My Walkie-Talkie Christmas

(Originally published on December 15, 2013)

In my youth the anticipation of Christmastime and Christmas itself was exciting. So, the aftermath of the holiday and returning to school was—it makes sense—extremely depressing. Seeing decorations and lights lingering in people’s windows—while knowing that Christmas wasn't on the horizon but a memorable fait accompli—was an awful feeling. But it was a microcosm of life, I have since learned. All good things end, attached—quite often—to an ugly payback of some sort.

Anyway, in January 1973, upon my melancholic return to St. John’s grammar school in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge neighborhood, religion teacher Sister Therese queried each of her students to name his or her favorite Christmas 1972 present. Except for the fact that my answer was “walkie-talkies,” I might not have remembered this banal Q&A. For Sister Therese repeated my words in a befuddled tone. It was as if she was unfamiliar with them. “Walkeee…talkeees,” she said or asked with a question mark.

It was a simpler time when one wanted walkie-talkies for Christmas. A neighbor of mine had a pair and we established contact times, where he would initiate a Morse code—something that his more advanced walkie-talkies were equipped with but not, sadly, mine. I recall my mother talking with his mother on the walkie-talkies as if it were big deal—a grand technological moment akin to the very first phone call. Of course, they could have called one another on the telephone—and gotten better reception—or walked down a flight of stairs and met one another on our adjoining front stoops.

My “walkie-talkie” Christmas—1972—assumes an even a higher importance to me because they were number one on my “Santa Claus” list that year. I was certain that ol’ Saint Nick would come through with them, but he disappointed me big time. But forty years ago, I had a very generous godmother who always bought me a Christmas gift—a real one, something that I coveted, and not clothing—but I did not typically see her to New Year’s Eve. Albeit a week later than expected, my godmother came through with the walkie-talkies. Santa Claus had arranged it with her. The pair of walkie-talkies were trimmed in cool-looking 1970s blue and individually packed in form-fitting Styrofoam compartments—worth the wait and then some! They had that wondrous transistor-radio plastic smell, too—something a 1970s kid appreciated. Suffice it to say, walkie-talkie fun ensued.

For sure, there will be no commensurate walkie-talkie gift this Christmas. It's just not in the Yuletide cards anymore. There will be no Morse code chatter with a neighbor, either. Such is life as time marches on and on and on.

Diner Elegy

(Originally published 10/22/11)

It has been three weeks now since the sun, which held sway over my neighborhood solar system for a long time, quietly passed from the scene. As I walked the area’s hilly terrain this morning, where a small diner—the most special of greasy spoons—endured for some thirty-five years, I conceived this analogy. You see, every time I was in the vicinity—alone or with family members or friends—the diner, even when not eating there, was the epicenter. It was a comforting constant in a sea of change.

For twenty years, I patronized this place. In fact, it had a different name for part of the time, and a very brief span when somebody else ran it—the man responsible for the name change. But imagine, if you will, a diner in New York City run—more or less—by the same handful of people for decades. The owner of the greasy spoon, who shouted a greeting when you entered, cooked your food, and then said good-bye, was there for virtually every single minute the place was open, which was seven days a week. The diner closed only on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

Others who worked there were equally familiar and longstanding employees, including a waiter who would see you coming from across the street and have a piping hot cup of coffee on the table before you walked in the door. And the bottomless cup of coffee was truly bottomless here from beginning to end, even when business was down. And when business was especially brisk, you never felt rushed. You could sit there all day, if that's what you desired, because that’s how regular customers were treated.

The reasons my all-time favorite diner, which will never again be replicated, shut down are multifold. It's the kind of place that existed in New York City in the past but cannot anymore. So much of what made New York great—what made it a unique metropolis—is vanishing. The city now is both insanely expensive and intensely bureaucratic. It caters—above all else— to wealthy landlords and to wealth itself.

But, still, it's the memories that endure of this extraordinary diner milieu, which are over-powering in so many ways I cannot chronicle here. Tasty food, good times, and all those characters on both sides of the counter, including me. Along the way, a healthy share of terrible things happened to one and all. But at least we had the diner—and the good people who ran it—as a life comfort station, which is irreplaceable. I go to the hills when my heart is lonely. I know I will hear what I’ve heard before. Not anymore!

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Close Encounters with a Close Talker

(Originally published 7/13/17)

It was already ninety degrees—with the heat index approaching one hundred—at ten o’clock this morning. Scorcher of a day or not, I, just like the postman, had to make my appointed rounds. In fact, I was headed to a post office, but not the one closest to me. This trivial tidbit of information would be of monumental interest to a man I bumped into en route.

