrating the Yankees hoisting their championship banner. The day and the cup were sponsored by a radio station I listened to, I thought that was a little cool. It was all about me and my generation then. Don't get used to it, it'll all change.
      I had always wanted to join a baseball team. I tried once when I was leaving the bowling alley one Saturday morning, I guess I was ten or twelve. I rode my bike around back of the King Pin which faced a side road and Dexter Press which faced Rt 303. The Dexter Press baseball field this morning was filled with kids in uniforms. I got up the nerve to talk to the coach and asked him if I would be able to join. Looking back on it now the tone of voice and the hesitancy in his voice was saying you're too late. His word were that I'd need to get a parents permission then something about getting on a team, but I'd quit listening, I wanted to join.
       The one time I did get on a baseball team was when I was sixteen, the last year I would have been eligible to play. It was a summer league. I don't remember how it all started, I think one person on the team wanted to play baseball and there wasn't a team for him, so he asked around and collected us. I loved playing on the team. My problem was I was so in my head and scared that I couldn't do my best. The final game of the year was scheduled for Labor Day, so all summer we'd practice at the Bardonia school field. During that time I got comfortable and was regularly hitting balls onto the roof of the school. Once I pitched batting practice. To be a wise guy to Mike I threw him a curve. The coach was catching. I threw a real good one and unfortunately for Mike I made him look bad. I did get a wow from the coach. I have always thought that if I wasn't so scared and so in my head about things I might have been good at baseball. All I needed was a little guidance and a whole mess of therapy. I never got the guidance. Therapy, I got a whole mess of that later in life, fourteen years of it.
       Now the big day of the game comes and I hear Mike can't make it, Rob and Louie aren't going. Suddenly my whole support group has disappeared. And just as suddenly I'm not going. I wasn't prepared to go to that game without my friends. I needed them to feel comfortable enough to go out on the field and perform with a level of comfort.
       Later in life it would hit me again. I would be dating Michele and her grandfather would die and the wake would be in the Bronx. I had just attended the wake of Rob's grandfather, both nights. So when I didn't show up to my girlfriend's grandfather's wake she and her father were not very happy with me. Later I would explain to her how I had someone to go with me to the wake for Rob and I didn't with her grandfather's. I think she understood because she continued to go out with me. Her father must have too because I never noticed him angry at me. But then again I didn't notice a lot back then.
In the 70's I lived and died by the Yankees. My mom could always tell whether the Yankees won or lost by the mood I was in. 
 I didn't know in 1972 what the reserve clause was and I really didn't care. Curt Flood and Dave McNally were dirtbags who didn't sign contracts and were taking away from my enjoyment of the game. I was a kid is my only defence. To this day I have very mixed feelings about what Flood and McNally did. In 1972 ballplayers were making good salaries. Bobby Mercer a semi star for the Yankees made $100 thousand dollars. Back then it was good money. I remember people complaining that only Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle should make that kind of money. Somewhere around this time Flood and McNally were declared free agents and baseball changed forever. That first year of free agency was a little crazy. A ball player called Lymon Bostock signed with the California Angels for 2.3 Million over six years. He hit terrible that year. All the pressure of this new big contract.

After the 1977 season ended, Bostock became one of baseball's earliest big-money free agents, and signed with the California Angels, owned by Gene Autry.^[12] Bostock had made $20,000 with the Twins in 1977 and signed a 2.3 million, six year contract with the Angels. The Twins, Padres and Yankees had all tried to sign Bostock.^[3] Almost immediately, Bostock donated $10,000 to a church in his native Birmingham, Alabama to rebuild its Sunday school.

The 1978 season started off poorly for Bostock; he batted .150 for the month of April. Bostock met with the team's management and attempted to return his April salary, saying he had not earned it.^[13] The team refused, so Bostock announced he would donate his April salary to charity.^[13]

"He came into my office and told me he was reluctant to take his salary," Angels' general manager Buzzy Bavasi recalled. "He said, 'I'm not doing my job.' But I told him, 'I won't let you do that.' And he says, 'Why not?' So I told him, 'What if you hit .600 next month? You're sure as hell not getting any more money out of me.' "^[4]

Not to long after that he was shot to death.

It's funny how memories can be wrong. I remember Lymon Bostock signing with the Milwaukee Brewers and over the whole year he batted poorly. The one thing I learned when I looked him up was when he died the world lost a really good person. He was always looking to donate some money to someone or something in need. Bostock's salary during that contract was about $300,000 a year. Baseball's league minimum is now over $550,000.00

In the early 80's I went to as many games as I could. It was affordable and I had the time. The later 80's when some of my friends were getting married and moving away I still watched the Yankees on TV. I admit I was drifting away a little during that time, but it was also about how the teams was unremarkable in the late 80's. I bought a signed baseball from a Hungerthon broadcast one day on the radio in the late 80's. I gave it to Mike as a gift when he was my best man at my wedding a few years later. It was signed by I think all the 1986 or maybe 1988 Yankees. It was largely a group of forgettable names. At the time I gave it to him I thought it was a great gift. Not a bunch of nobodies.

