Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, 30's In NYC Reprise

Two cents plain. Egg cream, three cents. (Combo of seltzer, milk and chocolate syrup)

The Daily News and The Mirror cost 2¢ each with lots of pictures. The New York Times cost a nickel and was for the intellectuals. Sunday with the funnies, the News and Mirror were a nickel. The Times, without any funnies, was a dime.

We had, in New York City, four evening papers. The Sun, World Telegram, N.Y. Post and the Journal (not the Wall Street Journal). My folks took the dominant printed in Yiddish newspaper, The Forward, which is still around. Dick Tracey in the News was a real favorite.

The movies cost 10¢ except on Saturdays when you got a double feature for 15¢.

An allowance? How ridiculous. You got nickels, dimes and the occasional two bits by asking, most times pleading. My parents were fabulous and almost always succumbed to my entreaties: a dime for the movies and a nickel for a bag of candy. For big occasions, the family would go downtown together from our home in the Bronx to the Yiddish Theatre. A huge treat.

My great Pop's manufacturing fur coat business went into the fucking tank, but he never pleaded or lived poverty. Bankruptcy in those hard times was as common as an old shoe and no disgrace. The immigrant families stuck together. It was all for one and one for all. A far cry from today's fuck you attitude.

The bleachers at Yankee Stadium cost 55¢.The same for double headers. Seeing Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzari, and Frankie Crosseti play in person, not on fucking TV, was a thrill. Always!!!

Satchel Paige

Major league baseball was a "way out" for everyone except blacks and the occasional Jew (Hank Greenberg a Jewish idol, married a Gimbel). The blacks were forced to have their own baseball, league producing Satchel Paige and more.

Jews who married Shiksas were often ostracized by other Jews as were the Shiksas ostracized from their church. Unless, however, the Shiksas were able to pussy whip their husbands into allowing the kids to grow up baptized and going to church.

Boxing was for blacks and Jews. Tennis, skiing and golf were for the wealthy. We thought that there was something "wrong" with tennis players or else why were they dressed in white.

The six day bike race at the Garden was a big thrill. Going to the Garden for the rodeo was a real highlight. Dime hot dogs at Nedicks, chicken pot pie at the Automat and pizzas from real Italian restaurants. No one ever heard of a Jewish pizza parlor, much less kosher pizza (With pepperoni?)

We played stick ball, stoop ball, king of the hill, roller skate hockey and kick the can in the street.

Pitching pennies against the stoop was "big time". Today you seldom see groups of kids playing in their neighborhoods or even in the school yards after school. We would rush home, drop off our books and meet our friends.

I got my first bike when I was 12 (1935) It was a used bike, and I was so excited. Later on an Uncle bought me a new one. We were sure that he was rich beyond belief. It was a Roll Fast with balloon white wall tires.

The Irish dominated the Police Department; the Italians controlled the Department of Sanitation and the Jews drove the cabs and opined incessantly. They could fucking talk about anything for 30 minutes even if they didn't know anything about it (as I can as well).

Horse and wagons would come down the streets loaded with fruits and vegetables that were being hawked by the guy screaming specials and cursing the horses.

A big pizza cost 50¢ and a Pepsi to go with it was either a nickel or a dime. Ice cream cones were a nickel. A banana split covered with everything but the fucking kitchen sink and free sex cost 25¢ (huge "treat").

You bought kosher pickles by reaching into the pickle barrel and pulling the pickles out of the brine.

Bakeries really made, on the premises, bread (rye, corn, white and pumpernickel) and bagels. Which were true water bagels, not fucking baked bread with a hole in it. Bagels were considered to be a Jewish thing.

I carried milk home in a big bucket. My mother could buy chickens with or without the feathers. Plucking a chicken made a hell of mess. Some stores carried live chickens. You would choose one and they were killed while you watched. It was almost as bad as sitting in the front row watching a circumcision. Puke inducing.

We would build bonfires in the street with wood left over from abandoned construction sites, steal potatoes and throw them into the fire for cooking. We called them "mickies".

Walking through the five and dime (aka Woolworth's) stealing pencils and erasers that you couldn't ever bring home was our adrenaline shot. A new pencil evoked questions at home and school so we hid them and never even used them.

I went to P.S. 105 and P.S. 83. The grade schools had summer sports programs and we could go to Yankee Stadium, get seats in nose bleed country, the upper left field grandstand. Cost? A nickel going and a nickel coming.

We waited outside of the player's exits at the Stadium after the ball game just to get a glimpse of our heroes close up. Then, the counselor in charge of us would round us up and home we'd go.

Television wasn't invented. Our activities, not including homework and reading, was done out of doors. We played baseball on empty lots. Got out on most Saturdays and Sundays at 7:00 AM, early enough to grab a field to play at least 18 innings and then go and have a two bit pizza and a nickel Pepsi.

When the covers would come off the baseballs we would wrap them in electrical tape and continue to use them. Like hitting and throwing a fucking, heavy rock. But we didn't care because we didn't know any better and just having the baseball was the big event.

Baseball in the spring and summer, basketball in the fall, touch football and roller skate hockey in the winter. Our lives revolved around sports.

As always, 'You can check out anytime but you can never leave.'…The Eagles, Hotel California