It's Only Me- Chapter 5- Friends and Adventures

Bicycle was the main means of transportation for me and most of my friends. This, coupled with a massive public transit system meant that there was virtually no place off limits to us.

Seth Herman and I were fast companions between 1969 and 1974 when he moved out of town for school and other adventures. But growing up in Brooklyn provided many small adventures which still give us both pleasure in the recounting.

We spent a lot of time together so we got into some mischievous things that are kind of comical and innocent to look back upon; especially when compared to the standards of today. But it is safe to say that we annoyed everyone in our paths. And I mean EVERYONE. We rode our bikes up onto the sidewalk and bore down on one poor old man with the brazen cry of “Move over old man, it’s a new generation!” (Seth’s idea- though I’m sure he will place the whole thing on my shoulders.)

We waited on the roof of my parents building at 1310 Avenue R on a cold January Sunday in 1969, with a 6 transistor radio tuned into the football game- I think it was the Jets- and at the appropriate signal from Seth- who knew about football- I cut the wire to the Master Antenna for the entire building. We then dashed down 2 flights of stairs to the 6th floor where we joined the mob surging to the roof to see what had blacked out their TV’s at the end of the 4th Quarter. If they had been carrying pitchforks and torches it would have been a scene right out of “Frankenstein.”

Another example of our ingenuity was riding the Long Island Railroad tracks at Brooklyn College off Flatbush Avenue. We actually would ride through the tunnel beneath Flatbush Avenue, reasoning that if a train were coming we would see the headlight and get out of the way. A foolproof plan- sure…. Again, this was entirely Seth’s idea though I’m sure he will tell you differently.

If we weren’t being a nuisance in the street we were at the movies. I believe that Seth and I saw every movie released between 1969 and 1974. One memorable occasion still stands out. We were at the Avenue U Theater watching I don’t remember- maybe “The Wild Bunch” with Ernest Borgnine and William Holden. A couple was seated in front of us and became very annoyed at our constant laughing, cursing and general antics. The woman said, “Bernie, make them stop.” Bernie turned around in his seat and said, “Shut the hell up.” Or something to that effect. We were both shocked into silence for a moment before Seth elbowed me saying, “You don’t have to take that crap.” He was right, so I said some thing like “What are you gonna do about it, Bernie?” as sarcastically as I could. Bernie turned around and smacked me in the head! That’s why I remember his name 40 years later.

We would take the subway to Battery Park and the boat to Liberty Island and climb the Staue of Liberty. 35 cents was the price of the boat and unlimited access to the island and statue. One day we were climbing those close, narrow, winding spiral stairs to the top. In front of me was a guy with an attaché case- who would probably be searched today- and the case kept hitting me on the backswing as we climbed each step. As if that wasn’t bad enough I had Seth behind me- pushing me up into the swinging attaché case- urging me to go faster. When we got to the top and looked back down that spiral stairway we could only imagine a bowling ball going down against the flow of people ascending. Oh and by the way the view was nice.

We answered public phones when they rang as we walked by. One day we were in the subway at Chinatown, don’t know why we were there, but we were. The phone rings and I answer it. Some Oriental voice asks for Chung Fung and I say, “Hold on” passing the receiver to Seth. All I heard was Seth going (in a Chinese accent) “You no get money from me- you fuck yourself!” and he hangs up. Next day they’re fishing a Chinese guy out of the river. I suppose it was Chung Fung.

There are almost no pictures to support any of these stories- cameras were not our main priorities back then. There were no cell phones or cameras to distract us from our daily fun of ruining other peolples days. The photo of Liberty Island was taken by Seth many years later and the brochure below is from my personal collection.

Seth was not the only one I traveled about with. John DiStefano and his brother Jimmy used to like to go to the Empire State Building. Aside from the great view they had a record machine up there- you could make a record in a booth- much like the photo booths of the time. We also liked to throw things off the 82nd floor observatory. Pennies, paper planes, bottle rockets. Didn’t matter. 82 stories is a long way and provided a lot of entertainment. The best part was walking back to the subway and seeing the dents in some of the parked cars and wondering “Did we do that?”

Mostly we just had fun, riding the subway and stradling the cars (one foot on one car and the other on the next produced a bouncy ride.) Walking the tracks from Kelley Park to the Kings Highway Station and climbing the platform to catch the train for free. (Saved 15 cents that way!)

We meant no harm and as far as I can remember we hurt no one. But a lifetime of memories were stored up during these years.

It's Only Me- Chapter 8- Sex and Ulcers

Around 1971 I lost my virginity to a girl named Mona who was 2 grades behind me in school. She lived one floor above or below my friend John. I still remember the first night I got laid- my Mom and Dad had gone out on a Saturday night and wouldn’t be home until about 1 AM. So Mona and I went to my place and proceeded to proceed when I heard the front door open and my parents come in. Quickly thinking I put Mona in the closet and jumped back under the covers.

