The Great Depression

In the early 30's, when there were lots of abandoned construction sites we would find 2x4's and attach roller skate wheels to either end making a "skate board", the forerunner of today's store bought skate board. Or we would go into the storage space of an apartment house where they kept old unused baby carriages. We would steal one, take the axels and wheels off and attach them to our 2x4, and we had a going gussie.

Racial hatred was the order of the day with anti Semitism and hating blacks in the forefront. Father Coughlin, in Detroit was on the radio with venomous anti Semitism. The Germans had the Bund and controlled Yorktown in Manhattan. An organization called America First (who was it that famously said that "Patriotism is often the last refuge of scoundrels?) The Irish kids would come into Jewish neighborhoods for the sole purpose of beating the hell out of the Jewish kids. Walking to and from school was an exercise in courage. Not getting the shit knocked out of you was the goal.

But again, we didn't know any better. We just thought that was life. We weren't "making do", we were living life as we knew it to the fullest. One of my friends had a brother who was with the Dutch Schultz Gang. Dutch Schultz was an infamous gangster who was, I believe, murdered in a barbershop chair. My friend's brother decided that we should learn how to defend ourselves so he gave us boxing lessons. Didn't help. The Irish kids still beat the shit out of us Jews. But those lessons stood me in good stead in the Army where I ended up in a Boston Irish outfit from hard nose Scollay Square. Couldn't seem to get away from the Irish whose dedication in life seemed to be the beat the shit out of Jews. Wasn't any different in the Army but by then I was ready, able and willing to fight and never "lost one". Always, silently thanked Norman's brother who was murdered with Dutch Schultz.

Yeah I Was There For The Great Depression

Yeah I was there.

I remember buying the N.Y. Daily News and The Mirror for 2¢ each. The New York Times cost a nickel. We had 4 evening papers in NY; The Sun, World Telegram, N.Y. Post and the Journal. My father's fur business went through bankruptcy. 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 fora dime for the movies and a nickel for candy. For big occasions, the family would go downtown together from our home in the Bronx to go the Yiddish Theatre. A huge treat.

The bleachers at Yankee Stadium cost 55¢ including for double headers. I saw Babe Ruth, Lou Gerigh, Tony Lazzari, Frankie Crosetti. Baseball was a "way out" for everyone except blacks and the occasional Jew (Hank Greenberg a Jewish idol, married a Gimbel). Jews who married Shiksas were often ostracized as were the Shiksas.

But boxing was for blacks and Jews. Tennis, skiing and golf were for the wealthy. We thought that there was some "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.

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 RollFast with balloon white wall tires. 

The Irish dominated the Police Department and the Italians controlled the Department of Sanitation. And the Jews drove the cabs and opined incessantly. They could 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 wagoneer. 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 with a double scoop a dime. A banana split with every thing but the kitchen sink and free sex cost 25¢ (huge "treat"). You bought kosher pickels by reaching into the pickel barrel and pulling the pickels out. Bakeries really made bread (rye, corn, white and pumpernickel) and bagels were truly water bagels, not baked bread and very Jewish. 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 and you would choose one and they were killed while you watched. It was almost as bad as sitting in the front row and 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 bring home was big time. 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 the Yankee Stadium, get seats in nose bleed country, the upper left field grandstand. Cost? A five and dime for the subway ride, coming and going. We waited outside of the player's exits after the ball game just to get a glimpse of our heros close up. Then, the counselor in charge of us would round us up and home we'd go. Television wasn't invented. Every thing that mattered was out of doors. We played baseball on empty lots. Get out on most Saturdays and Sundays at 7:00 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 heavy rock. But we didn't care because we didn't know any better and just having the baseball was the big event....

Radio Days

"With guys like you in the army, no wonder we're losing this fucking war!" the First Sergeant of my outfit "lovingly" said to me for no particular reason. He just looked at me and reacted. He was “Regular Army", which generally meant that he had gone into the service during the Great Depression or earlier. Those regular army guys went into the service to get a job and make a living. Pragmatism not patriotism combined with a ton of prejudice were at the core of their beings. So when I returned from radio operator school, he sent my ass to Camp Hayden out on the Olympic Peninsula near Port Angeles….knock out place. The radio shack overlooked the Straits of Juan de Fuqua and Crescent Beach. The big thrill was that I got to drive the jeep from the camp to the lookout installation.

