Schofield Barracks, Okinawa, General Buckner, Dead Drunk

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

Easter Sunday April 1, 1945, was a bright beautiful day aboard a ship off of Okinawa. All hell broke loose that morning on this gorgeous day when U.S. troops started landing on Okinawa. While my outfit didn't participate in the initial landing (we went ashore on the 2nd or 3rd) the noise and ferocity of the bombardment by the battleships with troops landing simultaneously was unfucking real. Unforgettable as well.

There was no resistance to the landings and the biggest risk was getting wet. The real fighting came into being when the infantry moved into the hills where the Japanese had entrenched themselves. At the same time it started pissing fucking rain and everyone was up to their asses in mud. For my part I never worried when the bullets started flying. I was young and stupid. No fear in my fucked up DNA.

As a communication/radio outfit our initial chore was to establish communications with Saipan. No one had ever heard of Saipan or the Marianna's as well. None of the other dot dit guys like me were able to establish communications between Okinawa and Saipan. Captain Gooch, the CO who really disliked me, and for good reason, reluctantly sent for me as a last resort. The walk from my tent, to the radio tent in the ass deep fucking mud was a test of physical strength which I barely passed. I was one exhausted Jew after that 100 yard struggle with mud.

When I did raise Saipan by radio, my big moment in the service, Gooch was happy that we connected but annoyed that the Bronx, loud mouth Jew that he disliked, had pulled it off. But Gooch and I had one hell of a trade going as I didn't like him worth a shit either.

The memory of stopping in Hawaii on the way to the Philippines and then Okinawa has a premier place in my empty head. After a horrendous trip, in often rough seas, (lots of puking), we were ensconced in Schofield Barracks (From Here to Eternity, film). Gooch came to see me to tell me that he was very reluctantly making me a Corporal.

General Buckner needed 3 personal radio operators and Gooch was appointing me as one of them and couldn't justify me being a premier radio operator and still a private. If I was supposed to be good enough to be a personal radio operator for a general then surely I should have some stripes.

A few days after being transferred to the General's personal staff I decided that there was no fucking way that I was going to stay with him.

First they had me in a half track learning how to dismantle and fire a 50 caliber machine gun. Hell, my Mom wouldn't allow a BB gun in the house. You can bet your sweet ass that I was uncomfortable with the idea of needing to fire a 50 caliber machine gun from the back of a half track.

Taking the machine gun apart and putting it back together was a non starter for me. Hell, remembering which way to turn wheel lugs to loosen them for a tire change was something I have never mastered.

But the absolute, fucking, clincher came when I was told that I was expected to dig the General's personal latrines. That busted the cherry and I went on a spree of fucking up so that I would be sent back to my outfit.

Dropped a radio transmitter, knocked over a bookshelf, and couldn’t dismantle the fucking machine gun (for sure). After two weeks of that kind of action the first sergeant had enough of me and with some strong, nasty words shipped my ass back to my outfit.

The only loser was Gooch who didn't have enough on me to bust me back to private and was stuck with me as a corporal. General Buckner and his radio operator were killed. God does take care of drunks and fools and since I qualified on both scores I wasn't the radio operator that was killed while with the General. I made Sergeant later on because some poor son of a bitch was killed and I replaced him. Boggs from Texarkana.

The hospital ship that was carrying my fat ass home was truly the Slow Boat from Korea. Forty five fucking days from Korea to Wilmington, California. We stopped in Yokohama; I rushed to get laid in a Japanese whore house, decided while at the whore house that I was better off jackin’ off then getting a dose. Didn't get laid. Never jacked off enough to grow hair in the palm of my right hand either.

On the hospital ship all we did was play poker, in the morning, for slices of O'Henry candy bars. They were kissin cousins of Baby Ruth bars. In the afternoon we shot craps for real money. At one point I was ahead $1,200 1946 dollars. Was dead broke when we landed in Wilmington but playing cards and shooting craps were great time killers. No regrets.

Because, our lack of intellectual curiosity, like reading books the officers looked down at the enlisted men with great disgust. We looked down at them as arrogant assholes.

