Polished by the forces of erosion, and then delivered by a glacier, Indian Rock stood sentinel on a hill overlooking Indian Lake. Four smooth, well-worn grooves in the rock provided a grip for my Keds in order to reach its crest. Damn! Why do I play handball? I could see my dirty sock shyly peeking through a hole in the sole of my left sneaker. Davega’s on Southern Boulevard sells handball sneakers. Next time I’ll get them if they’re not too expensive.

Indian Rock was a landmark to the neighboring residents of Crotona Park who rented rowboats in the summer to escape the stifling heat of their tenements. It stood unfazed during the frigid January and February frosts and kept an eye on the rowers and the kids fishing in the summer. During the winter, when the lake was thick enough to support skaters, “Parkee” Solomon, would raise the flag (a red ball on a white field) near the boathouse to indicate that skating was permissible. Whenever that flag was up, homework was benched. I would grab my skates, dash across Boston Road, pass P.S. 61, round the corner at Charlotte Street, pass the playground on my left and run to the Indian Lake in Crotona Park.

In the early 1930s, a ramshackle wooden building at the north end of the lake was used for boat rental in the summer and as a warm-up hut for the skaters in the winter. One evening, a huge fire crackled not far from the building. I joined the skaters gathered around the fire while a young man was singing Home On the Range. I was so impressed with the song that I kept repeating it while skating around the lake. Later I learned that it was President Roosevelt’s favorite song.

This dilapidated building succumbed to a compassionate fire, and then a brick boathouse was built in the 1940s at the east side of the lake. In the men’s room, I could fortunately change into my ice skates. I say fortunately because my woolen socks had more holes in them than a golf course. My mother would patch them with whatever color wool yarn she had. Joseph had his Technicolor dreamcoat and I had my Technicolor stockings. Of course, this was an embarrassment, so I changed in a stall in the men’s room. Soon I was on the lake, an equal to the best-dressed skater on the ice.

If the lake did not freeze, there was a poor substitute. A small, frozen wading pool in the nearby playground was available. It was no fun trying to slither through the floundering skaters straining to balance themselves by grabbing on to anyone or anything within their grasp.

In 1942, seated on top of the Rock, I felt like a spectator in a loge waiting for the Crotona Park Spectacular to begin. The nasty pretzel man in his white apron opened the show with his salted pretzels stacked on four dowels and many more in his woven wooden basket. As he carried them on a slow lap around the lake, the pretzels bounced in cadence to his arthritic shuffle. His curses at the kids who hassled him were saltier than the pretzels in his basket.

Ah! There’s the black derby with the little old man underneath it. A small, thin, cardboard box with a bag of polly seeds and a bag of pumpkin seeds hung from his arm. “Two cups for a penny,” faintly filtered through his trim white beard as he tottered along the perimeter of the lake.

To my right, in front of the benches, my father and a group of unemployed men were in their usual heated debate concerning the garment workers union. My father, a veteran of employer/employee combat for union recognition, earned his ribbons with oak leaf clusters during the struggle. Sometimes their humorous recollections about their life in the shtetl cooled off the quarrel.

There’s a teenager in a rowboat! Where did he get the fifteen cents to rent it? With the oars in the boat, and using his shirt as a pillow, he stretched out over three seats as the waves gently rocked him to sleep. Near the boathouse kids were digging for worms to use as bait for the “sunnies” swimming in the lake.

In the summer, the jewel in Crotona Park’s crown was the 300-foot outdoor swimming pool. The summer heat sent hundreds to the pool. The morning session was free. There was a small charge in the afternoon. We were given a basket, placed our clothes in it, ran past the showers and off we went into the clear, aqua-green, chlorinated pool. The smaller diving pool had five diving boards. At its center was the 15-foot high diving board. There were two five-foot boards at each side of the high board and two two-foot boards beside them. I wouldn’t call the fifteen-foot high board a diving board because I never dove off it. Whenever I felt fearless, I climbed up the ladder, ran over the board, held my nose, and leapt feet-first into the pool. A long, molded cement arch with about four or five tall steps faced the diving boards giving the bathers an opportunity to sit and watch the divers, or sun themselves. Above these steps was a food concession stand. This was not for me. I always brought my own cream cheese on a bialy and rinsed it down with water from a fountain.

