CHRISTMAS ON MAIN STREET 1968, PART TWO

Photo Courtesy of Mary Lutz Alexander

I stood motionless before the window of the Atlas Five and Ten on Main Street in Fort Lee. Exhausts of steam were puffed out from between the space of my chapped, shivering lips. My heart was pining. Sitting high upon a glass shelf of the display case sat Biff Bear. My eyeballs almost climbed out of their sockets so far above the reach of my eyes did he sit. I looked up until my corneas felt like they would disappear into my brain and the bottoms of my lids stretched further down my cheeks as my eyes tried to reach his.

I came to know Biff as we all came to know our toys in 1968—through the power of television. Seeing him before me, I felt like Dorothy when she stepped out of her black-and-white Kansas farmhouse and onto the Technicolor streets of Oz. You see, we had a black-and-white 19” portable television set that sat on a slightly dented stand with wobbly wheels against the only wall without windows in our colonial cape on Fifth Street. But here he was before me as I stood on the broken sidewalk of Main Street -- real and colorful. His yellow shirt with red and blue stripes, his tan pantless legs (the white circular pull-ring that would make him talk protruding from his right hip), his milk chocolate rubber face, his small triangular black bear nose, his mitten-shaped hands.  

Trapped inside the web of the mob I used my adrenaline to push my way through bodies back to my parents who were standing somewhere behind me on Main Street. They had to see Biff. They had to know how much he meant to me. They had to get him for me now. I couldn’t possibly leave him in the window! What if some other little girl took him home? After all, there was only one Biff Bear! I pushed my way through the corduroy, polyester, and wool of coats, my mittens getting snagged on zippers, toggles, and the garters with the sharp silver clips that the over-mothered kids’ mothers had clipped to the sleeves of their jackets so they wouldn’t lose their gloves.

Standing across the street leaning against the wall of Schweitzer’s Department Store was my father talking to a group of other fathers who would much rather have been leaning against the bar inside a smoky tavern raising glasses than children, but here they stood guarding the night while their wives stood on the layaway lines inside the Five and Ten.

Pulling on the sharp crease of my father’s serge pants I abruptly interrupted, “Daddy, Daddy! Biff Bear’s in the window! I want him! I want him!”

My father released a laugh that was meant more as a contemplative pause than a release of mirth before saying, “I don’t like stuffed animals. They’ll suffocate you when you’re sleeping.” All the men agreed and “Pete the Greek” threw in, “Yeah and they is a magnet for germs.”

“Son of a bitch…” I thought. I ran back across the street to look for my mother who was buried somewhere inside the Five and Ten. I walked through dozens of pairs of well-heeled nyloned-stockinged legs looking for the two that belonged to my mother. It wasn’t easy because during the holiday season Mr. Feiler added an extra cash register to handle the overflow of shoppers. After searching and searching I finally found her in the make-up aisle.

“Mommy! Mommy!” I cried excitedly, “I found Biff Bear. I want him!”

“Ask Santa,” she casually replied as her fingers grazed over the lipsticks, eyeliners, and powders that sat in ordered rows inside the wooden display cases.

“Santa?” I cried in desperation. “Where’s he?”

“We’re going to the Garden State Plaza to see him next week,” she responded.

Sunk by the thought that Biff wasn’t coming home with me that night I resigned myself to the fact that I had to wait to tell the Big Man that I needed Biff Bear.    

As I walked outside something wet fell upon my nose. I bent my neck back and looked up into the sky and watched as the snow swirled in a chain dance of confusion beneath the yellow glow of the street light. As snowflakes fell upon my face they were melted by the warmth of my desperate tears.  

Next Week Conclusion…

Biff Bear

MAN I AM IN A THANKSGIVING TRAFFIC JAM

Man I Am in a Thanksgiving Traffic Jam

I am man.

Man-I-Am.

“Man-I-Am, Man-I-Am, hear me say that Man-I-Am.”

Do you like this traffic jam?

“I do not like them,” said Man-I-Am, “I do not like this traffic jam.”

Why can’t you get from here to there?

“I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere. I do not like this traffic jam, I do not like them Man-I-Am.”

I am sitting beside you my darling spouse, so do not act like such a louse.

“I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE! I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere. I do not like this traffic jam; I do not like them, Man-I-Am.”

Can you make a turn down any blocks? And this traffic jam outfox?

“There are no blocks, this jam I cannot outfox; my dearest spouse, I AM NOT A ******* LOUSE. I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere. I do not like this traffic jam, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

Would you, could you, calm your nerves? Or the children will repeat those words.

“I would not, could not calm my nerves!”

And did you have to flip that car the bird! You must stay calm and you will see, an exit sign to Fort Lee.

“I would not, could not, see Fort Lee, not in this mess, so let me be! I cannot turn down any blocks, this traffic jam I cannot outfox; I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE! I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere; I do not like these traffic jams, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

A ramp, a ramp, please find a ramp; because my stomach has begun to cramp.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, before we left I told you to go! I cannot turn down any blocks, this traffic jam I cannot outfox; I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE; I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere; I do not like these traffic jams, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

Say, will we arrive in time for dinner? Would you, could you before dinner?