It was 10 PM on a Saturday night and I was 17. I must have been stupid to believe that my parents would accept that I went to bed early. My plan was to sneak Mona out the back window which opened onto the flat concrete roof of the underground garage. From there I planned to run to the iron stairway that led to the street. But I had miscalculated my parents, who, entering my room and turning on the lights saw two piles of clothes on the floor.

To say that all hell broke loose would be an understatement. There was yelling and cursing and all manner of confusion. After they left the room Mona got dressed and I took her two blocks to her home and then returned to face the music.

My mother asked me if the "girl" had “told you that you were the first”, implying that I was the victim of a teenage werewolf slut come to consume her child. I tried to explain that I wasn’t looking for purity- just sex, but when my Mom saw the used condom and wrapper on the floor near the bed, all was lost. An auspicious beginning to my love life…

John and Jim had become good friends by this time and I spent a lot of time at their house. Their Dad worked as a chef and I envied the freedom that his odd hours afforded them. By this time we had all begun to drink, mostly wine, cheap wine- so we would get pretty buzzed. On the night of my 17th birthday this would become a problem.

We were drinking in Kelly Park on 16th Street and Moore Place, riding the swings and climbing the monkey bars. I should tell you that there were two Kelly Parks; the old one where the Italian and Irish “hitters” hung out; and the new Kelly Park, which was built for the adjoining elementary school that bore it’s name. We were in the latter one- seemingly safe from the “hitters.”

Whatever forces of nature, the cosmos or fate that existed came together that night and sent the Kelly Park “Gang” through the new park, which was separated from the old one by an elevated rail line of the subway system. Spotting us they said something, and we replied with shouts of “Have a fucking drink!” We were gleefully drunk. This prompted the Kelley Park boys to come tearing through the fence and begin to deliver us a sound beat down. We at first tried to deflect the blows but ended up running from the park, up 16th Street to the safety of John and Jimmy’s apartment. Only after arriving there did we realize that Jimmy was not with us. Racing back toward the park we found him, a bit more bruised than we were, but for the most part alright. We were sore for days!

Shortly after this episode I left home for good and established myself in a basement apartment on Ave W and Bedford Avenue. The house was owned by two nice Orthodox Jews who decided to take a chance on me and my black Lab. Hard to believe, but I had a dog. His name was Tommy, short for Tomorrow. I named him for the Wings song of the same name. With a red bandana around his neck he was irresistible.

By this time I had become friends with Steve Freund and his girlfriend Donna. Steve was a year and a half older than me and in my brothers’ classes in high school. But they were never friends. Donna was a hairstylist, 30 years old and really beautiful. She lived in the same building as Steve and his parents. It wasn’t too long before Steve moved from the 5th floor with his parents, to the first floor with Donna and Duke, the beautiful and loyal German Shepard that was hers.

Donna sold nickel bags of grass and so there was a constant flow to her place of all sorts of young people. She also cut hair on the side and this increased the traffic and annoyed the neighbors.

I was working part time at a supermarket on Avenue U and trying to go to Kings Borough Community College in Sheepshead Bay full time. I lasted about 2 weeks and realized that I was only going to school to prove to my parents that I didn’t need them. I really had no desire to be there. So I left class one day and wrote “Cold October Parks” to my mother, sitting at the end of the Bay near Lundy’s restaurant and never went back.

COLD OCTOBER PARKS

I’m sitting-in the cold
October park-
Just sitting-writing a poem
About how beautiful
Everything could be.
Isn’t it a joke-
(you) telling me.

I’m sitting- in the cold
December dark-
Just sitting- writing a poem
About how ugly
Everything can be.
Isn’t this a joke-
(me) trying to tell you.

Two days before the election of 1972 I was getting a haircut and a nickel of pot at Steve and Donna’s when I felt very strange. I had been having stomach cramps and pain for several weeks and attributed it to not eating right. I got up from the chair and went to the bathroom where I tried to throw up but couldn’t. Instead I felt a welling of warmth rising like liquid in my esophagus and then I started to vomit purple blood. The smell was overpowering and I think I passed out. Steve opened the door and Donna made the diagnosis. An ambulance was called and I was moved to the lobby to wait for it. I could not stand- I had lost too much blood- so I lay there on the floor.

Now I remember the neighbors coming out and berating Donna and Steve and calling me “Yunkie”- which is Junkie with a Yiddish accent. Steve remembers it a bit differently and recalls carrying me out to the police car when it was decided that I would not make it if I waited on the ambulance. I trust Steve's recollection better than my own.