The strike of 1994-95 changed my love of the game forever. The details may have become hazy, but all the feelings of anger and bitterness have stayed. Two groups of millionaires not getting along. The loss of the World Series, the premature end of the baseball season left a big hole that to this day (2019) I still don't feel has healed. Baseball once was a game kids played and they grew up and they played it for the love of it. I remember baseball stars in the 60's saying they got their real estate licenses so they could earn money in the off season. That was someone who I thought loved to play the game and made the sacrifice for it. I'm not saying the owners were innocent either. A bunch f rich guys forgetting why they might have once loved the game. Charles Comiskey owner of the White Soxes, who had a stadium named after him for a while in my book is one of the worst abusers. He paid his players so little that they threw the 1919 World Series. I know its is a long time ago, but he forgot that it was just a game that kids played. I love watching the movie A Field of Dreams, because when Joe Jackson talks about what it was like to walk onto a ball field the smell of the leather, the feel of the sun on your back and to have that all taken away from you always kills me. 
My live of the game comes from the feeling I got when my bat would solidly connect with a baseball. There is no feeling in the world like it that satisfaction of wood hitting rawhide, the power of that slice of ash connecting with that ball of twine. When I would play and get a hit like that I'd sometimes stand there and watch it go. It was a beautiful thing that ball heading skyward against a bright blue sky over a field of green grass. It would start to arch and head down toward the distant grass and someone behind me would yell 'run!' and I'd take off. Every muscle in my body filled with the joy of hitting that ball so far and round each base while players in the outfield ran after the ball.
One summer day I was playing softball with the West Nyack Firehouse. I don't remember where, but I connected on a pitch just like the one I just described. I watched it arch down the right field line a beautiful shot. I stood admiring it until someone yelled run I raced around the bases gravity kept me on the ground, but resistance in front of me had stopped. I flew at an unnatural speed until I'd almost caught Bobby Hamilton who was on base. My foot slammed onto home plate with a triumphal  thud a few seconds before an errant throw unleashed by the second baseman bounced against the metal backstop in a last ditch attempt to stop me from scoring. I swear to god that is how I remember it. It may not have been that dramatic or I may not have raced around the bases at an unnaturally quick pace, but I did hit the ball real far and it was a home run and Bobby Hamilton was on base and it was the best hit ball I can remember I ever got. But the best for me was yet to come. George Drescher, the son of a major leaguer would later say that the way I swung the bat was really good. or something like that. He thought I did it well. It's funny I remember he said something very nice about how I swung the bat and I can't remember what it was, only that it was something really nice. And I had studied the mechanics of a baseball swing, so I was very pleased to hear him say that.
WATCHING BASEBALL AND THE WORLD SERIES 
Back in the sixties and seventies the World Series played games during the day. I remember watching a game in 1969 between the Mets and the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore went ahead and I finally ventured to tell a classmate I was rooting for the Orioles. I think just after that the Mets staged another one of their miracle comebacks and won the game.
FOOTBALL
I loved football as a kid. I played touch football in the backfield, over at the Marsico's field. Usually it was teams of two on two. Eric and I against Kevin and Mike in the later years. In the early years Steve was involved, Dennis Sullivan played in the early seventies. I remember his family moved to West Nyack from the Bronx sometime around 1970 or so. His sister Ann,a girl in later years I wanted to ask out was was alway afraid to was friends with Ruth. Tim, his younger brother was Eric's friend. I wasn't friends with Dennis. He was a bit of a bully and he was bigger and older then I was. He'd always call me Baby Joey. When he was thirteen or so we'd play football and when we were on the same team we'd huddle up, you know like in professional football. I remember he'd smell and the smell always reminded me of Lipton Chicken Noodle soup. Well I quit eating Lipton Noodle Soup. Eventually he'd start using deodorant. 
In later years Dennis would get a van and park it somewhere and drink. Sometimes Mike and I would walk by and he'd say, "Mike, why don't you and Baby Joey come over and have some beer with me." We were fifteen and didn't drink yet. I always expected that Dennis, who was called 'Sully' by then would end up dead at a young age. A few years later he surprised everyone and enlisted in the service. He served for years, got married, had kids and life seemed good until he messed up his back. A few years ago when we all got together to celebrate Steve Marsico's life, he could come because of his back. His wife came and I could believe how everyone had gotten do old. I knew all those people as kids and young 20 somethings, not fity, sixty somethings.
In the sixty-six or sixty-seven on New Year's day I went to Miller Dairy with my dad. I don't know if he had the day off or not, but I remember taking a trip over to the dairy. During our travels I kept hearing about something called the Super Bowl. The Cowboys and the Packers were playing if memory serves and as I found out about Lymon Bostock it doesn't always. The score seemed to go back and forth. I'd maybe watch a few minutes of it or hear about it on the radio. I didn't root for a team and during that game I debated back and forth which team I liked better. First it was one then the other. I think I settled on the Cowboys because of their name and they might have been leading at one point. That is the way I became a Cowboy fan until the Giants got good during the 80's.
I remember when Mike worked at Lemm's during the late seventies we'd watch the game in the backroom of the deli. Near the end of the second quarter we'd try and time our order for Nanuet Restaurant pizza. Wait times back then were bordering on an hour to an hour and a half. When the first half ended, I'd race up to Nanuet Restaurant and try to get back before the start of the second half. We'd enjoy the pizza during the second half. Back then the Super Bowl was not such an event and the starting time was usually about four in the afternoon. Which meant the game ended at a reasonable time not like now.













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TV's

Mr. Segerist, a neighbor was a TV repair men. I remember him coming over to the house to fix the TV . This was the day of TV's with large tubes in the back. He would come over and say, "OK, whats wrong with the set?" He would then proceed to take the back of the set off and find the tube
, normally the one with all the black inside and replace it. It was usually a very simple thing to do and it was with just such a sense of relief and joy to again be able to turn on the TV and have it work. The Picture would not flutter or roll any more. (Yeah, I know you have no idea what I'm talking about now, just wait I got more)
     Sometimes to help Us get a better picture Mr. Segerist would sometimes stick a wire hanger in the rabbit ears. (Yeah, You want to know what rabbit ears are, and maybe even what a TV is? I'll answer the first one, because in 2018 when I am writing this rabbit ears are a relic of the distant past TV's not yet.)
     Old time TV programs were beamed over the air from antennas on top of the Empire State building, later the first World Trade Center, both being the highest points from where the signal came from. To receive the signal you needed an antenna. Our original one on our black and white TV was put on the ceiling of the sun porch (now the front part of my Mom's bedroom) It had two positions you could put it. A slightly north/ south position and a slightly east/ west position. It had a clicker in the middle of the antenna that changed something sometimes making the picture better. If that didn't work, you switched the position of the antenna on the ceiling.
The first TV I remember was a black and white set with the channel selector on the side. The Selector had a dial around the outer edge of the selector, which was supposed to help make the picture better, it would help fine tune the picture.  Now a selector would turn the channels from one to the next. The biggest Headache was when the selector started to got bad. Old Sets were like tuning in a radio (Really? You don't know what tuning in a radio is either?) With a bad selector sometimes you could tape it to make it work. Most times, no TV.
The stations we had were WCBS, channel 2, WNBC channel 4, WNEW channel 5, WABC channel 7, WOR channel 9,WPIX channel 11 and WNET channel 13, the big local non profit PBS station Channel 2, 4 and 7 aired original programs that started the week after Labor day in September and ran uninterrupted until the first week or two of June. No repeats, if you missed a show, you would never get the chance to see it, well you might get to see it after it had gone off the air and would be aired years later on channel 5, 9 or 11. Channel 9 used the saying, 'the best of all seasons' in the early 70's. Those were the VHF channels, which stood for Very High Frequency.
     The Weird channels were on UHF, which stood for Ultra High Frequency.