“I would not, could not promise to arrive in time for dinner.”

Would you, could you before dessert?

“I would not, could not promise before dessert, so your mother you should alert! And oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, before we left I told you to go. I do not like them, don’t you see, these traffic jams are not for me. I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE, my dearest spouse; I cannot get from here to there; I cannot get to anywhere!”

Would you, could you get a GPS?

“A GPS will not get us out of this mess!”

Would you, could you next year leave on time?

“I would not, could not leave on time, to miss the football pre-game shows would be a crime; I will not get GPS, for it will not get us out of this mess; I will not get there for dessert, so my mother-in-law you should alert; oh, no, oh no, oh no, oh no, I told you before we left to go;

I cannot turn down any blocks, this traffic jam I cannot outfox; I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE! I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere; I do not like these traffic jams, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

You do not like them so you say, and now you’ve ruined Thanksgiving Day!

 “Please, can you just let me be; all I want is football on T.V. Say, the traffic jam seems to be thinning, I’ll get to see if the Giants are winning!”

And that’s what this day is all about for sure, getting Man-I-Am to Thanksgiving dinner in time to see the Giants score.

MY HOMETOWN: HOW HISTORY SAVED A HOUSE (FINALLY)

(Photo reprinted with the permission of Lou Azzollini)

I have learned through the years that there is a fundamental truth to being human—we are creatures of memory and compassion. We feel longing, and regret. My own memories are so meticulously situated inside of me as to be nothing more than a gigantic flip book of visual stories I find myself re-visiting more and more as I age. Perhaps because the past is that one protected place where possibility never dies, relationships remain intact, and there lives the fantasy of the ‘do-over.”       

          Like my parents and grandparents before me, I grew up in Fort Lee. A Fort Lee that looks nothing like it did when I was younger, and it saddens me that so many of the landmarks of my youth have been razed and replaced by oversized duplexes, townhouse developments, strip malls, and apartment buildings that appear like scars on the horizon of my memory. I learned how to walk on the streets of a Fort Lee that still had dirt roads, farmhouses, saloons in houses where children were welcomed after school to buy soda, a local five and dime, a local department store, and acres and acres of pristine woods that lured us with wind-whispered sighs of awaiting adventures.

Then it happened. Subtly at first. The houses that lined the side roads of Main Street came down one by one, leveling the land and silencing the voices that once made those streets so vibrant. Hudson Street, Hoyt Avenue, Central Road. I remember walking those empty streets thinking how they looked hauntingly desolate like the pictures I had seen of war-torn cities in far-away countries on the evening news.

Like an infectious disease, barren lots spread north, south, east and west silencing neighborhoods and erasing history. Trees were indiscriminately felled and skyscrapers grew out from the earth casting shadows upon the capes that petulantly stood anchored beside them, refusing to move out of the way. Variances were given and zoning laws revised with seemingly little regard to preserving the character of the neighborhood until, finally, very few people remembered that there was even a character to preserve.

One by one, the houses of my friends came down; houses that were as familiar to me as my own. Houses whose histories could be traced back a hundred years or more--gone. The Coyte house, the Abbott house, the Barrymore house, the Ortlip house, the Castle on the hill, each replaced by a townhouse development, a bank, oversized duplexes, and skyscrapers. As the ‘70’s turned into the ‘80’s, and the ‘80’s turned into the ‘90’s, my small hometown was all but unrecognizable.

My life moved on, but some­where in the mix of days that have followed the memories of my hometown, and the time that I spent there with my friends, have creviced themselves into a signifi­cant place in my own history. That’s why when I heard that the Ford House, one of the oldest residences in Fort Lee that sits on a large tract of land, was being bought by a local violin shop, Main Violin Shop, to be used and preserved, I was very interested in the outcome. It went before the zoning board this week seeking to have a variance change from residential to commercial. Here’s the glitch—if the commercial variance was approved the house would be preserved. If it wasn’t approved and remained residential then any developer could potentially come in, knock it down, and replace it with a townhouse development or duplexes.

I sat in the audience listening intently to the concerns of all involved.  Lou Azzollini, Vice President of the Fort Lee Historical Society, spoke so movingly when he said, “The neighborhood (as it appears now) grew up around this house. This house is the neighborhood.” The board voted unanimously to grant the variance, thereby preserving the house and all the memories it holds, not only for the Ford family, but for all of us for whom that house represents all that Fort Lee used to be.

          It may seem like a small victory in a battle long lost, but I commend the board for their unanimous decision to preserve the Ford House. Landmarks are important because they define the stories that we tell, and those stories are what bridge the distance between the truth about ourselves and the legends we hold close. 