When we found that we were going to spend overnight in Honolulu we started making plans to have milk and steak during our few shore hours.

Once on shore, a group of us headed over to a place called Hawaiian Village and spent our few hours drinking boiler makers. (Shots with beer chasers.) We got blind drunk, never did eat anything. I stumbled, face first in a pool of water while walking back to the ship. Always have felt that had it been a deeper puddle I would have fucking drowned.

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

1942/1943....Serious Days

Over hill, over dale, as we hit the dusty trail. Sing out your numbers, loud and strong.....For it's hi, hi, hee, for the Field Artillery....As the caissons go rolling along.

My older brother Herman, then a physics instructor at MIT, later to become a world renowned physicist, screamed at me."Roll the son of a bitch up in a carpet and throw him out of the fucking window.”

Herman, the egghead, was home for the weekend and had walked in on a farewell party for a guy leaving to go into the service. Herman was wild because this guy was passed out on my folk's bed. Since the bed was in a second floor bedroom throwing the guy out the fucking window didn't seem like a very good idea.

We had a farewell party each time someone was leaving to go into the service. There were a lot of them and they were always at my house, when my folks were gone. Without exception everyone got blind drunk. Passing out, vomiting and making a lot of fucking noise seemed normal to us. No girls ever invited. We were all virgins so that a tit squeeze was all that we could expect. Getting drunk was easier.

For me, it all started with going to the draft board and jumping up and down to get into the service. Manufacturing fur coats didn't seem like the thing to be doing while most everyone else was involved in the war effort. The self induced patriotic pressure to be useful in the fight against Hitler and Togo was really strong. The draft board classified me 4F because of my fucking eyesight and that really pissed me off. I was tired of throwing farewell parties for everyone else. Getting drunk and squeezing the occasional tit was no substitute for wearing a uniform.

After over a year of constantly hammering the draft board they finally agreed to draft me and slap my ass, bad eyes and all, into the Army. My papers were stamped, "Not to be shipped overseas ". Later and never meeting an officer who liked me, it didn't take much for those instructions to be ignored at my insistence. The universal feeling was anything to unload this noisy, loud mouth, obnoxious Bronx Jew, an in your face, fuck you, asshole.

The day I went into the service, March 30, 1943, I felt like King Kong as my Mom and Pop said goodbye to me at Pennsylvania Station. This scene is still emblazoned in my mind's eye. My Mom was crying with my Pop consoling her but proud as punch. He was a Romanian immigrant and, with My Mom, loved the United States. The idea that his kid was going to help protect the US made his eyes shine with pride.

For me it was the fulfillment of a dream come true and I was on my way to Fort Dix, NJ for "indoctrination". The three days in Ft. Dix of forgettable bullshit, awful food, getting shots and getting outfitted with heavy, scratchy Army clothes seemed forever. It also seemed that we were spending a lot of fucking time bare assed naked. At the time my paranoia showed through. Were we naked so much so that the Jews could be identified? Non Jews didn’t, in those days get circumcised.

Taking a Bronx Jew like me and slapping my ass into Oklahoma for basic training in a field artillery unit, was traumatic. Iowa, which I had visited, seemed like a garden state. Lawton, Oklahoma was not quite like 42nd Street in N.Y. As the only guy from NY, in my platoon, I was sure that no one else in the platoon knew jack shit. How could they? Fucking country hicks they were. I had little difficulty in pissing off almost everyone and didn't much care. 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.

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 hot ugly weather. Basic training was not, on any level, fun. Constant discomfort, with everyone pissing and moaning and groaning over the physical stress, weather plus something less then gourmet food became my lifestyle.

Then, after about 90 days my ass was shipped to Fort Worden and the Coast Artillery. Fort, Worden 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 Sergeant. 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 he said okay and told the First Sergeant to draw up the papers.

The next day I was on a beautiful train ride from Seattle, past Mt. Shasta to Sacramento and my introduction to The Land of Milk and Honey and Fruits and Nuts, California.

Archbishop Paul Marcinkus and A Bronx Jew, Booze, Partial Reprise

The author Phillip Wylie once opined that, "The problem with common sense is that it ain't so common."

