its 2 january 2010 and have a story to tell. from the third ave. el. to va. beach and green eggs and spam.
i was born in lenox hill hospital in 1936. we lived in roach infested, cold water flats in manhattan for a few years, moving each time we were evicted. moved to camden n. j. for a while as my father tried different businesses. don't remember much from those days. remember my mother dragging me from kindergarden in a catholic school screaming at a nun and my report cards show i only spent the last quarter of first grade in a school in deer park, long island. (with all 'c' grades). such was the beginning.
i mentioned the third ave el because it is a vivid memory from a time i can't recall. i just remember it going past our window day and night. don't know how old i was. another incident i recall was seeing myself standing in a crib looking through a door while my parents were fighting. i rember seeing my father burn a cigarette into my mother's forehead. the next day my father snuck me up in the hospital elevator so i could visit my mother. was i two years old? don't know. i do remember second grade. we were living in freeport, l. i. then over a bar that played, "goodnight irene" almost every night it seemed. i had come to love school then. my teacher was very nice to me and i think i was a good student but i'm not sure because i know my father gave my teacher butter and sugar which were hard to come by in those days. he had a luncheonette business across the street from columbia bronze where he and my mom brought coffee and donuts to the workers everyday on a cart. then my sister was born and my grandmother had to come out from n. y. to take care of her and my mother and uncle henry tried to take care of the luncheonette because my father reenlisted in the marines. third grade was good for me too. i made my first communion and became very catholic. by fourth grade we moved to riverhead, l.i. my father was home from the war and he bought a new luncheonette with a donut shop included. i was ten years old and i knew what i wanted and had an idea what i had to do to get it. i started to work in my father's business. he paid me $.25 an hour. i mixed the donut dough. caught them as they came out of the machine and applied the special toppings. sometimes i made sodas and sundaes or worked the cash register. i was good at math and money. life wasn't too bad but things happened that would haunt me 50 years later that i didn't understand then.
its 2 january 2010 and have a story to tell. from the third ave. el. to va. beach and green eggs and spam.
ReplyDeletei was born in lenox hill hospital in 1936. we lived in roach infested, cold water flats in manhattan for a few years, moving each time we were evicted. moved to camden n. j. for a while as my father tried different businesses. don't remember much from those days. remember my mother dragging me from kindergarden in a catholic school screaming at a nun and my report cards show i only spent the last quarter of first grade in a school in deer park, long island. (with all 'c' grades). such was the beginning.
i mentioned the third ave el because it is a vivid memory from a time i can't recall. i just remember it going past our window day and night. don't know how old i was. another incident i recall was seeing myself standing in a crib looking through a door while my parents were fighting. i rember seeing my father burn a cigarette into my mother's forehead. the next day my father snuck me up in the hospital elevator so i could visit my mother. was i two years old? don't know.
ReplyDeletei do remember second grade. we were living in freeport, l. i. then over a bar that played, "goodnight irene" almost every night it seemed. i had come to love school then. my teacher was very nice to me and i think i was a good student but i'm not sure because i know my father gave my teacher butter and sugar which were hard to come by in those days. he had a luncheonette business across the street from columbia bronze where he and my mom brought coffee and donuts to the workers everyday on a cart. then my sister was born and my grandmother had to come out from n. y. to take care of her and my mother and uncle henry tried to take care of the luncheonette because my father reenlisted in the marines.
third grade was good for me too. i made my first communion and became very catholic. by fourth grade we moved to riverhead, l.i. my father was home from the war and he bought a new luncheonette with a donut shop included. i was ten years old and i knew what i wanted and had an idea what i had to do to get it. i started to work in my father's business. he paid me $.25 an hour. i mixed the donut dough. caught them as they came out of the machine and applied the special toppings. sometimes i made sodas and sundaes or worked the cash register. i was good at math and money. life wasn't too bad but things happened that would haunt me 50 years later that i didn't understand then.