This is were the very small local channels would hide out and all the small, what would later become known as PBS stations were. On our first color TV, the UHF stations were on the lower selector. You would turn the upper one past channel 13 and then you could use the lower one to find the UHF stations. They never came in very good and the selector never had that click were you knew you were going from one station to the next. You just had to turn the selector until you came across something. And when you hadn't come across a station in the last several minutes you'd stop figuring you'd come to the end of the UHF stations. UHF TV was more important to more rural areas I believe.
    The Yankees were on channel 11 in the sixties and seventies. They aired several dozen games a year. Same for the Mets who aired on channel 9. One Year, channel 11 aired a news program they were very proud of  that ended at 8 PM.The Yankees decided to switch starting time of the games from 8 pm to 7:30. WPIX threatened to join the games in progress. Everyone was how dare you. WPIX ended the drama by ending their new program early.
            Sometime in the early 1970's We got our first color TV. Everyone else in the neighborhood had one by then. There would be no more going over to Uncle Ken's house when the Wizard of Oz was on to be amazed by the change from the black and white of Kansas to the amazing color of Oz. There would be no more friends saying, "You didn't know Beatty Jo's hair on Petticoat Junction was red?" Finally the NBC peacock announcing 'the following program is brought to you in living color' would mean something. It was all just too beautiful.
      Later in the 1970's I'd take the old Black and White, there was nothing wrong with it and bring it into my room over in the front part of the sun porch and the old master bedroom and I'd stay up sometimes to three in the morning watching old TV programs like 'One Step Beyond' the precursor to the Twilight zone. Yeah, it all means nothing to you, go look up the Twilight Zone with Rod Serling, not any of the remakes, it was a good show. It'll look a little dated, but once you get past that it is better than One Step Beyond. For several Years I'd watch that TV until one day when I was changing my room around, something I liked to do every so often, I hit the back of the set and broke the end of the picture tube. It was the end of the line for a TV that by that time was at least twenty years old 195?-1978.
     With no TV in my room I got the great idea to go out and buy myself a color TV. In the Living Room we had a huge, at the time 19 inch TV. I didn't think it was right for me to go out and buy a set that was bigger then that so I purchased, I believe from Sears a 17 inch Sylvania TV. I would keep this set until the 90's when I'd move to Stony Point and buy a huge 38 inch TV. What made all these TV's huge was the TV tube. And the size of sets were limited to the size and weight of the TV tubes. Once TV went flat screen and tubes were obsolete sizes of TV's were only limited by your imagination and room.
       When I moved to Stony Point the 17" TV went into my Video Store. I don't know what happened to it after that. It was a good set, never a problem 1978-1990?.
     My Apartment in Stony Point was the third floor of an old house. It was spacious and if you watched the peaks and corners a great place to live. I setup my TV on a stand I bought from an antique reproduction store in Nyack in the early 90's, when I thought I had money. When I put the 17" set on it it didn't look right. So immediately I knew the answer, a bigger TV. I purchased a 34" tube set and I lived in a third floor walk up.There were several steps to the deck, then two or so flights of stairs up to my apartment. I was in great shape in the early 90's I hauled stacks of milk around all day so I figured it was no big deal to carry this set up to my apartment. The Stairs onto the deck were no problem. There were maybe six? I then had to set the TV down to unlock open my door. I didn't plan this very well.  I pick up the set. Now I haven't described the set too much up to now. When it was picked up,you knew it. It was a very heavy set. Modern sets come in a thin cardboard box with a handle. This set was almost square. The tube most of been at least 20" deep.It was made of glass, plastic and metal. It weighted probably over 100 pounds, or maybe I think it did, because half way up those stair I had to stop and lean the set against the wall. I wasn't going to put it down and then have to pick it back up. I catch my breath and stagger up the last of the stairs, then slide it onto the floor a few steps short of the landing,where it stayed for a while. I was spent.
     When Teri and I moved into Nyack, the set came with us. It worked without a problem for the nine years we were there. When We moved to Congers I thought I'd be smart.I took the set out of the rental truck, put it on a hand truck and rolled it to the steps in front of the house. I leaned the hand truck back and began to pull the set up the stairs. I was feeling very smart I had the set,with minimal effort almost to the top of the stairs,when the hand truck leaned a little more up right then it should have.

The TV, never really secure on the hand truck leaned out, the screen looked at me from a moment, it reflected a dawning of the horror that was happening. I reached toward the set over the hand truck.The Set tried to grab my hand knowing what it's fate would be, but it had no hands and I missed the set. It rolled down the cement stairs to the bottom, mostly in one piece. I hustled down the stairs, but he was dead before I reached him. A major crack ran across the screen and he was gone, RIP 1990-2003.
     My Wife, that wonderful women went out for Christmas a month later and got me, us a TV exactly like the old one, except newer. A few months later it seemed they came out with flat screen TV's.
     With a brand new 34" TV,a new flat screen had to wait. It waited until one day, maybe around 2010, Teri was in Costco and called me."Hey, the flat screen TV's (that's all they sold now) are really cheap want to get one?" All I had to say was yes. So I did the spouse thing, "If You want." Well, She wanted it as much as I did. It was a forty odd inch set, beautiful. The old tube set, that had never given me an ounce of trouble, just like his father, he was set to the curb on junk day 2003-2010.
       On my fiftieth birthday in 2008 Teri threw me a great surprise party at a restaurant that was once in the original Nanuet Mall it was called Banchettos Feast. Everyone gave me money for turning fifty, like it was a miracle. If you read the entry sex, drugs and rock and roll, maybe it was. Well I put all that money, a nice size sum at the time together and bought a TV with it. It was a name brand, had a great picture and like all the other things in my life I did no research into it, As of 2019 it still sits in our bedroom working great but of course, then they came out with smart TVs.
   

 

Transportation

How We got around in the good old days? Good question, glad you asked.
     As I have said in other posts, that you may or may not have read, we didn't have a car when I was young. Well We did, but We didn't. The earliest Car I remember being in was a 1950's black station wagon my Aunt Emilie owned. She would occasionally come by to take my mother shopping. I guess it was around 1962-63, maybe. The Car was huge, at least to a kid my age. I could stand up on the floor in front of the back seat near my mom. Yes that was before the seat belt law. We had em then, but they were things that no one used and everyone wondered why they were ever put in a car. Aunt Emilie's car didn't have them.
      I remember my first trip to Nyack was on a bus. We were going to Woolworth's on Main Street. I guess I was five or six. To Me, a kid that walked the empty streets of West Nyack, Nyack was the city with it's hustle and bustle and it's traffic. Teri, my wife who grew up in Nyack laughs at me every time she can when I say that.  Nyack was a whole different world. We took the Red and Tan Line buses, now taken over by a bigger company from a forgotten corner. The Bus would pick us up at the corner of Old Route 59 and Klein Avenue, I think. We would take a ride into a different world. The Bus would turn onto Western Hwy. go under Route 59, then swing on to the road in a right hand loop. At that time Route 59 was still a small town road. It was two lanes each direction divided by a grass median and at certain section of the road there were crossovers. So if you were going east on 59 and wanted to turn around you would take a crossover between the west and east bound lanes.
     In Nyack, building were on both sides of the road going two and sometimes three stories high. In West Nyack, it was just houses and fields. Just before getting off the Bus at the corner of Broadway and Main Street, on the right side was the Federal Government's answer to urban decay, it was called Urban renewal. The Federal Government would tear down old buildings thinking they were long past their usefulness. What lay on the lot between South Franklin Ave and the next street going east was a rubble strewn lot. Later buildings would go up, but they lacked the charm of what Nyack had been.