I taught myself how to type and became a high speed radio operator. As a reward the Lieutenant wanted to promote me to Pfc and get $4 a month raise. I really pissed him off by telling him to give the $4 a month to someone who really wanted it. After all, I had been a private longer than anyone in my outfit. I didn't want to lose the distinction of being the ranking private in the barracks.

I should go back to my radio school days which were fairly brutal. The mornings started with reveille and the sergeant screaming "Drop your c..ks and grab your socks!" He was a barrel of laughs. Every fucking Saturday we went on a 15 mile forced march loaded with full gear. If you were on or near the end of the line, you always running to keep from getting your ass chewed out for falling behind. And hot? Heat in the low hundreds and that after spending the night in tar roof barracks which was like spending a night in a sauna. The camp had previously been a Japanese detention center. A truly terrible facility.

No three day passes, so I did every thing imaginable to get the hell out of there including grinding my heel into the lens of my glasses. The camp had no way to replace it, so I got a three day pass. Worked for the three days at an almond packing plant (constipated for a week). I unloaded freight cars for the Southern Pacific working at the foundry for 16 straight hours for $1.00 an hour for the first eight hours, $1.50 an hour for the second four hours and $2.00 an hour for the next four hours.

I then went back to camp with new lens and enough money to be able to shoot craps and to get plastered on my next overnight to Sacramento. I was a great craps shooter. Made money almost all the time.

Aphorisms and "Sayings"

Moderation is fatal (and boring)...BF

When they back the black Mariah up to the door they take
all the girls...1929 stock market crash

If you take care of your body your mind will follow...BF

Unless you can stand ingratitude never do anything
for anybody...Italian Proverb.

I wouldn't piss in his ear if his head was on fire....West Texas

When you're up to your ass in alligators you forget that the
initial objective was to clear the swamp

Paranoia improves peripheral vision...Albert Francke III

Unless you look for the unexpected you'll never
find it....5th Grade School Room Poster

This is Noah talking about the flood.... Don Evans

The worth of a sentiment lies in the sacrifices men will make for
its sake....Joseph Conrad

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of
reality....Joseph Conrad

While it is disagreeable to be frustrated the real disasters in
life begin when we get what we want...Oscar Wilde

The greed and avarice of man knows no bounds...BF

As dead as a married man's sex life...BF

It's like jackin' off in a pillow...BF

He never really hears what the other guy is saying. He just waits for the
drone of the other guy's voice to stop so that he can start talking...BF

If anyone out there has some "gems" to share, please do
via comments!

Virginity and Army Life

Losing my virginity on the front lawn of the Capital building in Sacramento, asking to be transferred to a unit going overseas, making Corporal, my Father wanting to get a General friend of his to get me into OTC and me turning him down.

It all started with me going to the draft board and jumping up and down to get into the service. I asked to have my 4F status reviewed, which they did and stamped my papers "Not to be shipped overseas" at my insistence (ignored later on). The day I went into the service, March 30, 1943, I felt like King Kong as my folks said goodbye to me at Pennsylvania Station. This scene is still emblazoned in my mind's eye. I was on my way to Fort Dix, NJ for "indoctrination". Then after a few days, it was off to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training in the field artillery.

Taking a Bronx Jew like me and slapping my ass into Oklahoma was traumatic. Lawton, Oklahoma was not quite like 42nd Street in N.Y. Being the only guy from NY, I was sure that no one else in my unit knew jack shit. I had little difficulty in pissing off a lot of people. But after being in a few fist fights and getting my head handed to me a few times, I toned that rhetoric down a lot. Passive aggressive behavior then became fun for me.

Marching to "Over Hill Over Dale" with a heavy rifle (no carbines at basic training) and a back pack that seemed to weigh 100 pounds was not like spending a day at the beach. I found that Oklahoma had absolutely nothing to recommend it. Downright ugly with downright ugly weather. Basic training was not, on any level, fun. Constant discomfort with everyone pissing and moaning and groaning over the physical stress plus something less then gourmet food became my lifestyle. Intellectual stimulation was no where to be found.