Alcohol is really an anesthetic and trying to get an erection while in the bag, only works when you're around 18 years old. Having booze in you however, makes going from thinking that you are a lover to feeling omnipotent a natural progression. Emphasized by drinking, at the rate of a drink every ten minutes, got me there in one big fucking hurry.

The next step in drinking booze was absolute nirvana because at that point I thought I had become invisible which led me to say and do the weirdest things. Every fucking drunk believes, when loaded, that if he or she closes their eyes no one can see them.

In 1970-1971, two geniuses approached me to form a venture capital partnership which was then a relatively new concept. Approaching me to become a partner should have been a warning signal, that they weren't so fucking smart.

What was a winning thought for many turned out to be a fucking disaster for us. Not only was our basic concept terrible but the business plan really sucked and was impossible to execute. Coming out of the gas, suicide seemed like the smart, natural option for me.

The warning, that the deal wouldn't work, was when the partner who furnished our offices had good but very expensive taste in furniture. He rented space in a new, fancy San Francisco address: One California Street. Made me feel big fucking time until we closed up and sold the furniture for a fraction of its cost.

But the notion took me down a great lifetime experience road with the Vatican Bank (aka The Institute for Religious Works), Archbishop Paul Marcinckus and even The Knights of Columbus. Yeah, one time the Knights were trying to track down the then retired Bishop and they called me to see if I knew where the Bishop was living. They apparently remembered that Jesus was a Jew. The irony was not lost on me and it gave me great pleasure to accommodate the Knights with the Bishop's address and phone number.

One of my partners knew a guy (Lloyd Hand) who had been Chief of Protocol for President Johnson, so he knew every son of a bitch and his uncle. We paid him $10,000 ($70,000 today) plus travel expenses which added another $3,000 ($21,000 today) to introduce us to the Bishop who ran the Vatican Bank.

Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was a street kid from Cicero, Illinois loaded with common sense. Financial and people sense? Not so much.



The Bishop, we were told, ran the bank and was President of Vatican City both as a result of saving the Pope's life in the Philippines when the Pope was attacked by a fucking nut with a knife. That trip was, for me, a wild, booze driven, insane trip. Travel for me was a way to get away from a wife who disliked me, drink big time and walk around feeling like shit every day.

At that time, one of my kids was on the Mishmar David Kibbutz in Israel. So I thought I would "stop by" and see him before I went to Rome to meet with the Bishop. Thinking that Rome and Tel Aviv were "kissin' cousins", close by one another was downright stupid. That was a major misconception which resulted in almost 5 hours of non stop drinking.

Spending a night at the kibbutz was memorable with a hard fucking bed (hardly like staying at the Carlyle Hotel in N.Y.) but the mood of the Israelis and the volunteer workers from other countries was terrific. It was but a few years after the `67 war with patriotism, Zionism and high ideals the mood in Israel.

Off to Rome and the next day’s meeting with the Bishop.

The night before the meeting, we went for a God Damn horse and buggy ride to get acquainted with Rome. Expensive and a piss poor way to see Rome. Very boring and the smell of a fucking horse reminded me of those terrible days farming in Iowa.

The next day we went to see the Bishop. He had been an "advance man" for Pope Paul VI. The Bishop's hands were huge, like ham hocks and he was as tough as nails. Chain smoked Pall Mall cigarettes like there was no tomorrow. But at that point I was smoking 4 1/2 packs of Lucky Strikes (no filters) every day with yellowed fingers. So the Bishop and I looked like two fucking smoking chimneys.

My partner who insisted on doing the major part of the presentation was a very nice, smart guy whose voice never seemed to stop "droning". Your eyes would glaze over as he droned on and on. He could put a sore ass in vinegar to sleep.

The Bishop managed to stay awake and while he was not a financial man, he knew a dumb deal when he saw one and turned us down. But it was for me, through the booze driven, cigarette haze and yellowed fingers, a fabulous experience and the beginning of a wonderful long term personal relationship with Bishop Marcinkcus.

A great person, in spite of his fruitless efforts to convert me, the Bishop opened my eyes to spirituality.