DEADLIEST CATCH

If you grew up near the Hudson River (before River Road’s toxic riverfront properties were replaced by trendy malls, expensive restaurant chains, and upscale condos) or spent summers down the Jersey Shore, you probably know how to crab. Chances are, buried somewhere in your parent’s basement is a collection of rusting crab nets that haven’t seen the light of day since 1981. If you know what I’m talking about, then you know that the creator of the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” had to have crabbed among us. He was probably the kid with the camera.

Although my remote control had scrolled by “Deadliest Catch” many times, it wasn’t until I was trapped inside by “Snow-mageddon” that I actually watched it. Luckily for me, it was a weekend marathon of re-run’s showcasing the real men of professional King Crab and Opi crabbing in Alaska. As I sat there and watched these fearless seamen brave the icy storms of the Bering Sea my thoughts travelled back to my days as a Hudson River crabber and I can’t help but marvel at the danger my fellow crabbers and I dodged.

We ancient Hudson crabbers of the last millennium may not know the experience of working on a boat while being pounded by 30 foot waves in below zero temperatures in the middle of an ice storm for six months braving squalls and tempests, but in some sense, our dangers were graver. First of all, if the Hudson was at low tide we had to walk shoeless (because we only got one pair of Converse or Pro-Keds a year and they had to last) across the marshes of toxic waste dumps to reach the decaying abandoned barges where we would cast our nets. We had to toe-dodge syringes, shards of broken beer bottles, the razor sharp pop tops of soda cans, and the decomposing flesh of rotting bodies. (Okay, so “rotting bodies” is part of the riverfront mythology, but did you ever smell the river at low tide?)

My father would come home from work to take us to the bait shop on Bigler Street in Fort Lee before depositing me, my brother, Eddie Faraday, Jimmy Younghans, Frank Moltisanti, and Don Nicoletti on some vacant riverfront property off River Road in Edgewater with nothing but our crab nets. Then he’d return to work leaving us unsupervised with nothing more than a warning—don’t get the lines crossed or tangled. There we’d join all the other kids whose father’s had dropped them off. For hours we’d boil in the sun in these days before sunscreen. We arrived at low tide, and by the time dad picked us up six hours later it was high tide, and we had to swim from the broken barge to his Rambler while carrying all the nets, and any crabs we were lucky enough to catch, above our heads. 

I remember swimming through the Hudson back to shore, my eyes blinded by the rays of the late afternoon sun trying to figure out which one out of the line-up of men, arms crossed, leaning against the uneven rows of parked Chevy’s, Falcons, Dart Swingers that lined the broken pavement of some former factory, was my father. Kids from Edgewater, Fort Lee, Cliffside Park, Fairview, North Bergen coming together for an afternoon of shared companionship. It was our very own lower East Side.

The other popular place to crab was off the side of Bunty’s dock near the base of the George Washington Bridge. That was the safe place to crab. Not only because Bunty was there to protect all us kids and teach us how to swim in the river, but while we were waiting for the crabs to bite he taught us how to bet on the horses, and heartily fed us thick slices of cheddar cheese and saltine crackers while he had his Rolling Rock Ale. No gourmet lunch ever tasted so good. The salt water, the feel of the wet twine burning the palms of your hand as you hauled the crab net into shore, and the toss of the heavy steel cage back into the River was enough to work up a sailor’s appetite.

When the flags atop Columbia Presbyterian Hospital descended at 5pm we knew it was time to head home. Little did we know, we crabsmen and women of the Hudson, that we already were home. 

THE SUMMER MY PARENTS RUINED MY LIFE… Part 2: MY THREE JOBS

(Mike DeGidio and John Litterini at Bernie's Deli)

Update: I’m still grounded for the entire summer. So, rather than stay home, I set out to get as many jobs as possible.

The first job I got by walking unannounced into Mayor Corbiscello’s office. His secretary, amused by my story, escorted me into his office. Having no blessed idea who I was, and humored by my chutzpah, he made a phone call and got me a job as a summer camp counselor. That was definitely the first, and perhaps the last, time I ever saw government in action!

          I scored my second job at the newly opened Haagen Dazs in Cardinale Square. Scooping frozen ice cream is undoubtedly one of the most labor-intensive jobs out there; by the end of the summer I was sporting Popeye arms. However, working with so many other high-schoolers was hands-down the most fun I ever had at a job. There was a sixteen-year-old boy, whom I christened Cheech, I was always partnered with. He was notorious for smoking in the freezer…and I don’t mean cigarettes; ergo the nickname Cheech. Whenever I had to go into the humongous walk-in freezer to fetch a new barrel of ice-cream, I was lost in a plume of herbal essence.

One particularly slow night, Cheech decided to hand-make one of his smokes on the counter in front of the ice cream case. My cry of “In-Coming” when a customer walked in freaked him out so much that he tossed his herbs into the ice cream case and ran. Unable to leave the register unattended, I took a scoop and mixed the “special toppings” into the ice cream. After handing the customer her scoop of rum raisin, she sat at a table, ate it, and then came back for more.  