One day I found a dime on the steps. The bialy was to find its way home, because I was going to buy a delicious smelling, sizzling hot dog and a soda for ten cents. What a treat! The session was over. I showered and then dressed. The bialy was in my pocket, and I was on my way home. When I reached my apartment I was feeling queasy. I ran to the bathroom. While I was perched on the seat, Ma found the bialy and cream cheese sandwich in the refrigerator. I climbed off the throne, and then vomited into the sink. Without knocking, Ma rushed in and asked me why I hadn’t eaten the bialy. I told her I found a dime and bought a hot dog and soda. While I was heaving, she preached, “Sure. You’re vomiting! You don’t feel good! You see what you get when you eat trayf!?” Trayf (non-kosher food) stayed out of my throat for many years thereafter, but Crotona Park has remained with me to this day.

In 1938, Indian Lake was drained in order to search for Peter Levine who was kidnapped while coming home from school in New Rochelle, NY. Partially drained, two wooden doors came floating to its shallow surface. My friend Donny Rubin and I stepped into the muck and tried to use them as a raft, but they returned to the bottom as soon as we lay upon them. On a sloppy walk home, my soaking grey corduroy knickers and my knee-high socks clung to me as if a thief was going to snatch them off my legs. My muddy, dark brown Keds smelling like sewage, were squirting bubbles with every step. How do I explain this to Ma?

The drainage of the Lake yielded nothing but garbage soaking at its muddy bottom. But The Indian Rock knew if anything had happened. If only they would have asked, it would have told them their search was in vain.

Wayne knew that the Noris (our mountain outposts) were to the right. He knew he could climb up to this friendly position. Maybe he was wounded and is slowly returning to the MLR (frontline)? Where the hell is he? I spent the rest of the night first outside battalion headquarters and then, sitting in the trench outside my bunker in a daze.

Word came that Sid (Lt. Sidney, company commander) ordered our cooks to bring hot breakfast to the line. I thought I wouldn’t eat but the odor of broiled sausages whet my appetite. The accompanying powdered eggs tasted like white bread cooked in rice paddy water.

I mingled among the men in my platoon.

“Hey guys, last night, when we were ordered to withdraw, did any of you see Wayne?” No reply

All of us, numb from last night’s chaos, plodded back to our bunkers.

Sid knew we needed a pacifier. He had our cooks return with hot lunch, but my appetite must have gone wherever Wayne was.

It was too soon to ask Lt. Theiss if there was any news about Wayne, so I got around it by asking how many casualties we had from the raid. He knew.

“Wayne is still missing,” he replied.

Fifty-one years later, I contacted Ed Heister who brought a severely wounded Truman Bastin to a jon boat in order to cross the Imjin River and be evacuated to a hospital. He recalled Wayne on the night of August 12, 1952.

“The GI in charge of the jon boats did not allow the hemorrhaging Truman Bastin to be brought across the river until two more wounded were brought to the boat,” he said.

“Wayne removed his .45 caliber pistol, stuck into the gut of the GI and told him if he didn’t get that boat across, he’s a dead man. Truman was quickly brought across the river.

Wayne left the boats and returned to Hill 121 to look for any more wounded. That was the last I saw of him.”

“If that’s all I do, you know what you can do about it.” He knew.

“Get the hell out of here!” growled A. E. Friedman, personnel manager of the Loma Dress Corp..

I got the hell out of there then went to the New York State Unemployment Office to file a claim. After a month, the checks didn’t come. A letter arrived from the Office calling me for a hearing.

“You left no alternative for the personnel manager,” the hearing officer said. “It will be one month before you get your first check.”

It was the winter of 1949. Without a résumé, without a skill, without an unemployment check I walked the empty streets with empty pockets looking forward to an empty future. I had to get a job.

Back to the Garment District? Never! As a messenger boy for fifty-cents an hour, my jingling coins barely covered the bottom seam of my left pocket. My future was as grey as the sidewalk. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Input from my parents towards my future? They were as green as the day they trotted down the gangplank at Ellis Island.