The Pick up was something like this, just blue

      My Dad also, around that time had a blue Ford pick up truck. A single seat job not really good for a growing family. The only memory of being in the pick up was during the summer when we went over to Conger's lake off of Route 9W, somewhere over near where the lake gets close to the road to go fishing. In 2018 the Fire Department is across the street. There is a Restaurant and a garage or two on the property now. I don't know what it was then, but it was open and a dock pushed out into the lake. We went out on the dock to fish. My Dad, Karl and I. I remember having a bag of chips with me and sitting on the dock, but I don't remember a pole. My Dad went to talk to the owner of the property or talk to a friend or something. I just remember being on the end of the dock and my bag of chips falling into the water. I reach down to get them out of the water and suddenly I'm in the water too. I'm kicking my feet, struggling, panicking and suddenly I felt like I'm flying. My Dad has me and everything is OK. Well, according to everyone who remembers the incident everything was not OK with me, I wanted my chips and they were still in the water. Karl remembers the incident too he says I am remembering the wrong lake. Swarthout Lake is on Route 9W and Congers' Lake is on Route 303. Karl remembers we were there just a short while and didn't get to fish before I fell in and that Daddy was mad. If He appeared mad, I'd like to think he was just scared. He wraps me in a blanket and carries me to the truck.
I stand next to my Dad on the seat of the Pick up as we drive home and then he carries me inside to the kitchen. I don't know what is real and what is a fabrication in that story, but it's what I remember.
    After, my Dad gets rid of his pickup truck, he proceeds to bring home a series of cars all great deals and all standard shift cars my Mom can't drive. She never learns to drive a standard. I have one memory of her driving the pick up from our house to the farm in Nanuet. She would get to the corner of  Old Route 59, just off what is now called Route 304 and pulls the truck off to the side of the road tired of grinding the gears and frustrated trying to shift. We would walk the final quarter mile to the Farm. In the early sixties the trip there was on an empty road and it was not dangerous. Wally would drive us home. When it happened, it didn't seem strange and I don't remember being concerned how my mother was grinding the gears.
     During this time My Mom would cart the three or four of us around to different places by bus mostly. I remember one time taking a taxi home from Grants in Nanuet and my mom having to go inside the house to get some money for the ride while we waited in the Taxi like hostages.
     As the Sixties grew later, I guess it was 1967 or so, my Mom buys my brother Karl a go cart. I think it was blue. Something that was once such a huge part of my life has faded into such obscurity. Our backyard, during that time was transformed into a figure eight race track for go carts, or maybe it was just an oval.. The Track would go around the big Maple near the house, head along the driveway, go down an incline and turn back heading over near the sand pile and the old swing set. I think neighbors bought their go karts over, I'm not sure. I do remember driving it and driving it often.
    My cousins Billy and Kenny got a go cart and put a motorcycle engine on it.They would have to start it using an electric motor and a fan belt. When it got going it was loud and smoky. It would only occasionally be seen. I don't know how or why it ended.
       One Day Karl took the lawn mower, put it on the lowest setting and cut a grass, soon to be dirt oval track in the backfield. Karl and his friends, all two to four years older than me began racing mini bikes or motorcycles around the back field, it's a little hazy. Brian Cockcroft,Tommy Martin and a few other would race on the dirt track.
       I do remember Karl getting a motorcycle and him giving me a ride on it in the backfield (the yard outside the back fence where we would play baseball and football using Uncle Ken's redwood pool as a backstop and where the swamp was. I was scared of the motorcycle, but not wanting to be a chicken when my brother offered to take me for a ride, I held onto him as he starts the bike and begins to gain speed. Heading into the first turn around Uncle Ken's redwood pool into the mud of the first turn we wipe out. Picking myself up, dusting myself off I get the courage to tell him I've had enough. Motorcycles became an older kids enjoyment.
     Go Karts morphed into motorcycles for my brother as the other kids in the neighborhood went to minibikes. Minibikes, if you don't know were small motorcycles for kids. They would gather together after school and go down to the mountain where the Palisades Center is now located and ride around there. The only problem with that was they had to ride their minibikes on the roads and sidewalks to get there, People would begin to complain and the Police would get involved and eventually everyone grew up and that too disappeared.
      Karl was the first one into cars and I sort of followed. I never had the money to buy motorcycles and cars. My Brother had a job, so he did.
    My brother Karl once bought a 1968 dark blue fastback Mustang. It didn't work and sat on the northside next to our house for a while. One day out of the blue Karl says to me, "When I get it fixed I'm going to let you drive it." I was sixteen, it was 1974. So the first thing I did the next day was to invite my friend Mike to sit in it and show it off to him. I'm sitting behind the wheel, he's in the passenger seat. It's a great car. My Mom leans out the back door and tells me to get out of my brother's car. The magic of the moment begins to fade. It continues to fade more as time goes by and the car continues to sit. It fades to black a few weeks or is it months later when the car is sold and towed out of the yard. Oh those teenage dreams.
     The first time I was allowed to drive a car I was maybe twelve? My Dad and I are in the driveway on the south side of the house, I'm behind the wheel for some reason and the car needs to be moved. It's 1970-2 and we own a Ford town and country station wagon. It is one of the biggest care on the road at the time. I begin to get out to let him move the car when he says "You can move the car." I must of smiled the biggest smile in my life at that moment. I'd only dreamed of  driving as something far away, like being grown up. One day it would happen, just not today. My brother Karl had only just begun to learn to drive, now it was my turn to get behind the wheel. I start the car. I'd been starting the car and warming them up on cold winter mornings for a while now, never moving it. My heart beats a little faster as I put my foot on the brake and slide the on the column automatic down to D. The Door of the car remained open, it was being moved such a short distance. I gently touch the gas with my foot, the car's engine doesn't seem to notice, RPM's stay steady. I push a little harder and everything seems to speed up, I'm moving! The Car starts to roll the ten feet it needs to move. For me the excitement is all consuming. I've covered a few feet and my Dad is encouraging me to go a little faster. I'm trying to make the car go a little faster, but my foot can't press the petal any harder. Finally the car is where it needs to be and my dad tells me to stop. I touch the brake and the car jolts to a stop and my first time driving is over. I didn't break any land speed records that day, though to me I was moving at an amazing speed.
     I was about fourteen when I started driving the driveway in our car upstate, when we'd leave to go to town. My Mom would always say that it was best if as many people as possible could drive if something ever happened to her. I would drive down the driveway and stop before I got onto the public dirt roads, getting experience driving.
     When the Girls came over from Russia, I cheated a bit and let them drive on the dirt roads like in that Bruce Springsteen song 'My Hometown'
 I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick and steer as we drove through town
He'd tousle my hair and say son take a good look around 
This is your hometown
I had them sit on my lap, I think the first summer we had them home. The excitement they got from steering the car, sitting on my lap warms my heart still almost ten years later.

Karl's car upstate looked something like this, the color ?