          “I don’t know what’s in this batch of rum raisin, but it’s absolutely delicious!” she exclaimed. “Give me another scoop and a gallon to go! Make that two gallons.”

          Then there was Bernie’s Deli on the corner of Main and Anderson in Fort Lee where I learned the art of telling a good story from the Master himself, Bernie Jensen. On my first day, while demonstrating the safe and proper way to use the slicer, the tip of Bernie’s thumb went flying past my left ear and I watched in horror as blood squirted all over everything. Bernie jocularly laughed it off and told me, before driving himself to the emergency room, that if I found his thumb I should just toss it into the trash can.

          All the most important people I would meet in my life I first met at Bernie’s that summer. My counter partner, Mike DeGidio, although no Cheech, ended up being one of those people who would forever remain in my life. We’ve been through it all —bad relationships, bad choices, bad hair. He introduced me to my husband, and stood by me throughout all the years I’ve been married to the fire department. He also gave me material for some of my best columns. I thought I lost him the morning of 9/11 in the World Trade Center. I didn’t. For that I give eternal thanks. There are very few people who know all my secrets—Mike is one of them. Thankfully he survived to tell his story; I just hope to God he never tells mine!

          That summer set me on the path that landed me where I am today. Thanks to a librarian who turned me into a great reader, a pretty good writer, and an avid Times Crossword Puzzle fan; thanks to Mayor Corbiscello who gave his time and attention (and a job) to an anonymous young girl whose confidence I wish I still had; thanks to Haagen Daz for filling my summer with ice cream, laughter, and no trace of a criminal record; and thanks especially to Bernie Jensen who taught me the art of telling a good story…I strive to return the favor every single week.

          My parents set out to teach me a valuable lesson that summer of 1980, and I learned more than I ever dreamed I wanted to. But maybe they knew that all along. In the midst of my greatest confinement, I grew my wings; I found my voice.

RE-BIRTH OF A JOY-ZEE GIRL

(Continued)  August 18^th, 1980: “I can’t wait to be gone. Gone from this place; gone from this town where everyone knows everything about everyone. In this place nothing ever changes; people only die.”

I read the words of that teenage girl now from the distance of many years, and I can’t help but shudder. How could I have so thoughtlessly wished my life, and all that would ever hold any real meaning in it, away like that?

Teenagers are a funny species; they crave change while hating change. At the time I wrote those words change was happening to everyone but me. Old friendships were abandoned for new ones; friends moved away because their parents sold their houses to cash in on the real estate boom; being offered $150,000 for a triple lot seemed a once in a lifetime opportunity.  As ties began to unbind, I was beginning to feel lost at home. Finally, I was the only one still here. Leaving is always easy when you’re the last one to go.  

Eventually, I took a job in Manhattan and lost myself to the gritty intensity of midtown in the days before Mickey Mouse evicted O. Henry from Times Square. The city streets were filled with unfamiliar faces and people who knew nothing about me. Everyone came from somewhere else. And for awhile, that was intoxicating.

Then something remarkable happened. I realized that in my quest to flee everything familiar, I had surrendered all that was really meaningful. Suddenly I began to look upon my past with increasing fondness. The memories I had of growing up in that little part of town creviced themselves into a signifi­cant place in my history and became the stories I would tell.  It seems so important now—all the people and places that populated my small world back then. Sixth Street Park; Jim’s; Stanley’s candy in the back of the laundromat; Monsignor Reilly; Holy Trinity; the Palisades…all of it wished away by a young girl whose firm opinion of time was that it moved too slow.

Had I known in the summer of 1980 that my father would die in six years, I would have never left his side. Had I known that so many of the friends with whom I spent every waking moment with in the summer of 1980 would lose their lives to drugs, car accidents, cancer, murder…I would have never let the distance of time and place consign our friendships to the yearly distribution of Christmas greeting cards.   

There is a tremendous power in the past; meaning that we can only discov­er about ourselves through the passage of time and the loss of those we love, or once loved, most. It’s only when so much has been taken away that we realize how much we really had to begin with.

          I’ve returned to roam the streets I knew so well in an attempt to stir the trace remains of memory; not for the big events, but for those small subtle moments that now seem anything but ordinary. What I find instead are monstrous duplexes on tree-less streets where small shingled houses once stood; stillness where children once ran boisterously through fenceless backyards every hot summer evening while the music of ice cubes mingling in our parents gin and tonics chimed in the background; office buildings where hand-made forts and tree houses were once built.

Look­ing back to those days, those sacred days, as I so often do now, I confess that I carry within me home­sick­ness for those days, that place, all those people, and I remember events that may not, in fact, have happened as elo­quently as I now remember them. I realize with great regret that I spent the first half of my life counting down the days until I could shed my little corner of the earth from my skin only to spend the rest of my life trying to find my way back home again.

I'd like to think that some­where in the dis­tance between memory and truth those days were really as spe­cial as I remem­ber. That in the midst of memory all those people who came of age in that place called Coytesville, are still living and breathing some­where in time. 