My friend Al, also unemployed came rushing to my apartment with good news. New York Central Railroad was hiring temporary workers at twenty-five dollars a day. We applied.

A letter informed us that we were to take a physical in a room at Grand Central Station.

Wide, marble steps led us to the room where an aging Dr. Stevens was the examiner. Between rasping inhales and hacking coughs, he told me to take a seat in the corner.

“You,” he spewed to Alvin, “Get up on the table.”

Naked as the day we were in a Turkish bath, Al stood on the table resembling the famous Brussels statue, Mannekin Pis.

“What the hell are you doing up there?” growled the doctor.

“You told me to get up on the table,” replied Alvin.

“Not like that, godammit! Get down and sit on your ass!”

I could hardly contain my laughter, but this was merely a preview of things to come.

We left Dr. Stevens and followed an employee to a darkened room. There, a human in the shape of a mole sat behind a large table awaiting the next applicant. From a leather satchel, he proceeded to throw woolen yarn dolls of various colors into a spotlight on the table. We were to tell him the color. This, I believed was the most challenging task in qualifying for the job until we went into the next room.

An oral reading of the Book of Rules published by the NY Central Railroad was our final exam.

Seated around a large conference table was a cast of characters who appeared to have been sipping Thunderbird throughout the night, and then were scrubbed, shaved and bleached by the Salvation Army. Each one of us was asked to read two paragraphs from the book. The readings began. After three readings I could have sworn I was seated among in a Special Education class. Some lost their place when they went to the next line, while another pressed a finger underneath each word he was reading.

It was my turn. I noted that my paragraph extended to two and a half pages. I began to read. Alvin bent over and looked me square in the eyes. I burst out laughing. Class dismissed. Everyone passed. Our group of academics replaced an unfortunate employee who swung his metal lantern under the third rail as well as a few retirees.

At the 72 St. freight yard we were classified as a switchtender/brakeman. We were placed on a shape-up list; that is, if your name was called by yardmaster Brophy, you worked.

By lifting a weighted bar connected to a part of a track, the track moved. An oncoming train was then switched onto another track. That was easy, but that black day came when I was assigned as a brakeman.

“Get your ass up there and take this bat with you,” directed Brophy.

I climbed up a metal ladder connected to the back of a freight car, and then held onto a wheel at the top.

“That’s your braking wheel. You’ll be braking for a few days. Dolan called in sick. Put the bat inside the wheel, lock it in place and pull so that the wheel turns towards you. You are now braking the freight car. Let’s try it on slow-moving car.”

Shit, is this man nuts? Who does this for a living? I never heard of this insanity. Is this what a high school academic diploma leads to? While I was considering my doom, I found myself at the top of the freight car and gripping a bat. Brophy directed a locomotive to move towards the car and give it a gentle push.

“O.K., after about fifty feet start braking the car,” barked Brophy.

With my heart pounding against my denim shirt, with my buttocks puckered in my jeans, and with my intestines dancing around in my abdomen, I repeated what I did on the standing car.

“It works! This damn thing works!”

“Before you jump off, make sure your rear foot hits the ground first or else you’ll fall over on your stupid head.” Good advice.

After a few months as a switchtender, I was qualified as brakeman. Freight yard? Will it be my graveyard? Should I show up, or call in sick? I helped with the rent, and I have a few bills in my wallet.

“Wolfe.” said Brophy. “From now on, you’ll be a brakeman. We’ll meet at the Farm (shape-up room) in the morning.”

On my first day as brakeman, Brophy released my freight car at the top of The Hill. Moving swiftly down track 18, I locked my narrow bat within the braking wheel, and then pulled the bat towards me as the car neared an assembled freight train. My car slowed down to a point where I could safely jump off before it humped into the waiting train. Is this madness? What normal person would make a career of jumping off a moving freight car? I was convinced that my expiration date was imminent.

The year was 1950. The North Korean Army had overrun the South Korean and American Armies and was heading towards Pusan, the southern tip of South Korea. My draft board, concerned about the defeat of South Korea sent me Greetings.

Goodbye New York Central we had a swell time. Give my regards to the boys, if they’re sober.