Bob Metcalfe, Robyn Metcalfe, Dick Kramlich, 3Com, A Reprise

The French have a saying, "The best part of an affair is going up the stairs." And so it’s been that way for me with my 90 ½ year affair with life. For me, the anticipation of finding the unexpected has been the equivalent of "going up the stairs".

Meeting Bob Metcalfe was a really distasteful experience. He was, in my view, at that moment, a total asshole. Me and another guy were sitting by the Oak Creek pool, on a knockout summer day ogling women in skimpy bathing suits with falling out boobs, after playing tennis. He was a much better player than me.

Up walks this tall, good looking young guy. He says to my friend, 'My name is Bob Metcalfe, I’ve just moved into Oak Creek and I'd like to play tennis with you.’ totally fucking ignoring me, making me feel invisible.

That self non-introduction to me raised my fucking blood pressure significantly and wired me for sound. A burning match, shoved up my ass at that moment, would have shot me to the moon.

But I go up like a rocket and come down like a stick so making friends with Bob later was a natural outcome for me. He was absolutely right in ignoring me as a tennis player. I didn't belong on the court with him. Bob had been Captain of the MIT tennis team. As a tennis player I was a terrific plumber.

And so, days and weeks later, sitting by the tennis courts or out to dinner with my latest best friend, Bob Metcalfe, it was natural for me to insert myself into Bob's life. Always grinding on him, to look for the serendipity of life (climbing up the stairs) and use his formidable education, work background and work ethic plus his unbelievable creativity "to go up the stairs" and give up being a wage slave at Xerox Research.

Here was this guy, inventing, literally, a world changing procedure (Ethernet) while being a grunt for Xerox. How foolish. So having, at that point, fucked up my own life, why not give Bob's a whirl, drawing on my vast experience in fucking up.

Bob at Xerox, 1973. Courtesy EthernetHistory.typepad.com

Bob was good looking, loaded with charisma and the necessary touch of arrogance, and was working for someone else. Made no sense to me.

Beating on Bob, this over schooled guy, with my street smarts was fun for this recovering alcoholic.




Finally Bob left Xerox and started consulting. There is no doubt that my grinding on Bob helped that decision but I certainly was not the only influence.

One day, after leaving Xerox, Bob told me that he was going to Dallas to try to hook on with Texas Instruments as a consultant and proudly told me that he was going to ask $250/day and expenses (flying in the back of the bus). I looked at him like a bull with a bastard calf and told him that he was out of his fucking WASPY mind.

Reviewing with Bob his unbelievable academic credentials (2 BS degrees, an MS plus a PhD) and the years with Xerox Research there was no doubt in my mind that he could be a high priced consultant. My advice to Bob was to tell the geniuses at TI that he charged $1,000 a day plus first class air fares. Bob asked how the hell could he justify that number when the going price for consultants was $250 a day. I told him to tell those assholes at TI that he, Bob, was going to ask $1,250 a day but that seemed too high while $750 a day seemed way to low and so he split the difference.

When Bob started to raise money to fund 3Com he held soirees in Woodside on weekends for potential investors and to also simply drum up interest in his venture. They were done, in California style, with swimming, tennis, beer drinking, the whole fucking California living bit.

They started as a total fucking failure and didn't draw flies. When Bob whined to me about it I asked if he had invited women to his bashes. When he told me "No.", I laughed and told him to give inviting women a whirl. He tried and the bashes became a huge success. Being an occasional sexist wasn't a problem for me in 1976. It would be today.

Bob did get $700 a day from TI plus first class travel. When Bob started 3Com he commented, sadly, that the company couldn't afford first class travel.

The high point of my business relationship with Bob Metcalfe was to introduce him to Dick Kramlich of New Enterprise Associates, another great guy and super achiever. NEA became the lead investor in 3Com which became a big financial, success for Dick Kramlich and Bob Metcalfe.

At the end of the day Bob’s huge success was aided and abetted, in a large part, by Robyn, his over the top smart wife. Robyn is damn good looking as well. Robyn supported Bob's efforts at 3Com and later through all of his ups and downs. And a roller coast ride it often was. Plus the general vicissitudes of life as well. A great person.