     One Year, I think Karl was about sixteen, I was thirteen or so, my Mom and Dad decided to get him a car to drive up and down the driveway upstate. Rumor had it that Roger Dibble, the son of the man who cut our grass had a cheap Corvair for sale. The Rumor of the Corvair hung around in the air for what felt like years. On an unremembered day a 1956 or 1957 Ford showed up . And the car was,without a doubt Karl's. I don't know if I felt too young to drive it or if Karl made it clear it was his to drive, I don't remember. I do know I never drove it. The Car always seemed to have something wrong with it. It would overheat, I think mostly. I don't know how many years it was used. Eventually it was parked out back,off the south west corner of the house. In later years it would become a target to be shot at. When Eric took over fixing up the house, before he bought it, Him and a friend buried it in the back yard after flipping it over several times to smooth out all the bullet holes. So if your digging upstate behind the house, there is a 1956-1957 Ford buried back there. There are no bodies or treasure hiding in it, that I know of.
       I turned sixteen and waited six months to get my learners permit. I don't know why, I just did. It wasn't that I studied for a hard test, I didn't crack a book. The Test then as now is a joke and anybody with basic basic road skills would pass and I did. I took my road test in New City, I think. My Parents made me take driving lessons before they would allow me to take the test. And on top of that I was made to wait until I could prove to my parents that I could control my temper. I think I aced it, it's been a long time, memories have, do change.
       I think it was in the fall of 1975 about and we had a 1960 Jeep Wagoneer that could be notoriously difficult to start. My Dad calls me into the house to tell me something that should have pissed me off. I remember saying, "Well, I guess I'll just go back and try and start the Jeep and I walk out to the driveway between our house and Uncle Ken's house. Later that day I am told I can schedule a road test.
     OK, now I have my license. Now I want a car. My Dad says to me, why buy a car when you can share the wagon with your mother. I still had no money and no choice. So I started driving the car taking my sister and I think one year, Eric to school. Leaving my mother again without a car. I also used her car to deliver milk after school. I delivered to the Pearl River area off Middletown Road.

I used to drive something like this

The only reason I remember that is the people in Pearl River would put their leaves on the street to be picked up and I used to drive through them because, A-it was fun, B-I thought they shouldn't be putting their leaves on the street and C-it was fun. I also learned and got comfortable in a sliding car. I would drive through the leaves and hit the breaks and if the pile was wet, the car would slide. I managed to become very comfortable in a sliding car. I don't know if it kept me out of any accidents, but if a car slides, I can handle it.
     One Year, Ruth, maybe Eric and I are leaving school.Traffic out of South would line up from the intersection of Demarest Mill road and Brewery back up into the school. We get behind Madeline, at the time, Karl's girlfriend. She is driving a Ford Fairlane. It is a small two door light blue car. I'm driving a Ford Station Wagon, one of the biggest cars on the road at the time. Well, I think it would be funny to bump her car. So I go to Ruth, "Watch this." and I slowly go up and bump her car. I hear her give a little yell of surprise. I thought this was funny, so I did it again. Ruth and I think it is funny. So I think I tap her car...three times. I remember it got funnier each time I tapped her. I think I stopped when we got close to the intersection. I drove that big car to deliver milk for several years until my Dad purchased the Van.
     The Van was a 1977 Ford F100 delivery van he bought from Bill Tony Ford in Stony Point. I didn't buy it, I still had more debts than money, but I treated it like it was mine and my Father, to his credit, never said a word about what I did to it.
   

Back in the late 70's it was popular to customize Vans. So I went out and replaced the seats in the Van with more stylish captains chairs. They were black, had high backs, were made of genuine imitation leather, had armrests that you could flip up and down and they would spin. They were great. I also built, out of wood a unit that I placed above the windshield. There was space for a radio and I put switches in it for lights and I think I wanted to pad it with some of that wonderful imitation leather, I think it was also called Naugahyde,but I never did. I build a box in the back, past the sliding side door, that eventually I wanted to become a bed. My brother had installed speakers in the walls of the van that I had to remove and I installed in the wall facing the front of the van. Later I heard from my mother that I had hurt my brother Karl's feeling when I'd taken down the speakers he'd made. The Speakers had a wood case and a hole in the front that was covered with material that was associated with speakers. The Speakers were angled toward the front of the van and enclosed. Generally a very nice job. It's just my plans had changed and for two brothers who didn't spend much time together any more I should have been more respectful and thoughtful about them. I did use his design when I moved the speakers to the wall facing the front of the van.
     I was a regular visitor to a place in West Haverstraw called Van Village. I went there for all of my Van needs. Van Village lasted a few years longer then the Van personalizing craze.
     One time there I purchased plans to put up paneling in the Van. I bought the plans that showed how it was done. All You had to do was put the piece of paper from the plans on a piece of paneling and trace it out and then cut it. I used cheap wood paneling

12 S. Harrison Ave. Dining Room 2004

( look if  You don't know what paneling is look it up. I can't do it all for you. Fine, OK, it is imitation wood about a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch thick that was put up on walls to make them look natural. Yeah, I know, but back then it was really cool. I know, not so much now.) I cut out the shapes to put them up in the Van. The Van interior was not flat and I had to push them against the ribs of the wall. Every time I did, they would break apart. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I had to run the lines on the paneling horizontally, not vertically. Paneling flexed across, not up and down like I was doing, but I didn't want the lines to go across, I wanted them to go up and down. I kept trying to do it my way, even to the point of having my friend Rob help me put up the panels. I got so angry that it would not cooperate that I burned the plans in our fireplace in the living room. This was of course to show who was the boss and final decider on how things would go. After a few years and a little too much money I quit trying to fix up the Van and anyway the Van craze was over. The Van did have a neat sunroof, I installed, well until I hit a low hanging branch and cracked it. The Captains chairs were real cool until the Naugahyde on the arms split and the arms didn't want to stay up. And then one day I took a turn too tight and crinkled the side doors. The Van was coming to the end of it's useful life.
   

My CJ 5 with Eric's Ford Torino in the background

 Like everything in my life up to that time my first new car would be a spur of the moment decision. Ruth's boyfriend Bobby Hamilton was getting a Jeep CJ 7. I thought it would be a good idea if I went to the same dealership and got one too. Unfortunately I couldn't afford a 7 so I bought a 5. A stripped down 5, no decals,no radio, a hard top, no soft top, just the basics. Jeeps were extremely hot at the time and the dealership in Nyack at the corner of Route 59 and 9W where I got it had none in stock and had to order it. Hamilton's was ordered too. A few Months later the Jeeps had not shown up. Hamilton gets itchy for his Jeep and the dealership keeps telling him the same story, they're on order and they will be there soon. Hamilton goes up to the dealership in Spring Valley at the corner of Rt 45 and Rt 59 and they get him a Jeep. He says it was a better deal. I go with him, but I didn't switch. Hamilton loses the deposit on his Jeep from Nyack, but Spring Valley makes good on it. A week or so after he gets his Jeep. the ones in Nyack come in. Mine is a wonderful dark blue, with a white hard top. Someone gives me a brown soft top tp put on it.
     After I'd ordered the Jeep, I remembered that I wanted carpets in it. Joe jr the son of the owner sees an opportunity and charges me full bust out retail, $100.00 on the carpet.
     There was a promotional interest rate to buy the Jeeps, but it only lasted for a few short weeks and when my Jeep comes in, it's over, but these Geniuses, that charged me bust out retail for the carpet and kept Hamilton's deposit makes all sorts of ill will make out the loan agreement for the promotional rate, I sign and leave. A day or so later they ask me to come in and announce that the rate on the loan was wrong and they tear up the paperwork in front of me. Did I just get a car for free? Well maybe, I was told later. They tell me They will honor the rate, but they will lose money on the deal. Me, being the good sport I am and I think having the words SUCKER written across my back then take a few day to decide what I want to do.
     In the late 70's Jeeps were really cool and they were not very well made. My Jeep had several issues, like loose knobs and such so when I go back to the dealership I tell them I will sign the new contract if they put a radio in my jeep for free and put the soft top on my Jeep, which they agree to. They got away cheap, but you know, I was a nice guy and I would need them to work on my Jeep over the next several months to get it right. This Jeep would be one of the best vehicles I would ever own. When it was all said and done I paid a little over $9,000.00 for the Jeep CJ 5. Payments were a staggering $191.00 a month for something like four years, plus I had to pay insurance.
       In the Spring I would put the Soft Top on and use it until it got chilly sometime in October, then switch to the hard top. During the warmer months I'd drive with the roof down and the doors off. When it would snow hard, I'd go out in the Jeep, putting it in four wheel drive. Doing that consisted of turning the hubs on the front wheels to engage them, then getting the Jeep to roll a little and using the second smaller shiftier, put the vehicle into four wheel drive. There was a four high and low.Low would let you crawl along at like five or ten miles an hour. I got caught in mud one and used it to see how it worked. I put it in gear and as the vehicle's tires turned, I got out and help push it out of the mud.
 