“I warned you your job at the railroad was dangerous, and now you’re going to have a gun in your hands?”

I knew Elaine wasn’t thrilled to tell her girlfriends that I jumped off freight cars for a living, but I earned more than my father did after he worked for thirty years in the Garment District. We needed the money and I didn’t give a shit what Elaine or her friends thought of me. Maybe her parents could find her a better catch.

David Sohmer, my classmate whose birthday was close to mine joined me as we approached the newspaper dealer at the East 174 St. subway station.

“I haven’t seen you in months. Where have you been?” he asked.

His newspaper stand was below the subway station. With his left hand, he removed a newspaper from a stack and nimbly placed it under the stump of his right arm. He then handed the newspaper to me with his left arm. His right forearm was blown away during the invasion of Sicily.

“Dave and I are going to Whitehall Street for our physical.”

He sent us off with, “Don’t be a hero.”

Six months later Dave was a P.O.W. prison guard at Koje-do, and I was on the frontline at the Chorwon Valley in Korea.

Cargo nets were hung from the side of the M.S.T.S Pvt. Sadao S. Munemori. Making sure the vertical ropes were grabbed, we climbed down the nets then dropped into waiting Higgins boats. They brought us to shore. By the time the troops assembled, it was nightfall.

Unlike the tiny Lionels in Japan, we boarded U.S. size trains to a repo-depot (replacement depot) opposite the University of Seoul. Jeering from the men who put in their time and were going home did very little for my morale, but was there a choice?

In a few days, I was seated on a train heading north. The gentle, sloping surrounding hills were lush green. It was so peaceful. Who would think there was a war going on

15 – 20 miles north? As we continued, the hills increased and grew much higher.

It was late March. Korea, known for its rainstorms at this time of the year flooded the surrounding tracks. Our train came to a halt.

“Grab your duffel bag and put on your poncho before and get off the train!” came thundering through the cars.

Where there might have been grass was a wide swath of mud welcoming our boots to the 15^th Regiment, 3^rd Division headquarters.

A rotund colonel came out of a tent to address us as we were standing with rain cascading off our ponchos

”Leave your duffels here, put anything you need in your canvas satchel and backpack. The duffels will be waiting for you when you go stateside.” A lie.

I was with a group of seven selected as infantrymen for Company L. Through the downpour, we were marched to the company’s bunkers dug into a trench line along the MLR (Main Line of Resistance).

The wide Chorwon Valley spread out in front of us framed in the distance by rising hills. Sergeant Springer gave us an orientation.

“The tallest one is Hill 317. The one that is flat at the top is Breadloaf, and the smaller, cone-shaped one next to it is Sugarloaf. The nearby hill in front of us, right there, is Mary OP. In a few days we’ll be paying one of them a visit.”

Totally unaware of my surroundings, I crawled into my assigned 6’ x 8’ bunker where Jesse was munching on a candy bar.

“Hi. I’m Dan Wolfe. Where do we sleep?”

“Throw down you poncho, and put your sleeping bag on top of it. That’s where we sleep.”

“My mother put blankets over the popping springs from my mattress at home. But this…?”

He replied by singing: Rocks have been my pillow

Cold ground’s been my bed

The stars have been my cover

And the blue sky’s been my spread.

In twenty minutes, Sergeant Springer came to tell us a patrol was going out that night. He assigned Russell and I to guard the Free Lane, a path leading out of our position and into the Chorwon Valley. Russell was terrified. His brother was killed in WWII. The patrol returned with their wounded. It was a chaotic night.

The following morning, the sun replaced the rain. I crawled out of my bunker and looked down at a brown, clay slope. This was my front lawn. Scattered on the slope were lonely patches of green. A few inches underneath this tranquil lawn were land mines. Like large, coiled Slinkies, concertina wire, as cold as the clay were scattered over the entire area.

“Don’t ever walk on the land in front of us, warned Jesse. It’s mined. Over there, to the left is a barbed wire fence, that’s the The Free Lane. We walk safely there when we leave and return from a patrol.”

“Yes, I guarded it last night with Russell Wirt.”

Springer came to tell us that coffee was ready on the reverse slope of our hill.