The ambulance arrived at the last second and I remember the siren and that’s about all until I got to the hospital. My blood pressure was 60/40 or something like that. I had an immediate transfusion of 3 pints of blood. My right lung had collapsed and a scalpel was used to make a whole in my side to re inflate my lung. I was connected by a tube to a large glass jar, creating a vacuum to re-inflate my lung. That’s when I passed out.

Later that night my parents arrived and I threw them out. They were setting me up for the same kind of surgeries that ruined my mothers health and as long as I was conscious they could not make the decision for me. So I stuck it out, barely awake. A Korean intern came in and announced that “an 18 year old should not need surgery.”

I had peptic bleeding ulcers, just like my Mom and did not want to follow the same course of treatment that had left her ill from the time I was six and for the rest of her life. The treatment then was to cut out half of the stomach- the theory being that the sores were removed. But that left half a stomach and all the acids for a full stomach! This is rarely done today.

But the Korean intern had some ideas of his own. He produced some tubing and inserted two lengths, one in each nostril, down to my stomach. Then using iced water and a bulb syringe he washed iced water over my stomach to cause the bleeding to stop, It worked and probably saved my life. Whoever he was and wherever he is, I send my eternal thanks.

While in the hospital I missed my first Presidential election. It was 1972 and Nixon vs. McGovern.

During my 2 weeks in Coney Island Hospital I managed to smoke some pot on the sly. One of my friends, Jeff, brought some in and at night I went to the bathroom across the hall and had a few hits. I was still hooked up to the jar. The next morning I awoke with a Doctor questioning me- “How did that smoke get in the jar?” to which I boldly replied, “You’re the doctor- you tell me!”

I also managed to get out on a field trip one day. Seth came by with his Dad's car and some weed. We strolled right out through the lobby with me in my hospital gown and carrying the IV. We drove around a bit in the Coney Island area and smoked some before returning.

In about 2 weeks I was discharged and discovered that my parents had closed up my apartment and sold my dog. With nowhere to go I wound up back home for what was supposed to be 12 weeks. I made it only to New Years.

In January I went with John and Jimmy DiStefano and rented the first floor of 2132 Ocean Avenue from Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg. It was 7 rooms- old, but nice. It was on “Doctors Row” across from the public library.

I was working again- as a buyers assistant in the Garment District for Ted and Harold Cohen. The son had a division called THC Graphics. But every morning I had to get off the train and throw up on my way in. The job, or rather, I, didn’t last long and so I quickly became unemployed. Little did I know, but I was about to enter one of the more interesting periods of my life.

Happy New Year!

This is Times Square in New York City on the night of December 31st, 1954. I was home sleeping, unaware of the festivities just 8 miles from my door. The simple white ball dropping was indicative of the times. Black and white- simple. Not too complicated.

Funny how in all my years growing up and living in New York my friends and I never went to Times Square on New Years Eve.

My first New Years memory is of 1960. This was the first time I had heard the term "decade." During the next few years and until about 1967 my brother and I would celebrate by decorating the apartment with streamers and ballons. We bought candy and cakes to snack on. Our parents went out for the evening. At midnight my brother and I would watch the ball come down in Times Square and then we would toss streamers and confetti all over the house and pop all the balloons.

There was always an old movie playing on WOR- TV Channel 9 and I would stay up and watch it until my parents came home with the hats and horns from the party they had been to. It was these New Years Eves that introduced me to the old Busby Berkeley movies, which I still enjoy today.

I remember New Years Eve 1969 when I was 15 and John DiStefano and I rode the Avenue R bus to the end of the line at Flatbush Avenue. We were drinking Bali Hi wine all the way. The driver didn't seem to mind and we waited on the bus, drinking, for the return trip to Avenue R and East 16th Street. At about 1:30 in the morning we smashed our bottles (for good luck) against the walls under the Avenue R "trestle" of the BMT Lines. It was snowing lightly and all was peaceful when we wished one another a Happy New Years and went home.

There have been other, more dramatic New Years Eves over the decades. One of the more memorable ones was in Valencia, Spain 1978 going on 1979. We were in Valencia for the Christmas and New Years holidays. We had made friends with alot of the local University students and become regulars at the coffee houses and bars. We had even become friendly enough with some of them that we were invited into their homes.

Around 11 PM or so we were walking through the older part of the city when we came to the Plaza of Virgins. The whole plaza was filled with families! Some held candles, some sang, some were drinking a bit of the local wine. It was all so low key and very different from the hell raising we were used to. It was almost like an affirmation that though one year had come to an end, another was about to begin.

And so it goes, one thing ends and another begins. The past year, with all of its trials and tribulations has come to an end. And a new one awaits. A New Year is alot like a blank piece of paper. Anything is possible. It's up to you what gets written.

So to all my old friends, and the new ones as well, Happy New Year!