By odious comparison, my Princess, with my every downturn to my endeavors, would just fucking quit talking to me. She was as supportive of me as a sore ass in vinegar. Good times or bad. I am really sorry that the Princess passed on but I sure don't miss her.

Mason City, Iowa - Hogs That Die - One Eyed Bull - A Bull With A Broken Tool

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. We had a mutual fuck you too attitude as 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 in each regimen. And never those lines to be crossed. As a result, you were relegated to a very small, terrible social life group.

The whole fucking town had twenty seven Jewish families. Getting loaded was a great way out for me. Teachers Scotch was my addiction of choice. Later I went upscale to Grant's 8 year old scotch or fancy, schmancy Jews Booze also known as J&B Scotch.

My life in MFC, Iowa largely consisted of sitting on a tractor, going up and down rows plowing corn, milking cows, having chickens (those filthy little things), feeding and vaccinating hogs, milking 84 Purebred Holsteins, feeding cattle and losing money. Included was such bullshit as driving a sick bull to Ames only to have the son of a bitch die as we entered the gates of Iowa State College.

That fucking nightmare of an animal not only wasn't worth a fiddler’s fuck as a bull but he had contracted a urinary tract infection that cost me the trucking fee to Ames to try to cure him. He had, incidentally, poked an eye out by falling down in an abandoned well pit.

I was convinced that lousy bull knew how much I hated him and died to spite me. That no good son of a bitch. The Princess always said that I brought out the worst in people so I guess that talent spilled over to Black Angus bulls and the asshole white face purebred bull that contracted a broken tool (sex was out for the high priced, no good son of a bitch).

Being a victim has never been my style. Farming in Iowa's just made me feel downright, fucking stupid for four years, almost to the day. Going to livestock auctions where everyone smelled, as I did, of horse shit and other farm smells, was both boring and annoying. Being on edge while losing my ass was above and beyond just feeling fucking stupid.

The only things that kept me going were my kids, my liquid protection (booze) and the growing white hot bond of anger between the Princess and me. The Princess 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.

That drove the Princess crazy. Between that JAP making me take a shower before I could come into the house (She complained that I smelled really bad. Sadly it was true.) and me 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. 20 below at night 19 above during the day. Regular fucking heat waves. 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.

So there I was, sitting in the hog house on a below zero night in Iowa on the ready in case one of my sows had trouble "coming in" (giving birth). The next thing this Bronx Jew knew, my hand was inside the sow helping extract baby pigs. When it was over, I was sick to my stomach and almost heaved my guts out. Lesson? You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and making a hog farmer out of a street guy from the Bronx is damn near impossible.

There was the time I bought 100 feeder pigs from a farmer out of Missouri. By then I was certain that I knew what I was doing, and I insisted on a vaccination certificate covering a deadly virus. I did not stop to consider that the "honest Missouri farmer" might be giving me a fucking certificate, covering other pigs, which he did.

The pigs grew to be hogs and then started to die. The rendering works truck came by every day to pick up the dead hogs, and we had to vaccinate the ones that were still alive. Grabbing and holding on to a 100 pound, squealing ugly hog by a hind leg while another guy gave him the shot was some kind of a work out. And I ended up smelling like hog shit. The hogs eventually stopping dying and I lost my ass.

One year I purchased a bunch of Red Duroc pigs to feed out. I fed them on an enclosed concrete slab. No exercise. When they reached 200 pounds a few of them laid down and fucking died. I called the vet who came out to the farm, examined the dead hogs and told me that the hogs had died of heart attacks brought on by too much fat and no exercise. The pay off was when I sold the God Damn hogs to Hormel in Austin and was docked because the hogs were too fat.

And when there was wet hay or wet corn to be sold those Honest Iowa farmers sought out this dumb fucking Bronx Jew I was the mullet (a fish that's easy to catch) with my mouth wide open ready to be reeled in. And reel me in they did, in all of my not so glorious stupidity. Wet corn and wet hay results in rotting corn and hay. The farmers stacked the deck by putting dry corn and dry hay on the top.

