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Tragedy

Tragedy always comes along unexpectedly, and you’ll never know how you’re going to react. Here are three tragedies I will never forget. The first one involves an auto accident. Me and my friend Bob Kopp were headed east on the Long Island Expressway when we a approached a portion of the highway that had a large grass medium between the east and west bound traffic. The grass medium sank in a gentle curve in the middle. There was a station wagon just ahead of us and they were in the lane closest to the medium. Suddenly the station wagon’s left front wheel drifted into the grass medium, as I said it had a gentle curve towards its center and because it had recently rain that made the grass soggy. This caused the station wagon to tilt to the left as the wheel sank deeply into the soggy grass. Suddenly the entire left portion sank very low and the station wagon began to tumble sideways and flipped over and over on its roof. After what looked like several spins it came to a h
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Canarsie

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Simon my sister’s uncle also known as "whitey" because he always wore a white T-shirt, and "shimmy" a nick-name he got in prison. Simon liked to go fishing, but like I said that costs money. So, the cheapest way to go fishing was to take a subway and bus and fish off  the Canarsie Pier off of Jamaica bay, Brooklyn, I myself was not fond of fishing off the pier with a cheap fishing pole and some fish scraps, I did however enjoy anytime I could be near the ocean. Off to the left of the pier was a small beach, but adjacent to that was a landfill of compacted trash, it was known as "New York’s dirtiest beach". I really didn’t think about how polluted the water was, so on hot days I went in the water to cool off. Horseshoe crabs use to congregate adjacent to the pier in what looked like mating season. Horseshoe crabs are my opinion quite ugly. So, I use to throw rocks at them trying to crack their shell and kill them. I never succeeded to cracking their s
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Employment

I went to grammar school PS123, junior high school PS162, George Westinghouse Vocational and Technical high school, and finally to RCA Institutes. At George Westinghouse I majored in electrical installation. My first job was at some factory where they expected you to work on live wires, something told me that it was too dangerous, so I quit after two days. My next job was installing heating controls for an electrical contractor. I would install Honeywell heating controls for boilers shortly after they were turned off, and  the sole of my feet got really hot climbing atop of those boilers. The New York the electrical code required rigid conduit made of steel, not those flimsy aluminum pipes or god forbid Roamex. The main problem with rigid conduit is that it is a bitch to bend with a tool known as a hickey, I only weighed 140 pounds, so it was exhausting. I took a test with the New York City Transit Authority (MTA) and passed; I landed a job as an electrical helper. I worked
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Halt!

When I was about 13 I was seeing this girl named Mary. On this particular night we were in the vestibule of her apartment house doing some light kissing, all of a sudden her Dad appeared at the inner door, so I said a hastily bid good night and made my way out onto Wycoff Avenue. I decided that I’ll go to the poolroom about 15 blocks north of where I was. There were two ways to get there, one was by bus and the other by subway. I preferred the bus. I was wearing a rather distinct sports coat, one with beige patches on the elbows and one on the shoulder, it was supposed to look like a “hunters’ jacket”. As I made my way along Wycoff Avenue I looked about 5 blocks south where the bus would turn onto Wycoff, before that the bus wasn’t visible. I was getting close to the subway station and could hear a train approaching through the gratings on the street. I really wanted to take the bus, but I started running towards the train station. I kept turning around to see if the bus had made
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Having a "bill", and John gets shot

Back then I was a kid we did our shopping at the local grocery store. Sure we had super markets like Bohack and A and P, but you only went there if you were going to buy a lot of groceries and that of course meant money. The local market was run by a strong, yet kind gentleman named John, John allowed you to have a "bill", a running tab for items you couldn't pay for at the time, and that was a life saver every month when funds were low. I remember a couple of things I absolutely loved getting at the store, one was ham with mustard on Italian bread with an ice cold bottle of Pepsi, and sour pickles. The pickles were in a big open wine barrel where the pickles floated in a sour liquid along with a fine assortment of flies. Never gave much mind to the flies, never got sick enjoying those pickles. To earn some pocket change I used to go grocery shopping for Mrs. Jennings, she lived in the next building over. One day she gave me her list of groceries to buy and $20. After p
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Crystal radio, wash board, bedding and a real icebox

Having no Mom no Dad is definitely a doorway to poverty, but all is not lost because you'll experience things your peers will not. Case in mind is the issue of not having electricity, we just didn't have enough money to pay the bill. So instead I learned how to jumper the meter box to give us some electricity, eventually the electric company spotted the jumpers and put a lock box where the meter use to be. So we used kerosene lamps, luckily back then the hardware store had a pump to dispense kerosene. The lamps gave off a surprising amount of light and the fumes were mildly pleasant. Not having electricity meant no TV, no radio, but I did have a Crystal Radio. It didn't require any electricity, it got its power from the radio waves being transmitted by the strongest local radio station. The only problem was it only received a signal from a local classical radio station, I didn't much care for classical music back then. Not having any electricity meant there was no po
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All of us are on a journey, the journey through life. Where we journey depends on the strength of our keel and the winds in our sails. What ports we visit are not always of our choosing, each of us will decide what to do when we arrive. One day we will set sail never to return only leaving our legacy in our wake. This blog is dedicated to people who inspire others to envision a better life.
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