My Brooklyn (311)

Marty Miller continues . . .

My Brooklyn is hanging around the candy store so I could run to get someone to to the telephone . . . most of us didn't have a phone and the only one in the neighborhood was as the corner candy store.

In my middle teens going to work as a wrapper at a clothing store on Pitkin Avenue. I think it was Robert Hall. Learning how to cheat the boss by erasing a sales slip for a coat that didn't need alterations—making change out of my pocket . . . all taught to me by the senior salesmen. "Everyone did it," they told me. Boy, I was growing up in a hurry. (Somehow I avoided getting caught.)

Playing hooky 47 straight days at F. K. Lane in Cypress Hills . . . brand new school bored me. I "made a deal" with the principal when my mother finally had to go to school with me, that if I passed the Regents exams I could graduate . . . otherwise, I'd be left back, maybe suspended. For the first time in a long time I really studied and got 99's and one 100 (in math) and my lowest was a 75 in Spanish which I hated. I went on to CCNY on my average alone and was a sort of TA in a calculus and analytic geometry class in my freshman year. It was a long subway ride. I went out for the football team because they had a (free) training table meaning I could eat all I wanted. I learned how to run very fast on offense (halfback) and played defense also making a lot of tackles downfield. It wasn't a very good team. I recall Indian Miller was the Head Coach and kicking two drop-kicks for field goals. We did not win one game that year. I don't recall any grass on the field (Lewisohn Stadium) but concerts there (free) were great.

When I was much younger—maybe 7 or 8—we lived at Brighton Beach in an elevator building and I recall a maid or nanny, during the Depression; we were well off. In the lap of luxury, right next to the beach and boardwalk; what could be better? I still have that scar on my forearm went I went head over heels flying off my tricycle and getting spiked on the wrought iron fence. My hair bleached blond and I was well tanned in the summer . . . a real beach kinda.

If any of this rings a bell write me. . . . I grew up in Crown Heights, Utica Ave. no. 233, and before that on Sterling Place.

19 December 2000

Joel Ira Fisher

I was born in 1950 in Brooklyn Omens Hospital. I went to P.S. 158, P.S. 213 and then junior high, P.S. 166, George Gershwin. In the 8th grade I went to the Yeshiva of Eastern Parkway. The building where I attended was on the corner of Winthrop and Bedford Avenues. At that time, I lived in a housing project called the Linden Houses, on Wortman Avenue. Because the neighborhood was turning, my father moved us (Father, Abraham; Mother, Blanche; and brother, Evan) to Warren, Ohio where he had an employment opportunity. I went to high school in Warren and then went on to Ohio State University in Columbus, where I now live. The memories of my friends, and relatives like dear Aunt Belle and Uncle Herman of Coney Island, rabbis, and experiences in Brooklyn will always be a part of my life and remain in my heart..

19 December 2000