“After breakfast, go with Wright and bring back a couple of barrels of water from the pond.”

The trip was like traveling through a desolate forest. Bare trees and tree stumps were littered around us. Scraps of grass made a meager attempt to recover an area that was once a forest.

Where has the greenery gone?

Daniel Wolfe, President, Outpost 52

(Comments may be sent to Dan at www.danielwolfebooks.com

Mail to a hungry GI was on a par with C-ration’s premium delight – Franks and Beans. Elaine was one of the contacts I had with the homefront. After a sniper killed Lapich and Rutledge near their bunkers, her mail broke the drudgery of cautiously blending in with my surroundings. Although I looked forward to her mail, that was as exciting as Peter and Peggy, my third grade reader, her letters brought sanity from the real world to this insanity

She was attractive. I met her at a party, but after a few dates I knew that the glue was very thin. On a stroll, her elbow was the monitor that prevented contact between my arm and her budding breasts. She was a reliable pen pal, but neither of us conveyed any attempt at intimacy. Yes, she sent photos and perfumed letters. I looked forward to them, but there was no surge of hormones at the thought, or the sight of her. Upon returning from a raid or patrol with my body intact, I could have written a love letter to my janitor’s senile wife.

Did I waste Elaine’s time and mine? It could have been selfish on my part, but her letters inspired me to reply about the humor and life of an infantry company in the trenches of Korea. Did she save them? Maybe they’re in a box somewhere to be discovered by a person for whom they have no meaning. Perhaps they meant nothing to her.

She was twenty and I was twenty-two. I was no bargain. Before I was drafted, I worked as a switchtender/brakeman for the New York Central Railroad. What a future that was. I could see myself sitting at a bar with the boys, sipping on a pint and listening to boredom. I continued to work for a few months until I was called to Whitehall Street for a physical on September 27, 1950.

Back to Elaine. The men in my platoon envied her three-letters-a-week schedule. At mail call, very few envelopes passed into their hands. Why didn’t their wives or girlfriends write? Were they able to write?.

What will I do when I return stateside? Call her and tell her the letter writing was fun, but to get on with her life? Cruel. On the other hand, maybe she felt as I did, or maybe she felt that she did her job on the home front? Letter writing? It was a time waster.

In celebration of my return friends arranged a welcome-home party. I hadn’t called Elaine, but there she was looking as pretty as she did in her pictures. I felt stupid. It seemed to me that everything that had to be said was said in my letters. At the end of the evening she knew. My best correspondent’s ballpoint pen and paper turned out to be our most intimate relationship..

Obviously, stickball was rational because a twist of a doorknob, a flight down the steps, and a hop down the stoop led us to an asphalt street, our emerald-green playing field. All we needed was a pink Spalding, (a treasure that came upon the scene soon after WWII), and a broomstick.

Stickball sticks were not sold in a store; do we have any left over from yesterday? If not, how will we get one? Do we have a Spalding or do we chip in for another one? If there’s an odd man, which side will he be on, or will he be the umpire? How do we retrieve the ball from Gums’ (a janitor) cellar? His German shepherd’s salivating purple tongue gliding over an assortment of razor-sharp incisors were just yearning for an ass to bite.

Refugee Jack, the owner of the candy store was not happy with the broomsticks hidden behind the phone booths.

One day, a police car snuck up on us and took all our sticks. No problem. We boosted Abe to a hanging ladder from a fire escape. “No goosing guys!” Then he began his quest for a broom. There was always a broom being aired out on a fire escape. With the booty in hand, he climbed down, dropped the broom at our feet, and then jumped to the street. On to Nick, the shoemaker who had his pliers waiting in order to remove a nail anchoring a spring holding the bristles together. Once the spring was removed, we could shake off the bristles into an open sewer at the end of the block.

“We’ll play seven innings, right? Let’s go over the rules so there will be no arguments.”

If the ball is caught off the car, without a bounce or stays under the car, you’re out. If the ball remains on a fire escape, you’re out and you have to climb up the fire escape, or go to the apartment to get it. If a car comes yell, “Hold it!” and the game stops.”