BIRTH OF A JOY-ZEE GIRL--PART ONE

I grew up on the Lower East Side.

          Of the Coytesville section of Fort Lee. Coytesville was like the gum on the bottom of Englewood Cliff’s shoe; the Hooterville to their Petticoat Junction. In its heyday, Coytesville’s saloons were like Korean nail salons—one on almost every sidewalk-less street corner. In 1965, I was brought home from Holy Name Hospital to a small house on a street with no name, just a number--5^th Street. To my right was Interstate Park; to my left was the road that led to Jim’s Candy Emporium where my life-long love affair with everything confectionary began.

My father was a union man, and in the ‘70’s union jobs were like Wonka’s golden ticket—the decade before Reagen sounded their death knell; the decade before debt was handed out like lollipops at the bank. Everyone’s dad was a union man—police, fire, postal, teacher, iron worker, teamster, laborer; and everyone seemed to make ends meet. Like most moms, my mom stayed at home; like most families, we had two used American cars parked in our tarred driveway (yes, tarred; pavers were men who paved streets and not decorative driveway bricks); a house with no mortgage; and a week down the Jersey Shore every summer. All accomplished on one paycheck.

          The door­way to my world opened onto Sixth Street Park. If I close my eyes I can still see the sharp prism of sunlight reflecting off the jalousie glass windows of our aluminum porch door distorting the colors of the brightly painted merry-go-round into kaleidoscopic blobs of yel­lows, reds, blues and greens.

Within the perimeter of the playground sat the shallow hole of the blue-painted kiddie pool lifeguarded each summer of my childhood by Fritz, the ageless ancient German immigrant who lived next door to the playground. I’m not sure how to describe Fritz except to say that he always looked constipated. All summer long Fritz would bullet German-infused commands at us kids from the perch of his sagging nylon-woven lawn chair atop the small grassy knoll above the pool. When he ejected you from the pool, you asked no questions—you goose-stepped to the bench and served out your sentence in silence.

Sitting faithfully beside Fritz was his brown and black German Shepherd who made Cujo look like Morris the Cat. The same commands Fritz shouted at his dog, he shouted at us. When he yelled, I never knew whether to sit, growl, or attack one of the Carney boys. I swear he had to have been a former Scoutmaster in the Hitler Youth. Somewhere there’s a book in me screaming to get out, “Fritz’s Guide to Childcare—Sitz! Platz! Halt die Klappe!” (Sit, Stay, Shut Your Mouth!)

When I was around five, the Kempf’s rented the old Sweeny house across the street. The Kempf’s were the Walton’s without a conscience; at least the boys were. They shaved cats with straight edged razor blades; hoisted them up trees in rusting crab nets; fed spoonfuls of dirt to unsuspecting neighborhood kids; even pushed a Volkswagon Bug down a ditch. My old man swore the Kempf’s were moved in as a way to force us to sell, but eventually they were the ones who left. Oddly, with them went the neighborhood.

The wrecking ball knew no rest back then. Turn-of-the-century houses were replaced by quadrangular brick McMansions; familiar names moved out; new architecture and cultures moved in. By the end of the decade the old neighborhood was well on its way to becoming unrecognizable, and so was I.

Everything changed the summer I turned 15. I bore within me a restlessness that I never felt before, and would never feel again in quite the same urgent way. All that mattered were my friends; being confined at home for any significant amount of time gave me a mental rash. When I wasn’t working, I was sitting on the cliffs of the Palisades imagining the life I would someday live on the sky-lined side of the Hudson.

On August 18^th, 1980, I wrote: “I can’t wait to be gone. Gone from this place; gone from this town where everyone knows everything about everyone. In this place nothing ever changes; people only die.”

To Be Continued…

UNCHAINED MEMORIES

Wide awake at 3 o’clock in the morning, waiting for the impending snow storm of the century, all I can think about are snow tires; more specifically those old snow tires that had chains. It seems that the further the years take me away from my primitive past, the more it re-appears to haunt me at the oddest, most inconvenient hours of the night.

          Most normal people, when they think back to their snowy youth, remember sleigh riding, hot cocoa, warm fires. I, however, think of unplowed streets, lack of traction, and my old man’s furrowed brow as seen from the rearview mirror as he ordered my little foot to “GIVE IT GAS!” while shouldering the Falcon out of an uneven snow drift as the tire spit a violent deluge of snow into his unprotected face. The roar of the revving engine drowning out the gusts of profanity emitted in puffy clouds of steam from his mouth like the winds of Poseidon.

Winter was not my old man’s season of choice. In fact, before he married he followed the sun south every winter to pre-Castro Cuba where he caddied for all the swells who treated him swell. His Havana stories always included lots of money in his pockets, midnight poker games in smoky dim-lit backrooms of bars, a colorful array of zoot suits, hand-rolled cigars, and iced rum served free to the high-rollers by hard-drinking bartenders. His stories entertained my imagination, and whenever Carmen Miranda or Ricky Ricardo came on T.V. he’d hum nostalgically along to their music while his eyes mourned the loss of those long, lazy Cuban dias of winters past.      