On a stifling hot and humid morn, the last thing I wanted was an encounter with a close-talker—a person who gets in your face during ordinary conversation. (Seinfeld brought the close-talker phenomenon to light in “The Raincoats” episode.) To compound my misfortune, I not only found myself chatting with a close talker, but one with halitosis as well. I should mention that he is likewise a long talker. The man in question named Hughie is fond of holding court and supplying listeners with lengthy back stories—laborious minutia—to events with punchlines that are not particularly interesting. Hughie has a habit, too, of punctuating his conversations with the word “anyway.” It's his way of alerting you: “Are you ready for the big finish?” Fashion your seat belts, there's always another “anyway” and another one after that.

Anyway, Hughie ambushed me as I walked past his building earlier this morning. He informed me that a friend was supposed to pick him up at 9:30. But it was closer to 10:30 when we met. Hughie is a man in his eighties and not a cell phone user, so he might still be waiting there now. Maybe he got the day wrong. Do not get me wrong: Hughie is a well-meaning fellow. He has been a friend of the family since the dawn of time. However, the man can be a very irritating individual, especially when you meet him in a chance encounter. When fate intervenes. I feel obligated to talk with him. But I believe that I have earned the right to avoid Hughie if I can. Typically, I reconnoiter while in his neck of the woods and, if I see him coming my way, take the requisite steps—sometimes retreating entirely or even walking into traffic—to make a clean getaway.

Hughie, the close talker, and I chatted for a while. He was absolutely fascinated that I walked to the tiny post office several blocks from his building entrance, when a larger facility was nearer my front door. I explained to him the simple reason: There is usually no waiting in the little post office during the morning hours, while the bigger place is invariably a zoo. Although I cannot explain why, my reasoning was of supreme interest to Hughie. He, nevertheless, did most of the talking. As I kept backing away from his too-close-for-comfort-conversing, we physically moved in something of a large circle—like Earth’s revolution around the Sun, only in a smaller space and shorter time. Everything you wanted to know about Type 2 diabetes but were afraid to ask. Well, I learned it today from a close talker who's been diagnosed with it.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

On the Outside Looking In

(Originally published 11/10/19)

I have a friend who is a therapy devotee. He has spent many years on the proverbial couch “getting in touch with good stuff.” I remember him once saying that he was “on the outside looking in” during a session. The image that sprang to my untrained mind was Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present wiping away a winter window’s condensation and peering into the Cratchit family’s living room.

Yesterday, I witnessed a lunatic literally “on the outside looking in.” He was a fellow subway rider for several stops, making everyone nervous with his beady eyes and muttering, which were benign but borderline menacing. The man didn't appear homeless nor did he panhandle. He just seemed out there. This oddball became fixated on a passenger with an adorable yellow Labrador puppy at his side. Along with increasingly creepy commentary, he made a series of weird and wild faces at the dog. The pup’s master wasn't amused. For he had finally calmed his young pooch down, enough at least to ride in an earsplitting and hectic New York City subway car. And then along comes this peculiar straphanger and it was back to square one.

Happily, the lunatic exited the train in short order. When the doors closed, I—among others, including a young canine—heaved a huge sigh of relief. However, having crossed over into the realm of sinister, the man refused to go quietly. Before the train pulled away, he supplied us with a parting volley of bizarre facial contortions through a window.

And here he is officially "on the outside looking in."

Now for a completely different head: Patrick Stewart's.

Here's Patrick Stewart's head defiled at another station. In 1993, I saw him perform a one-man A Christmas Carol on Broadway sometime during the first week in January. Critics lauded the show, but I found it a real snoozer.

Sorry I missed this one.

Sad to report that it's not my grandfather's Little Italy anymore. As for the "Mommy's 'Little Meatball'" tee, I hope the Cuomo brothers don't see that. Somebody is liable to get thrown down a flight of stairs.

The same could be said for the Joey Pepperoni's Pizza logo.

Good luck with that, I say...

Because this is all around me...

And this...

Well, this was an off-year election with a lot of local matters decided. Congratulations are, nonetheless, in order.

Prescriptions filled while you eat. That's a new one.

Channeling Nipsey Russell here...

Credit where credit is due. Why not?

After you bet your bottom dollar, what else have you got?

Had to Google this one. Blackbear is an American musician and "Anonymous," an album of his.

I ask you: Do you judge a book by its cover? Do first impressions create lasting ones?