When my four year sentence of living in River City was up, I happily left Iowa to the cheers of all who knew me. Nothing had changed in four years. What those Iowans saw was what they got, from the beginning to the end of my stay.

Sometimers, Lazard, New Orleans, Bucky Brock - Circa: 1970-1971

Having 'Sometimers' rather than 'Alzheimer's' at 90 ½ is great.

90 1/2? Yeah, when you're a kid you are 6 ½, 7 ½, etc. When you cross the 90 year old threshold then halves become important in the race between looking down at the grass and looking up at the grass. But then as Jack LaLanne who died at age 97, famously said, ‘I can't afford to die. It would ruin my image. '

Getting to be 90 ½ doesn't necessarily mean a clean living, kickback life. As a heavy, 4 packs a day smoker and an over the top, sincere fucking drinker, until age 50, I am living proof that God does indeed take care of drunks and fools.

Guilty on both counts, though my not drinking or smoking for the last 40 years may have helped me to continue to look down at the grass. Genes, schemes, "A bi gezunt!"

And then there was Bucky Brock, a ,a 5'10", 390 pound, New Orleans oil and gas engineer and a real gee whiz asshole. Bucky suffered severely from the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. Bucky had a hair trigger temper and when he got pissed off he was a sight to see. His formidable jowls trembled and his whole fat, obscene body literally shook. Bucky told me that he slept on the floor and hadn't had sex with his wife in years. My bet is that he had a hell of time just finding his schlong to piss with much less have sex with it.

Bucky's wife was, predictably, quite a bit nuts. She had lived through Bucky's practicing alcoholic stage which in itself would test anyone's sanity. (The Princess, were she not looking up at the grass, would bitterly confirm that). Bucky, who prided himself on his newly found sobriety, located his office in downtown New Orleans, down the street from a historic Catholic Church.

Mrs. Brock was the bookkeeper for Brock Exploration and went to Mass every single fucking morning on her way to work. Lightening would have struck had Bucky gone inside the church. She, along with Bucky had a monumental temper. Bad pair to draw to. Mrs. Brock really detested me but I didn't much care. I didn't think a whole hell of a lot of her.

Overriding all his 'assets' Bucky suffered from Italian Alzheimer's where you forget everything except the grudge. Hate was in his DNA.

New Orleans and hard living went hand in hand. Drawing a sober breath while in New Orleans was not my thing but being in New Orleans often was my thing. Being on the Board of Directors of Brock was a fucking joke and pretty stupid of me. Bucky ran the show, made all the decisions while brooking no independent opinions. But it was a great excuse for me to get away from the Princess, get blind fucking drunk and recover lounging by the pool the next day with an exploding head. All paid for by Brock Exploration.

I met Bucky through a senior partner of Lazard Freres, when Lazard was a very prestigious partnership (a long gone reputation).They barely let me in the front door in those days. I was too no-class for those big time snobs.

Peter Corcoran was one of the few non-Jewish Senior Partners at Lazard at the time. He, with another non-Jew, Ed Kennedy, ran Lazard's oil and gas business. How those two snuck in without circumcisions always escaped me. Anyhow, Peter's recommendation of crazy fat Bucky convinced me that Bucky, in spite of being crazy fat and all, would be okay.

That was before I had gone from being a little paranoid to being totally paranoid about being fucked without being kissed by independent oil and gas men and investment bankers. Genres that are narcissistic, powerless over their own bull shit and would fuck you for practice, even if it didn't do them any good.

Plaza Petroleum was the name of the piece of shit before I made the mistake of causing it to be merged with Brock. It had been named, by me, Plaza after the hotel in NY. A name was needed at that point in time. I was blind fucking drunk, in the genius stage of drunkenness at that moment in time, at the bar of the Sherry Netherlands Hotel in the Big Apple. The Plaza Hotel came into my line of sight through the window of the bar and I thought, 'What a great name.’ so Plaza Petroleum it was.

Yeah being 90 ½ gives great memories. All of which grow richer with time. You learn that you never arrive. You’re always looking to get somewhere. Unless you've traded ‘Sometimers’ for Alzheimer's...

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