   I'd take the Jeep upstate and go four wheeling with it. My first serious girlfriend, a girl who was not really an outdoors type used to enjoy going. We'd go down long abandoned trails, going places on the mountain I never would have gone. Sometimes We'd go off trail across former hay fields,through breaks in stone walls just to see what was on the other side of the tree line.
   
Sometime around 1985 I saw a TR6 for sale in Nyack. It was sitting just off the corner of Rt 9W a little way west on Rt 59. It was a beautiful blue and with its black soft top and red line tires I fell in love. The Owner was getting the engine repaired, I don't remember what the repair was, but it was a major engine repair. My thought was, "Well at least the engine is now in good shape." Hell, engines weren't the problem with TR 6's, it was the wheel wells and fenders, they always rusted out and replacements were unheard of. I'd found that out when I'd bought a brown TR 6 a couple years earlier. I only got to drive the brown one home ever. This blue one was in great shape. Like always this was a little thought out spur of the moment decision. I wanted the car and I had to have it. I negotiated a price and went and sold some stock I'd purchased over the last few years. I'd buy stock and except for one time I'd usually manage to sell it at the wrong time or for the wrong reason. More on that in an other blog. So I sold my shares in GM, IBM, Foster Wheeler and maybe others to buy this car I loved. If You have never been in a TR 6,you don't know what your missing. Triumphs were always the poor relations of British sports cars. There is a long tradition of car makers and I'm not naming them all, MG, Austin Healey, there are quite a few and of course my memory goes blank, but they were the poor relation. Most British sports car companies were decimated by Britain's 1960-70's flirtation with socialism. Their Labor force became so bloated that they could not sell their cars at a reasonable price and make a profit. Triumph was taken over by British Heritage an arm of the government. It's job was to keep Triumph and any other car company taken over to keep their patents and sell anything they could.
     It was 1985, I owned a blue Jeep and a blue TR 6. I drove the TR 6 every where I could. I used to love taking it up the Palisades Parkway, getting it up to like 60 then flipping the overdrive on and watch the RPM drop and the speed pick up, it was like magic. I remember driving the car to the City, I don't remember if I was visiting Mike and Dot in Queens. I drive up to the toll booths, back then you tossed quarters in a bin and the gate raised. I threw in my quarters and the gate didn't go up So I moved the car close to the gate, the nose of the car slipping under the gate gently and I reach over the windshield and lift the gate over the glass and drive under and away. Hell, I paid my toll. I know I didn't miss count......  I drove the car to Iona College, more on that in an other blog. Coming over the Tappan Zee Bridge one summer? fall night I notice their is a problem with the clutch, (I've explained clutches before, you'll have to look it up) Every time I shift I'm getting less and less clutch.I end up pulling over into what had been Miller Dairies,I find a phone, (yes, they weren't invented yet, I didn't get a cell phone until I was 43),I call my Dad and ask him to come over with my tool box. He get there and I'm not in a good mood and I think he is angry to be disturbed like this so I get under the car and see that the slave cylinder on the transmission has come loose. A Simple fix,which I do. Then for some reason I jump in the car, thinking I need to get this home now and with out even saying anything to my Dad, I go. All these years later I can't explain why and I still feel bad about doing it. He did ask me why I left without even telling him I was going. I think I might have said I needed to get the car home quickly, which I may have, but I still could have said something. One time I had the car in the driveway, now more a part of the lawn, next to my Uncle's house when I put the car in reverse and all I got was a grinding of gears. The Transmission was gone.
         The Triumph for all the love I had for that car was not a healthy car. The Engine problem the repair shop was fixing was only half that engines problem. They fixed the top half of the engine. I think the crankshaft in the bottom of the engine was bad too and they might have told me too. I would pull that engine out of the car, switch it with an engine from a brown Triumph I'd bought several years earlier.