If you know where to look, you can get the most bang for your buck in New York City. This guy might not be number one at anything, but you can find him and his dollar frankfurters at Union Square.

Time to go home and see what that indefatigable subway station vandal has left for me this week.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Christmas 1972: Starring Celery Rolaids, Jams Onion, and Apple McCarrot

(Originally published 12/19/20)

Forty-eight years ago, this very month, the fifth-grade class at St. John’s grammar school in the Bronx's Kingsbridge embarked on their annual field trip to Radio City Music Hall. What I remember is that we rode the subway into midtown Manhattan—the Number 1 train—which we could see tirelessly coming and going outside our school’s east-facing windows. We saw not only the fabled Hall's "Christmas Spectacular"—at least that's what it's called now —but a full-length feature film as well. In this instance, the musical 1776. Several years later, a history teacher at Cardinal Spellman High School, Sister Josepha, remarked that this flick—albeit highly entertaining— contained “much too much levity” to be considered a fair rendering of the founding of our nation. And the old gal might have been on to something! After all, the historical evidence isn't exactly clear that Thomas Jefferson was incapable of writing the Declaration of Independence for a spell because he “burned” at being so far, far away—and for entirely too long—from the misses. We will never know for certain because he burned all his correspondence with her.

Anyway, fast forward almost five decades. The times have certainly changed since that exciting school field trip all those years ago. On a positive note, the subways around these parts are more efficient and indeed more comfortable than they were in the 1970s. (Contemporary photos are included with this essay.) During that colorful snapshot in time, they were filthy on both the outside and the inside. Passengers, too, often sat atop the subway car’s heating source, which left no room whatsoever under the seats for briefcases, bags, and assorted accoutrements of everyday living.

Nowadays, Radio City does not feature movies at Christmastime. It's a lot more expensive as well, but then so is everything else. More for less. I would also hazard a guess that the available chaperone pool for school field trips was much broader in 1972 than it is in 2020. Most mothers didn't work jobs outside of the home back then. One parent’s income often sufficed, which is rarely the case today. So, when my mother volunteered her services as a chaperone, I was afforded the opportunity to select three of my classmates to accompany me under her watchful eyes. Three pals and I amounted to one-tenth of what was a class of forty baby boomers. If my arithmetic is correct, we are talking ten chaperones per class.

The problem, though, with asking a ten-year-old boy to select a trio of companions is that he might have four or five friends, and somebody would feel left out. And that's exactly what happened! Once upon a time, our little clique of friends played this rather clever naming game—for ten-year-old kids, I would say—where we were individually bestowed a moniker based on a food, familiar commercial product, or some combination of the two. They were supposed to sound something like our given names.

Foremost, I was Nicoban NyQuil. Nicoban was a trailblazing "quit smoking" gum often advertised in the early 1970s. And, of course, who among us has not swigged a dose or two of NyQuil at some point in time? The first two contemporaries I tapped for my Radio City Music Hall troupe were no-brainers: Celery Rolaids and Jams Onion. It was the third slot that put me on the spot because there were two strong contenders. And although I preferred one somewhat to the other, I suspected the odd man out would be wounded by my subsequent choice. And I was right—he was! When I selected Apple McCarrot to complete our foursome, Frankfurter McReynolds Wrap let me know in no uncertain terms how deeply offended he was by the slight. “I thought I was your friend," he said. Frankfurter McReynolds Wrap was my friend—and I felt bad about it—but, then again, so was Apple McCarrot.

Nevertheless, I suspect Frankfurter ended up in another quartet that suited him fine. Field trips to Radio City at an agog age at Christmastime transcended chaperones and insular little groups. When we returned to our regular classes the next school day, my "Language Arts" teacher, Sister Camillus, informed us what “obnoxious” meant. A catchy 1776 musical number branded John Adams as “obnoxious and disliked” within the Continental Congress of 1776. Almost two hundred years later, Sister Camillus of St. John’s grammar school stood before us as a living and breathing example of obnoxiousness. Exhibit A, yes, that the ten-year-old me never quite appreciated.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Benjy's Rule in the City

(Originally published 12/4/20)

When I was a young, I would—yes—listen to the radio…waiting for my favorite songs. Well, maybe not, actually. When I was a boy, I listened to Mets' games on the radio and not much else. When the games were played at home, at Shea Stadium, the ear-splitting sputtering engines from jet planes landing and taking off at nearby LaGuardia Airport were music to my ears. It supplied incredible ambiance to the storied American pastime—when it was a game—and youthful exuberance and sheer wonder took it from there.