Then, I was shipped to Fort Worden and the Coast Artillery. It was on the Olympic Peninsula, very beautiful. The fort is currently a National Park. I "pulled" KP duty for my first three weeks there. My big mouth and my general fuck you attitude did me in again with the First Sargent. After three solid weeks of peeling potatoes, I saw a guy packing his duffle bag and I asked him where he was going. "To radio operator school outside of Sacramento," he said. I quickly realized that I had just discovered my exit from a lifetime of peeling spuds and washing giant pots and pans. It was my day off (2 on 1 off, the "on" days were 16 hour days). I hustled my fat ass down to headquarters and was allowed to see the company commander. He wanted to know why I wanted to go to radio operator's school. I told him the truth, that I just wanted get the hell out of my new career of "pulling" KP. I guess the truth startled him so that he said okay and told the First Sargent to draw up the papers. I was gone the next day on a beautiful train ride from Seattle, past Mt. Shasta to Sacramento and my introduction to California. Very exciting stuff.

Farming in Mason "Fucking" City, Iowa

Farming is an art and best done by people born and raised on a farm. Not by this Jew from the Bronx, living in a small town where the people there hated me for my loud, aggressive, abrasive, belligerent voice and personality. But it was a fair trade, I didn't think a whole hell of a lot of them either.

In Mason Fucking City, Iowa the Catholics went with the Catholics, the Methodists with the Methodists, and the Jews with the Jews, etc. That was then broken down with the rich going with the rich, and the poor going with the poor. And never those lines to be crossed. As a result, you were relegated to a very small social circle. The only good thing about it was that I was able to piss everyone off but we were stuck with one another.

Sitting on a tractor going up an down rows plowing corn, milking cows, having chickens (those filthy little things), vaccinating hogs, driving a dyeing bull to Ames, going to livestock auctions where every one smelled as I did of horse shit and other farm smells, was both boring and annoying. Losing my ass was really boring, but it did keep me on edge. The only things that kept me going were my kids, my liquid protection (booze) and the growing white hot bond of anger between my wife and myself. My wife and I became so pissed off at one another that we got a ton of mileage out of the mutual anger. Additionally, I enjoyed telling the residents of that arm pit of America to suck eggs, fuck off and generally drop dead which allowed me to act like a New Yorker and enjoy myself. Between my wife making me take a shower before I could come into the house (she complained that I smelled really bad. Sadly it was true) and telling my father-in-law to stick his money up his ass, I was at least able to keep my blood boiling day and night and get some enjoyment out of life.

Ah, but the weather! Iowa is a place for weather masochists. In our first winter there, we never saw the sun from early November into February. The farmers say that "It makes for a long winter when the snow never leaves the ground"...every winter in Iowa was very long. Geez, I can't believe that I spent four tortuous long years there.

No Choice

After swallowing a full prescription of Valium and drinking a fifth of scotch, I passed out. When I woke up a few hours later, I felt like the all time loser. I couldn't even fucking kill myself successfully. So you see, I didn't go to AA because I was looking for a new social life.

October 30, 1973 was the last time I ingested any alcohol or mind altering drug. AA was an unbelievable and great life changing experience. But I've never subscribed to the AA mantra that my worst day sober was better than my best day drunk. I had some fabulous times while in the bag. Sadly I don't remember all of them. But when it takes two shaking hands to bring one scotch over ice to your mouth, you know you have a problem, and I had a big one.

I had tried AA several times, but after a few meetings I would just blow it off. You would have thought that being forced to take a cab in S.F. to find my car because I was half gone when I parked it would have been enough to convince me that booze and me weren't even kissin' cousins. A typical drive back to Portola Valley would start at Ruggiero's on Pine Street at 4:00 PM (didn't want to hit the traffic was my excuse) where I’d knocked back more than a few pops. Then it was to the garage with a quick stop at another bar. Once in the car, I’d stop on the Embarcadero to pick up a pint to nip on while on my way home. But before actually hitting the freeway, I stopped at a bar frequented by merchant seaman (I walked in with my Brook's Brother's suit and everyone looked at me like I was a bull with a bastard calf). Finally, I’d drive home to face the Formidable Princess. Now, that really wasn't like spending a day at the beach.

This time, however, I knew it was different because I concluded that I had no choice. I hit rock bottom.