Learning that if I had the basketball I would always be chosen to play. Having the baseball meant that I was good to go for at least 18 innings of sand lot baseball.
After which we went to the local pizza joint, stuffed ourselves with a .50 cent, giant pizza, with anchovies and a huge Pepsi for a dime. 50 cents, then in 1933-36, I would guess, is the equivalent of at least $10-$12 now.
But a large pizza now is considerably smaller than in the thirties. Must be the water because Big Apple pizzas are still the best or maybe memories are in my pizza taste buds. And the pizza places were owned and run by Italians.
All the guys I ran with were two to three years older than me so that, at age 10, I was 'undersized' and getting into the pickup basketball game meant that I had to bring the basketball or I was fucked.
Or having the broomstick for stick ball. Which always got me in the game but really pissed my Mom off. Particularly, since no permission was asked for my getting rid of the broom part of the broomstick.
Cutting off the broom part of the family broomstick meant buying a new broom. In the hard depression and post depression days pissing money away on fucking broomsticks was not really 'money smart'. Not 'cool'.
It worked the same way with having the football. My Pop understood this and allowed me to buy the basketball, football and baseball so that I could always be in the game. My 5 foot 4 inch Pop was super street smart.
The football game we played was called 'association' and played between street telephone poles, as the 'goal posts'. Was kinda’ a form of two hand touch but all played standing up. No crouching.
Street smarts come from learning how to survive and thrive in the world of tough city kids where the games were mostly on hard city streets and scrapped arms and legs were part of the game. Particularly, when we played roller skate hockey.
If you couldn't play to street standards it was bye, bye even if you had supplied the ball. I was an above average athlete but then city kids were mostly good athletes. If you weren't a good athlete you were part of a different social set, book worms, a distinct minority. Kids like me would rather be illiterate than be a book worm. (Not acceptable in immigrant Jew's households)
On Barnes Ave. becoming a man wasn't really when you were bar mitzvah but when you spewed socially unacceptable four letter words like fuck and shit. I became a 'man' at 10. Swearing like sailor, puffed up chest and all was my specialty. School, sure as hell wasn't..My Mom and Pop wouldn't put up with foul language in the house. No fucking chance. George Carlin wasn't born yet and so hadn't yet made his famous pronouncement that, 'There aren't any bad words, only bad thoughts'.
I learned, early on, that defying the inevitable of getting beat up by the tough as nails city kids on my way to school was stupid. Being Jewish in the 30's wasn't like spending a day at a picnic. Anti Semitism was big time in NYC and even I knew who Father Coughlin and the Bund were.
Street smarts demanded that I find a different way, generally the long way round, to go to and from school. Safe not sorry was the rule.
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| Lydig Avenue & Holland |
Stealing potatoes from stores with open vegetable bins, on Lydig Ave., our local shopping area, to roast, was fun. We would ride our bikes past the open bins of potatoes and swipe one as we rode by the bin. Coulda’ got one at home but that wouldn't have got our adrenalin moving. For firewood, we used wood scraps from deserted, partially built homes, victims of the Great Depression.
Yeah street smarts are an acquired skill, generally as a result of figuring out, how to survive in all circumstances, doing things you should and shouldn't do and avoiding getting the shit beat out of you just because you showed up.
Being 'Gas Lighted' is the fate of every married boozer and/or, drug addict that is living with someone, who was generally known as a co-alcoholic.
(Drugs and booze are inextricably linked, in addicts) Gas Light was a Broadway show, where two sisters were living with a brother who was trying to get rid of them by driving them crazy and into a mental institution. He was constantly accusing them of saying and doing things that they never said or did. And he was succeeding. They were well on the way to the nut house.
Street smarts allowed me to figure out that The Princess was constantly 'gas lighting' me by attacking me, for doing or saying 'bad ' things while I was in the bag. She kept my fucking guilt roaring. The Princess was always relying on me to have been in a drunken blackout, not unusual for me, and unable to tell her that she was wrong and full of shit. So for a short period of time I 'controlled' my drinking and found that she was 'gas lighting' me.
Didn't stop me from drinking but I sure stopped the Princess from playing mind games with my sad but true example of a fucked up, whiskey soaked mind. But make no mistake; it wasn't all bad being married to the Princess, just mostly. I do wish that the Princess would have thrown me out sooner. I had a wonderful 17 year break from marriage before I went stupid, yet again and remarried. Lasted a year and a half.
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