A visit from Kingsbridge, my Bronx neighborhood, to Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, was an outer borough to outer borough experience—a thirty- or so minute drive—never once dubbed a trip into the city and back. Nevertheless, the excursion furnished us with a bird’s eye view of “the city” at the Triborough Bridge. This perpetually busy hotspot is where three New York City boroughs come together in heavily trafficked disharmony—the Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan—hence, the bridge’s moniker. Well, no, not anymore. Politicians couldn't leave well enough alone once again and renamed it the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Of course, everybody I know, as they should, still call the bridge “Triborough.” Anyway, I—once upon a time—referred to trips into Manhattan as “going into the city” or “going downtown.” It was part of the common vernacular. Despite the fact that the Bronx, just like Manhattan, is a borough in good standing in New York City, it was—as the song says—uptown.

In fact, “going into the city” didn't even cover the entirety of Manhattan Island. I could walk from Kingsbridge in the Bronx to Marble Hill, several blocks away, and technically be in Manhattan, but—hilly terrain notwithstanding—that brief stroll didn't rise to the level of being in the city. “Going into the city” or “going downtown” were references to midtown—shopping at Macy’s, seeing a play, or checking out the Rockefeller Center tree at Christmastime. Most of my youthful adventures “downtown” were in that same general vicinity, except, of course, when the family welcomed visitors from afar. For instance, when my father’s cousin from Italy turned up with her young son, it was off to the Empire State building for a long ascend—my first and last—and further south to the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry.

All these years later, I still refer to “going into the city” and “downtown.” But as time has passed, I have come to appreciate that there'sa lot more to the city than midtown and its madness. Lower Manhattan—further downtown—is worth wandering through. Last weekend—in this most wacky of moments—I executed a twofer: from Rockefeller Center to the Battery in one fell swoop. The Number 1 train made it all possible. That's why, of course, it's the Number 1 train.

This is the Henry Hudson Bridge that connects Northwest Manhattan with the Northwest Bronx. My forebears picnicked on the Manhattan side of the bridge—in Inwood Hill Park, aka Inwood Park—before it was completed. 

This sign is in Inwood Park—in Manhattan, but not the city—with the last vestiges of virgin forest in the borough.

Feeding the pigeons, I suppose, feeds this more aggressive-than-ever creature of the night and day around here.

Like Frosty the Snowman, the Radio City Music Hall Box Office, I'm confident, will be back again someday...maybe even in 2021.

And the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree viewing will be employing the "Benjy Rule"—a ticket and a mere five minutes of viewing while six-feet apart.

What is the "Benjy Rule," you ask? Well, approximately forty-five years ago, a neighbor family up the street had a rare lot of green grass next to their humble abode. My grandfather, an iceman at the time, had looked at the very same property for sale when he was considering relocating to Kingsbridge in the Bronx from Morningside Heights in Manhattan. He thought it the dream home with space for a considerable garden. But, alas, my grandfather needed a house with a rent-paying tenant to help with the mortgage and, besides, there were still some empty lots around for planting gardens. So, the place ended up the residence of some bona fide eggheads—the kind of doctors who didn't practice medicine with a genius son named Benjy...

And the family had a couple of pear trees in their field of green...

One day my friend Johnny and I rang their doorbell to ask if we could pick some of the pears, which they, evidently, had no interest in picking. They were the baking kind, extremely hard, but we would eat them anyway...

Son Benjy answered the door and agreed to let us pick pears with one proviso: a time constraint. "You have five minutes," he said and the man meant it. How do I know? Benjy came outside exactly five minutes later and shouted, "Your five minutes are up!" And that was the end of that.

While I haven't seen it in many years, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was seriously underrated as a classic, somehow lost between the Halloween and Christmas specials.

Peppermint Patty shined, if memory serves, in the Thanksgiving episode. She really looked out for the ever-demeaned, often-bullied "Chuck."

Bazaar indeed...

In my younger days, Torneau Corner TV ads were ubiquitous on local television. This is the one on Sixth Avenue near Bryant Park.

President-elect Biden has said that he will encourage the citizenry to wear masks for one hundred days after his inauguration. Honestly, the vast, vast majority of us are wearing masks in buildings, supermarkets, and on public transit. The minority of oafs who don't wear them get an inordinate amount of publicity. The big spike in COVID cases, though, seem to correlate with the changing seasons and spending more time indoors.

In any event: Life goes on...

And three cheers for American ingenuity...and, I daresay, the free market...

For their rapid development of vaccines...

Count me in...

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)