But to the northeast he permanently returned, never quite reconciling himself to the cold. I remember once, towards the end of his life when he was very sick but would let no one outside of his family know, there was a raging blizzard and he was late coming home from work. Worried that he might be stuck somewhere because the chained snow tires weren’t yet on his car, my mother sent me out on foot to find him. I walked north on Lemoine Avenue, the heart of the Coytesville section of Fort Lee, my head bent low to shield my face from the slash of whipping sleet. I passed Holy Trinity Church; passed the white-steepled First Reformed Church; passed the “Lunch Box”; passed “Bobanell’s Liquors.” I paused before the rectangular front window of “Randall’s Bar,” the last of the neighborhood saloons. I peered as best as my snow-blurred eyes could into the window, envying the shadows of the few bodies I saw standing around the bar.

As I surged on, something familiar struck me. “Did I see the silhouette of a pinky being raised with a shot glass?” I turned around and followed the grooved footprints of my snowboots back to the bar. I looked past my neon reflection and examined the patrons. A hand waved. It was my father’s hand.

As I crossed the entrance, the rush of intense heat magnetically pulled me towards the belly of the bar. There, regaling the neighborhood boys from Fort Lee Firehouse #2 with his incredible stories, stood my dear old man waving a shot glass of whiskey in the air as if it was a beacon light piloting lost travelers to safe harbors. He handed me the glass of amber liquor and said, “Here’s to your health!” As the whiskey travelled down my throat, tears swelled in my eyes. Not because the whiskey burned, not because I was wet and cold, not because I had expected to find him dead in the raging storm. No; tears choked me because I knew that this was the last perfect moment I would ever spend warm and safe by my father’s side. He died the following Fall, leaving this earth long before the winds of winter set in.  

           My father taught me that chains on your tires keep you gravitated to the earth when you feel like you’ve lost your footing. And it’s my memories of him that gravitate me to this earth when I feel like I’ve lost my footing and life is spinning out of control; a safe, warm harbor in the midst of raging storms.

GROWING UP VIOLA…THE FORCE OF 40

           Everybody has people in their life who are like skin tags—unsightly, annoying, but not really life-threatening and easily ignored. Then there’s family; more specifically a large tightly-knit Italian family, where the only cure is intense therapy or total submersion. I was born into a family rooted to the borough of Fort Lee like goutweed—pervasive and impossible to remove. My maternal grandparents met and married in Fort Lee, and immediately began a population explosion. My mother was one of 10 Viola children; had my grandfather not died at a young age she would have probably been one of many more children. And those ten children, whose lives are indelibly etched into the character and history of old Fort Lee, left legacies nearly impossible for their children to live up to.

          I was born into the pack of second-generation Viola’s—the grandchildren who overly-populated Fort Lee back in the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s—a time when families moved around, but never moved away. There were about 40 first-cousins who lived within a mile of my house and we saw each other almost daily—we were bonded by blood, proximity, and a four-foot-ten inch grandmother who left her enduring mark on each and every one of us old enough to remember her. We used to get the shakes whenever our parents said that Grandma was babysitting. Let’s face it; a woman widowed with ten children at the age of 37 who worked many jobs to keep her family together was not in the business of suffering whiny grandchildren.  She did rub whiskey on our gums whether or not we were teething, but tough luck if you needed your diaper changed! In the ‘60’s, my older cousins actually had to work with her in one of the Fort Lee film labs. My cousin Charlie’s stories about “Working with Grandma” would rival every episode of Seinfeld.

Sundays bordered on the ridiculous, and it still amazes me that Grandma’s pot of sauce (not gravy) never went empty and her apartment in the Gnasso house, now the restaurant In Napoli, contained all our traffic. (Though, God as my witness, I’ll never eat another raisin and pignioli meatball again or sauce with pig knuckles—I always thought the pig was giving me the bare-knuckled finger!)  The noise level from those Viola gatherings still ring in my ears—the laughter, the shouting; the jokes, the shouting; the conversation, the shouting. When Uncle Joey asked someone to pass the salt it sounded like an invitation to fight, his voice so thunderous it exploded in my ears. But as a family, we had to live loud—it was the only way to be heard.

          There were definite advantages to being a part of such a large extended family. When I was three, my cousin Carol took me on her dates with Richie; my cousin Joey let me and my other cousins play in the engine room of Fort Lee Firehouse #1; my cousin Cheryl let me wear her make-up; my cousin Karen gave me all her “original” Barbie’s; and my cousin Danny, an outstanding Fort Lee football player in the early ‘70’s, would carry me on his padded shoulders onto the field after a home game win. It was the closest I ever came to being “cool.”

          When you’re part of a family that big and that close, the lines between brother, sister, cousin blur. When one of us got into trouble, we were always aware and there. And boy, we’ve had our share. Being a Viola is like running with a gang. I remember in high school some boy was giving me a really hard time until someone mentioned that I was a Viola. Immediately his whole attitude changed and he treated me with respect. I realized then, that although I didn’t carry the Viola name, I carried with me the force of 40. It was the first real powerful moment of my life.