It took me several months and some luck, but I got it switched. Some of the luck was noticing certain plates to hold the engine and transmission in place needed to come off the blue car engine to go on the brown car engine. I was smart enough to look and discover things and to switch the engines without any knowledge and experience. God did watch over me as I undertook this adventure, while I'm sure having a good laugh or two. Like the time I hung the engine off a tree in the backyard because I didn't have an engine hoist. I'd found a come along while four wheeling once that I attached to a hook on top of the engine. I found a rope put it over a convenient limb and cranked away. I can picture that engine hanging from the tree. I wish I had a picture of it. God looked over my shoulder when I worked on the axle of the car. I took bolts off, replaced washer and grommets without care or concern. I remember looking at the coil spring for the front wheel and noticing I'd disconnected every thing that would stop it from flying out into my face. Then one day it was done. I don't know how or why, but I had it all back together. The only Problem now would the engine even start? I didn't know because I only had the vaguest idea of what I was doing. No One told me I was doing it right or if I was doing it wrong, I just did it. Don't get the wrong idea here. I had no business doing what I did, I just knew I had to do it. Looking back at this time in my life I was doing things I'd never done before, but I wasn't getting the knowledge through books,I guess I needed to do it hands on, I guess that is the story of my life. I couldn't sit in a classroom ,I needed to do it. I'm better now.
      I had the car back together. I didn't know where to go from there. Well, yes I did know where to go. I stuck the key in the ignition and stepped on the gas pedal, maybe pumped it several times and turned the key. The Engine turned over and turned over and turned over, but didn't catch. It wouldn't start. A Family Friend, Jimmy Vines ( more about the Vines Family in other entries) had stopped by and told me I had to crank the crap out of it to get it going. Just keep on turning it over until it catches. And I did. Eventually it did start and I took it out for a drive. Issues, like the tail lights would prevent me from getting the car inspected right off, but this was still small town Clarkstown and I drove the car without an inspected for a while. I had a habit of doing that often. When It was finally all came together and the lights were figured out and the overdrive working it would run and run until the transmission went that day sometime around 1987.
     I put the car's front end up in the air to get as much space as possible under the car so I could work on the transmission. This was the original Transmission to the car. So it turns out that I bought a TR 6 with a bad engine and transmission, some deal. There was a repair shop that specializes in British Cars. It was located on Franklin Street, just off Main. I would develop a relationship, sort of with the guy. He was helpful, I was not very outgoing and didn't have a lot of money. I went down to him one day and asked him if he knew of any transmissions for a 1973 TR6 with an overdrive. He said he'd check. A few days later he came back with nothing. He gave me the phone number I think so I could call and see if anything came up. A few weeks later I called and they had a transmission. So I bought it. Slight problem and if your seeing a troubling trend in my life, know I don't like it either. I seem to be reacting to things without all the facts or having done the homework or even forgetting to ask the necessary questions. Well in this case I'd done the homework, I needed a transmission with an A style transmission. I'd bought the other style. My first mistake. The second one was leaving the part that activates the overdrive on the transmission I traded in for the rebuilt one. The Final mistake I made was keeping the transmission without the overdrive from the brown car. I should have given that one in and kept the broken one. Why You ask rightly, It was OEM, Original Equipment Manufacturer (I think). Having the original engine and transmission, even not working made the car more valuable.
     I install the transmission, the overdrive doesn't work, but it is running again. I have grand plans to figure out how to fix the overdrive as soon as I can get/ find the part that engages the overdrive. Then the clutch starts to give me trouble, it's sometime around 1988.
    Sometime in the 80's I had two working cars and the last few months of car payments on the Jeep. My brother Eric had gone through some rough times and was in need of a car to get to work. I don't remember if it was the supermarket Pathmark as part of the night crew in New Jersey or if it was Meineke Muffler in Nanuet. So one day my mother comes up to me and asks if I would sell my Jeep to my brother or maybe it was loan it to him, either way I kind of felt I had no choice in the matter, it was the unspoken mother guilt. Mother guilt is not as powerful as catholic or the most powerful Jewish guilt, but it makes you do things that you wish you didn't have to do, but I did it. I offered the Jeep to my brother for payments left on the loan. I was the good brother. To his credit and I think at that time he had little or no money, he asked me if I was sure I wanted to sell him the Jeep that cheap. I couldn't imagine selling it to him for any where near full retail price. I think it was around $1,000.00, maybe as much as $1,800.00 on a Jeep I'd paid $9,000.00 on.
     I don't remember the exact details of the of how my next car happened, but Sometime in 1987 I bought a black Pontiac Grand Am. It was a cool car and I had some fun with it, but I also owned it during the bad times after my father's death and on a subconscious level the car reacted to my mood.
    One day I see a full page ad in the Journal News, the local paper Mike's dad used to work for. It proclaimed amazing deals on their cars. So I went up to a Pontiac dealership in Spring Valley at the corner of Route 59 and Route 306. I don't know why I went. I don't know if it was because the TR 6's clutch problem had left me driving only the Van, or maybe I was borrowing my mom's car, I don't remember. I went up to buy a car, maybe I even ordered it, I don't remember. What I do remember is it was not a very well thought out idea again. It was a spur of the moment decision.  Unlike the Jeep, where I remember every detail, here I don't. I don't remember how much I paid, why I bought it or how much the monthly payments were. I am sure they were a struggle.
     I'd never owned a Pontiac, I'd never even thought about owning a Pontiac. I liked some Pontiac's, like the 1969 Firebird Rob owned. It was white, simple, but it was a classic. He sold it in the early 80's. I should have bought it.

It looked something like this car, except it was black and had a pinstripe running down the side.

    I walked into the dealership and met with a salesman named Jay. I remember this because a friend Maria worked there and she kept calling him Jay bird. We talked about the car, dickered over the price and agreed on how much I don't remember. I don't even remember the payments. I do remember the payments for the Jeep, they were around $190.00 a month, but my second car, no. When I go in to the office to finalize the paperwork I meet Maria. She is the sister of my friend Louie and the cousin of Michele, a former girlfriend. We talked about this and that. I don't know if I asked about Michele or was too afraid to. In the end She very sweetly gave me pin striping for the car for free. I thought little of it until I saw the car with pinstriping. It looked so much sharper with it. I drove it home a few days later and was very happy with it... for a while.
     Sometime before the four year loan was paid up it started to backfire on me and it felt like it was losing power. I'd hear popping sounds when I put me foot on the gas and at other time it would backfire like an automatic weapon. Pop,pop, pop... I took it in to the dealership and they could find nothing wrong with it. I took it back several times and finally they thought they fixed it. It was fine for a while then it started again. Pop,pop,pop... it was making my insane life, my Dad had died in 1989 and I was still grieving his loss, I was easy to anger, easier than normal anyway. I felt it a waste of time and money to take it to the Dealership any more so when it would backfire I'd floor it, you know, put the pedal to the floor, even tried to put it through the floorboards once or twice, maybe several dozen times. What was I trying to do? Burn the car up? backfiring could cause that. Or maybe I was controlling or at least trying to control the narrative. Good luck on that. The more you try to control the narrative, you know the story, the more you try to control events, the less things are controllable and the more they will slip through your fingers. It's like trying to fill a sieve up with water, can't be done. But try to tell that to someone who is grieving and angry even before his car starts to backfire, well it's impossible. The Car eventually did get fixed. I don't remember if I still owned it, I think I might have. The Problem was the computer chip was installed crooked. Either at the factory or when maintenance was done on it early in my ownership. I had the car when I first started dating Teri in late 1992, so I guess it was fixed.
       The Grand Am had lost a side mirror just before I closed the Video Store when some dirt bag came too close to the car when it was parked in front. I ran out to see what had happened. I accused the closest car, an armoured car pulling into their parking lot. I was wrong, The Lowlife who'd hit my car was long down the road. The piece of trash who'd hit my mirror had clipped the upper outside curve of the mirror, just enough to smash the mirror, but not enough to take and destroy the rest of the unit. A new unit in 1990's dollars was way too expensive. If I remember it was something like $92.00. This was when I was renting videos from my store for $1.59.
      I was deep into grieving my father's death and I was a very angry person. I had no money to fix the mirror, so I bought a child's plastic mirror and a tube of glue made to attach metals together. I cracked the plastic backing off the mirror and since I didn't want the mirror to ever come off I used about all the glue in the tube to glue the mirror onto what was left of the side view mirror. I lived at the time in Stony Point. The next Morning I came out to find a large clump of glue hardened on the pavement next to my car. I gave the mirror a firm tug and it stayed, a rare success for the time.
      One day I was drinking a beer, I guess I was sitting in my car. Instead of throwing it away I threw in on the floor of the back seat. I was dating Teri at the time and she didn't know what I was doing. I had mostly come out of my morning for my Dad by 1992, but the act of throwing that beer can in the back was one final 'Fuck You' world, you took my Dad. I let the can collect back there. I don't remember driving drunk during that time, but I guess I must have. One Night I got pulled over for some infraction and the Police Officer points out the cans in the back. I mumble, "There old" In my mind I'm asking myself why did I put them back there. He thinks I'm some useless drunk who does not deserve a break and yes I got a ticket and yes the next morning all those beer cans were thrown away.
      I married Teri in 1995 and she wanted a new car. She made great money for the time and she wanted a Ford Explorer. It was a fine car. She told me I could have her baby, a red 1990 something Toyota Celica. I didn't want it, but she made a real case for it. The Toyota had less miles then the Grand Am and so forth. I relented and sold the Grand Am to my brother's wife's sister's boyfriend Tim. He was more into car care and had a little more money then I did, so he fixed up the car. Replaced the mirror, got it detailed, made it look so nice I was sorry I got rid of it.
     One time a light on the dash of the Toyota cames on telling me something minor needed to be fixed and I didn't wanted to fix it. So knowing Teri would complain I put a piece of black tape over it. It covered it perfectly until Teri noticed the tape and asked about it. I said it's a funny story and told her, she didn't laugh.
 I drove Teri's Toyota until the fall of 1999. At that time I got it into my head that I wanted a Mustang convertible. It was to be blue, have a large engine and a stick shift. For those of you who don't know the joys of driving a stick, my heart weeps for you. Driving a stick, driving any sports car with a stick is almost as good as sex. I had the most fun driving my TR6, and none of the mess of sex. No One telling you don't get a stick shift unless you don't want me to drive the car. Hey, wait a moment. I did get a Mustang with a rag top, but wait...the stick...HEY! someone castrated my car! It's an automatic, with a smaller six cylinder engine... oh crap, I'm married and I do remember someone saying something about getting a stick shift if you don't want me driving it. I also remember a debate about the color. We might have been on the same page on that one. I don't think there was any question about the rag top, but the stick, there was an issue there. Compromise, the definition of the word is where no one is happy. Well that was just a joke because I loved the car, castrated or not It was lots of fun. The Car was very popular in the fall of 1999 and I wanted a specific car and was told if you go in making it clear that you wanted to buy a car and were not shopping, you'd get the best deal. That's what I did. I want in to Schultz Ford on Route 304 and said I want to order a Mustang Convertible. We went over size, shape and color. And I felt for around $19,000.00, I got a good deal. I put down a deposit and several months later, October 15, 1999 I get a call my car is in. Teri and I go to pick it up. I think we catch the end of a warm spell for about a day and we drive around with the top down. Amanda is a small kid and she sits in her car seat in the back with the top down looking at the underside of the Thruway bridge in Nyack as we are heading home. She mistakenly calls the car a chandelier. For a short while I drove a chandelier. In the Winter of 1999, Muller Dairy in nearing its end. I just don't know it at this point. I'm over at a lot in Conger's in front of Rockland Lake State Park. It's a nice set up except there is no electric run that can support my need. So I am forced to used diesel and I bring ten gallons of gas to the trailer every day or every other day depending on the weather. Life it pretty good at this point.
     A Snow Storm hits in December. I'm an old pro at these and even with quite a few inches of snow down on the ground I finish my route. In the past I would have shovel around my car and drive it out of the snow bank it was stuck in and I wouldn't be gentle. Well without thinking I do just that. I shovel around the car and get in start it up and start rocking it back and forth none too gently until it comes out.

