My Brooklyn

My Brooklyn is still my home even though most of the people I grew up with have long moved away. I remember as a child going to Steeplechase pool club with my family and one of the fringe benefits of the pool club was free ride tickets to the amusement area for the members. I remember little league and all the CYO games I remember the church dances and the battle of the bands on Friday nights. If it was at your church you had to be prepared for a street fight. Only fists were used back then. I remember hanging out on the stoops all night trying to decide what to do, the nights in Bay Ridge going to the clubs—the Gallery, Dr. Feelfunnies—then it was off to Staten Island to the Forum, a house that was turned into a club. Then there was the The King of Clubs, a basement club where you got wasted and usually ended up in a brawl. How did we survive?

Stickball every day in the schoolyard. Triangle on the streets, boxball, jack queen king, scully, Johnny on the pony, Ring o levio, iron tag. Half days of school on Wednesday, egg creams at Doc's drug store, pizza, the best bread a close second, cherry lime rickeys, Mitchell's on 86th Street and 7th, the Avenue U boys vs. the Avenue X boys. We all had nicknames—Nicky Moon, Johnny Mott, Bobby Crash, Pecker, Tamma, Joe Black, Rocco the Bear, Stitch, Mousey, Pappa Phil. We stuck together, always looked out for one another. Where has time gone? It seems like yesterday. Too many memories to write in here but there is no place like growing up in Brooklyn and I wouldn't change any of it. It is an education in itself . If you have never been here you missed the greatest place in the world . E-mail me if you remember .

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