          Time moves on, and so have we. Family gatherings are now intermittent weddings and too many funerals, but the force of 40 lives forever within me; always beside me; ever-present shadows on the streets of old Fort Lee.

Sinatra in Fort Lee--Part 2

Can you believe that I was expected to go to Kindergarten and give up the life I was making for myself? Who would mix drinks for the morning card players at the V.F.W.? Who would read the racing forms to the near-sighted World War I veterans? Who would advise Bunty what horse to bet on in the afternoon races? Who would feed coins into the payphone and dial the bookies to place the bets? Besides, when the horses hit, the boys filled my palm with closed-fist tributes—on a good afternoon I bet I had more money in my pocket than some of the men! Anyway, what did I need with school? I knew how to spell my name, and thanks to the horses I knew how to figure odds. And I’m sure no kid had a connection to Frank Sinatra, tenuous and twice removed though mine be!

 The only person who could get me out of this scrape with the German-engineered educational system was Uncle Joey. He was the one in the family who had the connections. I wanted to talk him into getting me one of those jobs that involved no work, but paid really well at one of the many construction sites in Fort Lee back then. I was five—old enough to have seen enough deals made and promises extracted by suit-wearing men on barstools and in back rooms to know how to get what I wanted. 

Uncle Joey knew the art of those deals—maybe he could ask Dolly to get Frank to intervene with my parents for me. I was sure of one thing: my mother could never refuse a request from Frank Sinatra. It was a really solid plan except for one thing. I had nothing of value to exchange for a favor so big, and in my fractured world where currency was not only measured in dollars, but in services performed -- when you had nothing to exchange you got nothing in return.

So, reluctantly, and with little illegal recourse, I readied myself for Kindergarten knowing that my happy days as a free-spirited waif were coming to an abrupt end. Grandma even took me to buy my first pair of school shoes at Schweitzer’s Department Store that sat directly across from Mr. Feiler’s Atlas Five and Dime on the southeast corner of Main Street. It was with a certain amount of sadness that I watched as Grandma exchanged her money for my new red tee-strap Buster Brown shoes with black rubber soles so thick I could have hauled used cars on them. It was then I knew that my life of adventure was dissolving and I hid behind the sale rack to conceal the bitter tears of my discontent. I was broken-hearted thinking about all the fun, adventures, and stories I’d be missing out on while forced to sit imprisoned in a classroom with 25 runny-nosed novices who knew nothing about life in the underbelly.

Once I had those red shoes in hand, I knew with great certainty that there was no way I was getting out of Kindergarten, so I looked at my situation the way most of the people who populated my first five years would look at it -- starting school meant that I was looking at a minimum12-year sentence with no chance of parole -- I should just take it on the chin like a man. I just hoped that I could stomach turning legit. I didn’t know it then, but I had nothing to worry about because the nuns took great pleasure in beating the legitimacy into me making me wish I was born a Jew.

However, those beatings made me realize one important thing-- most of the members of the mob were devout Catholics schooled by these very same nuns who, upon reflection, probably taught them everything they knew about throwing a good beating making these habit-wearing sisters perhaps the most menacing mob of all. After all, next to an outraged Italian mother, or an unpaid bookie, nobody could throw you a better beating than a pissed off nun.  Even Frank knew that!

Sinatra in Fort Lee--Part 1

Growing up in Fort Lee in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, I was weaned on stories about the mob, and stories about Frank Sinatra.  It’s no secret that the mob had a powerful presence in Fort Lee (Anastasia, Adonis…) because of, not despite of, the fact that it was a really small town. However, not just any small town; a town filled with many exits--the George Washington Bridge, New Jersey Turnpike, Route 80, Palisades Interstate Parkway, and Route 46. No doubt about it-- Fort Lee was a great place to make a quick get-away from, which is why (I believe) many notable mobsters chose to live there.

Then there was Frank Sinatra who bought a house for his mother, Dolly, on Abbott Boulevard in Fort Lee. My Uncle Joey, who had been a professional baseball player, was often invited to Dolly Sinatra’s elaborate parties.  I used to eavesdrop on his stories about the eclectic group of people Dolly regularly gathered together; I particularly enjoyed hearing about the men who made a profession out of having no profession. Now, I’m not suggesting that Dolly Sinatra was “connected” but those who were connected wanted to connect with her in order to connect with her son, and that gave me access to their world vis-à-vis my Uncle Joey.

          In fact, Uncle Joey, along with a lot of the local guys and made men, used to drink with Frank’s father, Marty, down at Frank’s Cozy Bar -- a neighborhood hang-out that discreetly sat on Palisade Avenue in Fort Lee just at the edge of “The Palisades,” which was, and still is, the swankiest section of town.  As bars went, I was never fond of Frank’s, although Gloria his barmaid was aces with me; kids annoyed Frank and that annoyed me. Anyway, I was more of a Krieger’s or Yellow Front Saloon girl.