Leonard and Anya with Elena in the Mustang.

As it slides out of it's snow bank I remember I have a two month old car, that I love and I should have been gentle with it. This was but the first of the unwarranted treatment this car was to receive. A few years down the road the top would start to leak and after every rain storm the back passengers floor would be wet. I thought it was the window that was letting the rain in. Soon the other side was getting wet too. One day a tear in the roof opened. Finally I looked into getting the roof fixed. The car place I went to told me if I didn't have a tear in the roof he could have stopped teh leaks. Down near the window in the back where the top comes together is an area that gets brittle after a while and all that is needed to be done is to glue the hole closed.
     

The Mustang in a Yankee Stadium parking Garage

 I purchased the Mustang in October of 1999. By February of 2000 I was working for a milk company that provided me with a car. The Mustang became my second car. So as of 2019 the car has less than 60,000 miles on it.
       The first car I was given by my new employer was a Ford Explorer. It was old, but fun to drive. I drove it for only a few months before they got me a Ford Taurus, Over the five years I was with Consolidated I drove several different cars. Most of them were Tauruses. I'd put a lot of miles on them and haul milk around in it sometimes.
       When I was fired in February of 2005 I drove the Mustang again. When Marcus Dairy hired me the Mustang went back to a second car and I drove a Ford Focus Wagon. I put a ton of miles on the car and I got over 26 miles a gallon in the summer. I'd fill the car up with gas near the office on Monday, Wednesday and,Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday I'd put enough into the tank to get me to the office. Tom, my boss never seemed to trust me. I'd tell the truth as often as I could, by because of his incessant I'd always make sure that I had a story or a lie prepared for his expected nastness. You could never just have a bad day with him around. I never lied or stole gas from Marcus Dairy. I did take some cakes we were selling for a while and eat them. I think it was the only thing I ever took from Marcus.
       Marcus moved out of the location it had occupied since it became a dairy sometime around 2011. Marcus moved its offices from that location to north Danbury. The trucks were moved to Guida Dairy about an hour to the north. Milk came out of that location and if a mistake in an order was made a relay was set up. A salesman would haul the milk from New Britain to Danbury then someone else would haul it further south if one of my stops needed it.
       To get your car serviced you needed to head north of Danbury to a repair shop set up by Marcus. Any time I went there it was an hour trip and Tom had to be notified. He'd always say read through you trend or study your trend. The Trend was a printout of all of your stops and the amount of business they'd done with Marcus over the be  last few months broken down by weekly sales and product. It was very handy, except when you were consistently denigrated by your boss and were spending most of your energy preparing to be attacked by him instead of building the business you were hired to. I should have studied the trend. I didn't I was always trying to please him and when you do something in a panic, like I was all the time during my time at Marcus Dairy You can't do your best. That's why Marcus failed, because of Tom and because his bosses thought he walked on water. Tom was very smart about the milk business, he just didn't know how to deal with people. He always thought sales people were like truents who needed to be kept an eye on. He alway suspected the worst from you.
       Around 2008 or so I got fed up with Tom and called  George from Consolidated asking if he was hiring, he wasn't, but he'd keep me in mind. Finally after I turned him down once he asked again in 2013 and I went back to Consolidated. At Consolidated the first car I drove was George's brother Johnny's car from the early 2000's or maybe it was Ronnie's car who'd left Consolidated a few months earlier because he couldn't take the stress and he'd gone to Cream O Land.. I drove the car for a few months until one day George tells me he is buying new cars for Paul and myself. Paul complained to me he'd always gotten grey colored cars from Marcus and he wanted some other color. I didn't care. George told me it was my choice which car I wanted. One car was a nice red color and it had a tow hitch. The other car was grey. I let Paul choose the car he wanted. And yes he choose the red car. Escapes were known for transmission problems. The red car would have a transmission problem the grey would be fine. In the long run it didn't matter, Consolidated would get the
transmission fixed.

         
         


 














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