After the teams were chosen, we left for one of our playing fields, at either upper or lower East 172 St., between Boston Rd. and Minford Pl.

Let the game begin!!

Pink Spaldings were in the air. A well-hit ball ricocheted off Peb’s tenement building. Soon, a line drive struck a housewife sitting on a folding chair. After briskly rubbing the damage, she shouted, “Go to the park, you bums!”  For this poverty-stricken neighborhood a five-cent phone call to the police was out of the question, so the boys played on.

It was the third inning when “Chickee, the cops!” came booming from the outfield. Peanzy grabbed the sticks and ran into his hallway. The rest of us assembled into the candy store waiting for the police car pass.

Moish (The Bambino) was next up. A high fly ball arched towards Krebs in the outfield near Adoff’s drug store. Krebs ran to the ball for a sure out. Coming out of the wings for the Comedy of the Year was Meyer, Nootch the Bookie’s assistant. He came ambling by wheeling his newborn daughter. Krebs, afraid that he might harm the baby skidded to a halt. The ball landed in the carriage.

“It’s a two-base hit!” yelled Alvin.

“It’s an out screamed Krebs. I could have caught it if the freakin’ carriage wasn’t there!”

“Since the ball wasn’t caught,” said Mutt “it’s a ground rule double.”

“What about a do-over?” suggested Moish.

The fact that the ball landed directly into the carriage with an infant inside was irrelevant. Was it a base hit or an out – this was the issue. Meyer, aware that his baby was not harmed, and enjoying the repartee asked if we wanted any action on the Giant game in the Polo Grounds the coming Sunday.

The war was over! The Daily News and Daily Mirror were replete with columns from spring training camps about Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio. Why didn’t we play baseball? An uninspiring game of catch started us off in June. It was cold. The palms of our hands hurt. A few weeks later, the spring warmth brought us back to Crotona Park. After last year’s abuse, our baseball’s cover was replaced by black, sticky plumber’s tape. Our baseball bat was cracked from a hit by an inside pitch. Nick the Shoemaker reset the fractured bat by driving in some nails, and then wound some tape around it. Baseballs didn’t spring off that bat. A dull thud reported that the ball was hit but didn’t go beyond the infield. This wasn’t fun. As the Dodger fans cried, “Wait ‘till next year!” we gladly waited. The broken bat and the tape-covered baseball waited in a closet ‘till next year. Will we wait ‘till next year? Oh no. Let’s go back to East 172 St. where the smooth, gray asphalt and The Rational Pastime beckoned.

Submitted by danielwolfebooks author of Cold Ground’s Been My Bed, Coming Home and Seabury Place.

She passed by and said, “Hello.” “Hi,” I replied, and then turned to Lenny Glass, not because Lenny was more appealing, I turned to Lenny because I was lost after I coerced a “Hi” from my vocal cords.

I was in my senior year. Why couldn’t I connect with a girl I found attractive? Maybe I spent too much time playing ball? Maybe I should have developed social skills instead of athletic skills? Maybe the time I spent in the candy store listening to and exchanging abrasive humor could have been spent with the girls in the neighborhood, but the candy store was more fun.

The bell rang. I left for Mr. Epstein’s Earth Science class. She left for her program. The homeroom incident was forgotten when glaring at me from across the hall was a poster reminding the seniors that the prom was scheduled for January.

Prom? What do I know from a prom? I don’t even have a suit. A tie and shiny black shoes? Feh! If had a suit, it would not be at the prom. It would be draped on a hanger in our hall closet. Rent a tuxedo? Who knows who perspired in it?  If the band played Strangers in the Night my feet would be bouncing to a polka. None of the boys are going. Who would I ask? Her? What would we talk about? Why should I go and waste at least twenty dollars and a tuxedo I had to return? Marv graduated last year. He had a girlfriend, he didn’t go to the prom and he was in college.

That annoying poster showing a couple dancing hounded me for the rest of the day. I kept examining myself.

What if I ask her and she says, ”Sorry, I already have a date, or just a flat, “No.” I’ll be seeing her for the rest of the term coated with a film of “Sorry” or “No.”