Like I said, Uncle Joey was invited to many parties at the Sinatra’s house and I loved listening to him as he unearthed the details to Grandma while sitting at her kitchen table with the plastic floral tablecloth. He spoke of mod, starch-haired women with brightly painted turquoise eyes thickly outlined in black liner wearing sequined mini-dresses who would pile their furs onto Dolly’s King-sized bed making the bedroom look like a pile of fresh road kill, albeit, very expensive road kill;  thick-necked, scar-faced men dressed in coffin-lined silk suits doused in expensive cologne who drank nothing but single-malt Scotch in cut-crystal bourbon glasses; the ladies’ mammoth diamond rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings sparkling like a swarm of neurotic fireflies, their brilliant flames flickering  and leaping onto and off of the gleaming porcelain bodies of the Catholic saints that filled the empty spaces of  Dolly’s ornate living room. These characters that peopled Uncle Joey’s stories became for me the Prince Charming’s and Cinderella’s that other girls dreamed of.

As I inconspicuously listened to Uncle Joey’s Johnny Walker Black-tobacco-chaffed voice tell these tales, I would close my eyes and pretend that it was me elegantly glittering in my sequined dress sipping Asti-Spumante from a delicately carved crystal champagne flute laughing as Dolly Sinatra whispered closely held secrets about Frank into my ear. 

At the age of four-years old I knew I was living an exciting life. I mean, what other kid my age heard men tell stories that the mob allegedly favored the southern perimeter of Palisades Amusement Park because the screams from the Cyclone roller coaster drowned out the sound of people getting whacked?  What other pre-kindergartner knew from an original source, who drank Crown Royal with Ava Gardner while Frank performed at the swank Riviera nightclub in Fort Lee, that Ava was a first-class come si chiama who was prejudiced against Italians? What other pre-kindergartner poured whiskey sours for retired World War I veterans while standing on a red plastic milk crate behind the bar at the V.F.W.???

But my exciting life was coming to a swift end. The state sentenced me to Kindergarten and I was expected to turn legit. Can you believe that? How could I possibly go from mixing cocktails to mixing paints?

(To Be Continued)

Green Eggs and Ham in a Thanksgiving Traffic Jam

I am man.

Man-I-Am.

“Man-I-Am, Man-I-Am, hear me say that Man-I-Am.”

Do you like this traffic jam?

“I do not like them,” said Man-I-Am, “I do not like this traffic jam.”

Why can’t you get from here to there?

“I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere. I do not like this traffic jam, I do not like them Man-I-Am.”

I am sitting beside you my darling spouse, so do not act like such a louse.

“I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE! I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere. I do not like this traffic jam; I do not like them, Man-I-Am.”

Can you make a turn down any blocks? And this traffic jam outfox?

“There are no blocks, this jam I cannot outfox; my dearest spouse, I AM NOT A ******* LOUSE. I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere. I do not like this traffic jam, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

Would you, could you, calm your nerves? Or the children will repeat those words.

“I would not, could not calm my nerves!”

And did you have to flip that car the bird! You must stay calm and you will see, an exit sign to Fort Lee.

“I would not, could not, see Fort Lee, not in this mess, so let me be! I cannot turn down any blocks, this traffic jam I cannot outfox; I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE! I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere; I do not like these traffic jams, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

A ramp, a ramp, please find a ramp; because my stomach has begun to cramp.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, before we left I told you to go! I cannot turn down any blocks, this traffic jam I cannot outfox; I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE; I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere; I do not like these traffic jams, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

Say, will we arrive in time for dinner? Would you, could you before dinner?

“I would not, could not promise to arrive in time for dinner.”

Would you, could you before dessert?

“I would not, could not promise before dessert, so your mother you should alert! And oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, before we left I told you to go. I do not like them, don’t you see, these traffic jams are not for me. I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE, my dearest spouse; I cannot get from here to there; I cannot get to anywhere!”

Would you, could you get a GPS?

“A GPS will not get us out of this mess!”

Would you, could you next year leave on time?

“I would not, could not leave on time, to miss the football pre-game shows would be a crime; I will not get GPS, for it will not get us out of this mess; I will not get there for dessert, so my mother-in-law you should alert; oh, no, oh no, oh no, oh no, I told you before we left to go;

I cannot turn down any blocks, this traffic jam I cannot outfox; I do not like them my dearest spouse, and I AM NOT ACTING LIKE A LOUSE! I cannot get from here to there, I cannot get to anywhere; I do not like these traffic jams, I do not like them Man-I-Am!”

You do not like them so you say, and now you’ve ruined Thanksgiving Day!

 “Please, can you just let me be; all I want is football on T.V. Say, the traffic jam seems to be thinning, I’ll get to see if the Giants are winning!”

And that’s what this day is all about for sure, getting Man-I-Am to Thanksgiving dinner in time to see the Giants score.