Down Memory Lane - Part 3

Looking back, I can truly say, the summer of 1947 was a defining point in my young life. At 15, I had learned the thrill of entrepreneurial freedom selling my uncles warehouse of schmatas. Either that experience, or simply something in my gene pool formed my overall outlook on life. To this day, my entrepreneurial juices run strong. Seems I'm always into promoting something. Let's face it. I'm a promoter. I was a chef and a restaraunteur for 50 years, pushing food in everyone's face. "Taste this!" I always used to say. But also, health - mental and physical. Look at my All Game site to see what I mean. I push higher consciousness, awareness, alternative healing, anti-aging supplements.

Back to 1947. After my day at work in Flatbush ringing up sales, my uncle drove me back to Brooklyn to my cousin's house. Everyone in the family - the aunts and uncles and the grandparents - lived in Brooklyn. This was on my father's side. On my mother's side, the families lived in Coney Island. Why we had to live in Los Angeles was one of my major questions. My father, an architect instead of a businessman, pursued his artistic passion, which ultimately took him into the filmmaking world. He became an art director and made some significant movies in his time. His sisters were artistically inclined in various ways. My aunt, my cousin's mom, for instance wrote reams of poetry in secret, her output coming to light only after her death. My other aunt was a designer for the schamatas. But all the brothers were businessmen of one kind or another. And their sons became businessmen.

At my cousin's in Brooklyn, the two of us would grab a quick meal, or we would eat out. His parents seldom got home as early was we did, they were so glued to their business in Manhattan. A black lady took care of the two younger boys. She was the pillar for the family.

But on Sundays, the whole family ate dinner in the dining room. My uncle sat at the head of the table, nothing unusual about this arrangement. It's been the custom down throught the ages. But at the other end of the table there was no aunt to balance out the picture. Instead, we always had a strange guest at that place. Strange to me anyway. Opposite my uncle there stood at the table a piece of furniture, what looked like a cabinet about four feet tall. It looked like a giant size radio with knobs and such. But instead of the usual square space of cloth covered speaker there was a glass screen about 8 inches wide and 6 inches high. This devise was the first TV I had ever seen, except what I had see at the New York World's Fare of 1939 - which I had forgotten about.

The picture on this screen was so tiny I had to squint to make out what was happening. I remember one Sunday at the table eating the midday meal and watching two stick figures dance in a ring. It was the world champion boxing match of the season. My uncle's eyes were glued to the screen inside that mahogany box across the table from him seven feet away.

If we ate out, which, actually, was most of the time; we generally ate in Coney Island where we were part of a gang [you might say] of guys and gals. We had the neatest hangout you could imagine. We were a gang of about a dozen kids, all older than me, ranging in age to about 18 years old. My cousin on my mother's side, who lived in Coney Island, was one of the members as well. We had pooled our resources to rent a two-car garage. We outfitted it with rugs and couches, tables and lamps, a cheap, old-fashioned refrigerator - and a phonograph machine.

This was a primitive hangout compared to what kids make for themselves these days. No high-tech fancy lighting systems, no high-tech sound systems, no microwave. But it was cozy, and it was ours. And if we weren't out on the beach swimming in the ocean or lying on blankets sunbathing, we were in our garage dancing, singing, smooching, making out you might say, although I don't recall how far anyone went. We laughed a lot and told stories about our day. Everyone had a job of some kind. Everyone had a funny, crazy, wild incident to report. We all must have felt like we had the world in the palm of our hand. We all must have felt invincible. I remember once wondering to myself if life could get any better.

One day, two of our group lost their jobs. This was a blow to our financial situation. They could no longer pay dues. Well, we had a quick meeting over this issue, and decided we could handle ponying up a few more dollars each. And we then did the most magnanimous thing one could imagine. We each threw in enough extra cash to give the two guys sufficient money for carfare and lunch so they could go to the city and find new jobs. We figured this sacrifice would not be necessary for long. But such was not the case. A week went by, and they hadn't yet landed anything.

In the second week, one of the gals found out through a friend that the two rascals were spending the food money in a different way. They were going to the Roxie every day. Well, you can imagine what hit the fan!

In those days, the major downtown movie theaters put on extravaganzas. For $1.00 you spent almost the entire afternoon - the matinee - seeing two full feature films, the news, and in between the two movies was presented live on stage a full blown musical performance, a famous band, dancers, the whole nine yards of what could be considered close to being a Broadway show.

These two clowns were spending their time looking at movies and the show instead of looking for jobs. It was Louis Prima they went to see. He was the hottest singer; his was the hottest band of the summer of '47. I know, because we all went to the Roxie to see Louis Prima at least once that summer. And our two clowns evidently got hooked. Our garage was the scene of an uproar when we heard this piece of news.

Louis Prima sang one song that sticks in my mind to this day:
"Many long years ago, lived a man named Robin Hood;
He used to rob from the rich at every chance he could.
With his trusty bow and arrow, he could part your hair..."

Those are all the words I can remember. I do remember thinking about that song on the train going back home to Los Angeles. In modern times, I was thinking, the rich seldom, if ever, get robbed. Even that young, I saw pretty clearly that it was other way around. It was the rich who robbed from the poor. The rich did it then, they had been doing it for centuries - since civilization began. They do it now.

By the end of the summer, I was totally broke. I woke up one morning realizing it was time to go home, and I didn't have a dime in my pocket. What to do? Well, it was my dear softhearted uncle who saved the day. He must have sensed I would end up broke. He probably remembered his own youth. He came over to the house, and told me that his brother, my father, had called to find out how I was...I hadn't called or written all summer long. Isn't that typical of a fifteen year old on the loose?

This was just a subterfuge. What he really wanted to know was if I had had a good time that summer. Of course I said I had. Oh, uncle, if I could only tell you now how much that summer meant to me...if I could only tell you now, in my late years, how grateful I am to you for having been my patron, my guide into the wide world of real life...meaning his trust in me, his ability to not run my life (after all, he was supposed to have been my official guardian). My uncle lived until he was 90. And when I finally did have a chance to thank him when I was 45 and hadn't seen him since that summer, he couldn't remember what the big deal was. Yes, he remembered I had been to New York that summer, and he did remember something - not much - about the schmata business, but his real gift to me had gone unnoticed. Why? Because, deep down, he was a modest man, a creature who loved without seeking love back.

So then he asked me how I planned to travel back home. Not the bus, he hoped. Better take the train. Then, with a twinkle in his eye - I think he had fathomed I would be broke by the end of the summer -he laid a $100 bill in my hand. This, he said, was my bonus for having made all the old schmatas in his warehouse disappear.

He took me to Grand Central Station. I got my ticket, and said goodbye with a handshake, no hugs in those days. My three days on the train - this run had a fancy name, which I have totally forgotten - were the crowning touch to my wonderful summer. A 23-year old redheaded beauty took me under her wing. My summer at the beach had tanned me. My body had filled out. I had become a man. She bought me alcoholic drinks, vodka somethings. We smooched. It was just like being in a movie of my own. We parted at the Los Angeles station never to see each other again. With my last dime, I called my sister to come get me.