Epstein’s class was always fun. It wasn’t a challenge. Many of my teammates from the football team took it. He had very little control over our class of boys while trying to impress us with his clichés.

“I wasn’t born yesterday. I can pick out the troublemaker. I’ll take him over the coals and hit him, but hit him hard!” was a refrain we heard at least once a week.

No sooner were we seated than three gongs for a fire drill blasted through the hallways. Our class’ location for the drill was on the James Monroe H.S. track behind the building. As we marched over the cinder track, I shouted,

“Hey guys, Epstein is taking us over the coals!” The boys laughed.

Why couldn’t Shirley be here now? It was witty and clever. That would have made an impression!

Epstein ran over to me and said that during a fire drill he was allowed to use corporal punishment if there was disobedience. What did that mean?

“I want see you at the end of the period,” he snarled.

By the time we returned to class, there were a few minutes left to the period. I walked over to Mr. Epstein after the bell rang.

“So, I took you over the coals eh? Well, you’re a senior, and if you want to be a wise guy, I’m going to hit you, but hit you hard. You’re not going to graduate! Get me?”

I scored my points with the boys, but for the rest of the term I was invisible.

The period seven bell rang. I got my jacket and ran to the field house to change for football practice.

On the rock-studded field built by the WPA, Doc Wiedman’s warm-up exercises were as grueling as practice itself.

At the end of period eight, Shirley was sitting in the far stands watching practice. No one ever comes to watch practice.  She certainly wasn’t looking for me, or was she?

I’m not going to ask her if she came to practice on Friday. I knew she did, but would I ask her if she came to see me? I had the guts to tackle a 215 pounder, but I didn’t have the guts to ask if she came to see me.

For the rest of the term there was no major change in my homeroom class behvior. We had our attendance taken, said Hello, and then waited for the first bell to ring.

Near the end of the term we collected our yearbooks. I built up enough nerve to ask her for a note alongside her photo. Under her street address she wrote, Jamaica, Long Island.Was that was where she lived? A hint?

We graduated. Where did she go? I went to the Garment District – Dead End.

Don grabbed the rolled-up newspaper from my hand.  Threadlike antennae were undulating from a massive brown crust on the kitchen walls. Roaches were swarming to a point where the white paint was hardly visible.
In the Bronx, cockroaches were a given. They inhabited our apartment long before we paid the $15 monthly rent and would still be there had not my entire neighborhood been razed under the auspices of the Reagan administration to become Charlotte Gardens.

They were quite friendly. During the day, behind the walls, these bugs probably went about their business as my father did when he took the subway to the Garment District. But in the evening, all we had to do was pull the string from the light bulb and the walls were colonized by these six-legged guests.

I was raised in a very welcoming household, but roaches littering our walls were uninvited visitors for both our landlady and my family.

My uncle, who was a guest at my parent’s wedding, thought the invitation to the wedding extended to living with them for the rest of his life. He had a room of his own. His fear of roaches had him in bed at nightfall.

Our landlady thought she had the solution. She sent her man to the apartments.

“Ma, the exterminator is here!”

He was neatly dressed in denim uniform carrying some powdered mystery sacs in a leather bag. With an inflated rubber dispenser, he went behind the icebox, under the sink, the stove and along the walls releasing a powder that left an aqua-green strip along their base.

Ma thanked him as he left, but once the door was shut she said,

“There are more roaches after he comes. I think there are cockroach vitamins in that green powder.”

Another monthly visitor rang the bell and shouted, “Consolidated!”

The courteous gentleman was the meter reader. High above the sink, the gas and electric meters looked down at the linoleum kitchen floor covering, and stared at the Quality oven opposite it. Unless we had a ladder, there was no way we could read the meters, and if we did, we had no idea what their numbers meant.

Before he removed his flashlight, Ma’s salted chicken lying at an angle on a board, and draining into the sink startled him. He stopped and looked down at the naked chicken. Ma taught him in her broken English, that the chicken’s blood was being drawn so that it will be kosher. Completely confused, but polite, he was able to come up with an,

“Oh, is that so?”

He removed a flashlight from his pocket, brightened the meters then read them. Upon leaving our apartment, he muttered,

“This job gives me an education I could never get in school.”