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.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
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
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
Saturday, September 8, 2018
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.
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.
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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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.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.
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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Friday, September 7, 2018
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.
, 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.)
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.
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.
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.
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