My Town

Published on July 2016 | Categories: Types, Creative Writing, Memoirs | Downloads: 53 | Comments: 0 | Views: 294
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A semi-autobiographical acount of my hometown.

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It all started pretty uneventfully, but not quite a proper foreshadowing of what was to come. We can come back to that later, though. For now I’ll try to stay on point and not ramble on and on and on… Like that. My parents were fairly normal middle class quasi-liberal Americans. My mother was on her second marriage, as her first husband had died after giving her 3 children. A few years after Freddy’s death, my mother met and married my father. We’ll start with Dad. Dad was a very quiet man. He was born into a large Irish Catholic family, as one of a set of twins. He smiled a lot, but not too wide, since he was self conscious about the droop on the left side of his face.. During birth, the doctor got a little aggressive with the forceps, and deadened the nerves in my father's face. His family, particularly his controlling mother, was unsympathetic. His mother even went so far as to hide him way in the back of family photos, even though he and his twin brother Tommy were the second youngest. Tommy was put up front. Dad grew up in the Bronx, but when he got into his early 30's, his mother would summer in Long Beach, and Dad would go with her to help her out when he could. Go figure. I sure as hell wouldn’t have. But he was a nice guy, I tend to be an asshole. The house his mother rented was right down the street from my mother's Long Beach house. They became friendly, but my mother was at the time more concerned with raising her 3 children as a new single mom. Eventually, however, she noticed him, and he already had noticed her. She saw past the imperfections in his face, and saw the man inside. After a short courtship, and the blessing of her children, Mom married Dad. Dad even went so far as to adopt the kids, and they were thrilled, even going so far as to encourage it. Mom and her kids thought it was very important that she gave him a son of his own, and although he never said it, he wanted it too. They tried for several years, and Mom was fast approaching her 40's. Not to mention she had 3 difficult pregnancies ending in c-sections. Her doctor advised against her getting pregnant again, but she was determined. That's where I come in. On December 20th, 1967, at 8:05 am, I sprang forth and entered into the world.

There’s a picture taken on the day I was delivered that I personally find both terrifying yet hysterical. My Mom had already had 4 C-Sections, and in those days once you had a Caesarean, natural childbirth was never an option. So I was preplanned and she could get all gussied up for the trip to the hospital and take some pictures to remember the day by. The picture that sticks out in my mind has some clues and cues that firmly anchors the day of my birth in its proper era, if anyone had any doubts. The image is like this: She is standing in the upstairs dining room, with a bank of windows behind her with sunshine beaming in. Mom is profiled, with her left side to the camera in all her pregnant glory. From the picture you would think I was going to be large triplets, as you could use her belly for a bookcase shelf or a porch swing. My mother is wearing a pink skirt suit with thick black piping and a huge flared collar. Her hair was done up in huge curls on the top of her head, held together with several cans of hairspray and probably some wood glue and a little epoxy. The hairstyle was completed with some wispy netting dotted with tiny birds and flowers. Put all together, you could almost see her on a diving board with a swim cap on and one of those really HOT skirted, one piece bathing suits with giant fabric flowers on it, concealing any hint of the good bits, while members of the Rat Pack or Elvis fought over her and sang in the background. Now, here is the best part: The giant belly that was harboring me, way up high, is serving as a coaster for a VERY tall Gin and Tonic, and there is a very artistic, misty quality coming from the cigarette held firmly in her left hand. What a beautiful picture from a simpler age, where people were oblivious. Cool music played on the radio. Festooned swimcaps were considered sexy and stylish and the Mets were soon to perform Miracles. The US was nearing the finish line in the space race, looming up ahead, however, hiding in the shadows, were 21% mortgage rates and gasoline rationing. Worse than that… BELL BOTTOMS!!!! (I just sprinkled Holy Water on myself and my laptop. You can’t be too careful when you utter the name of the Beast.) Long Beach, where I was born, was a pastoral seaside community on New York's Long Island. Long Beach was a very self sufficient, close knit town. At least in the section I lived in, called the West End. It was an area that was also known as the State Streets, which was fairly intuitive since every street was named after, yes you guessed it, a state. I lived on Nebraska Street. 76 Nebraska Street. Long Beach was about 1 mile wide at its widest and about 5 miles long.

It was a barrier island on the south coast of Long Island so was bordered by the Bay on the North, and the Atlantic Ocean on the South. The West End was about 1/2 a mile wide, North to South, the beach was never more than a few steps away, and you could always hear the ocean. Our town had at one time been sort of a resort town. There were hi rises lining the boardwalk, and a huge pink hotel all the way to the east (all the way being about 5 miles). It was called the Lido Hotel, although it had stopped being a hotel years before. It had been the type of hotel celebrities had gone to, and Long Beach had been the place to be. The economy, changing interests, and probably Atlantic City drained the luster off of the town, and the patina was exposed. The hi rises and the hotel had all been converted into nursing homes, whether for the aged, infirm, or people who talked to light poles and had fist fights with invisible ruffians. The converted hotels were along the boardwalk, and these ‘hotels’ weren’t swanky assisted living places by any stretch. Thin white smoke poured from the lobbies of the buildings. Not from fires, but from innumerable chain smoking residents who needed the nicotine to compliment their cornucopia of other medications. They were places where paint chipped from the walls, and the furniture had stuffing poking through holes in the fabric. Places where the staff stole your shoes or money, and looked and acted extremely angry that they were forced to work there. No one ever came to visit these residents except for emergency responders when someone was injured or died from any number of causes. My guess is that the majority of injury and death were attributable to the angry orderlies who took their frustration out on 90 year olds with bad knees and arthritis when they didn’t move fast enough. The people who had the misfortune of being ‘dumped’ there varied from the semi-violent middle aged schizophrenic, to the silent young boy trapped inside his own mind. Everyone there was someone you could look at, think of your own life, and cheer up quite a bit. Of all the various desperate souls, I always believed the elderly were the saddest. They were usually very coherent which I felt made things even more awful. These were people who had been simply forgotten by family and society. People who had lived, loved, and worked their entire lives. They raised their families, provided for them,

taught them, and nurtured them only to be dumped somewhere for being too much of a burden. Old ladies wearing diapers ruin those Norman Rockwell moments everyone has ALL the time in their homes. The nursing homes were the type where a family would sign over their aged relative’s Social Security for a guarantee that no matter how long dear ole’ Granddad lived, he would always have food, shelter, and medical attention. The problem was that when the family signed the papers, before the ink had dried on the contract, Pop Pop’s room that had started as a private suite with a bed, dresser, armchair and TV suddenly had 6 cots in it, no hot water, and not even a radio. If anyone ever visited, had a change of heart, and wanted to bring the relative back home, then the Assisted Living Facility was more than happy for everyone, and even went so far as to help move lucky old Aunty Marge out. They would not be returning the wrinkly little old lady’s Social Security, not now, not next month, not ever. The contracts stated very clearly that if the cost of providing for its residents somehow skyrocketed, then the ‘loved ones’ would be ‘taken care of’ forever. In exchange for taking that risk, the facility was entitled to hold onto the income stream forever, as well. This clause never came up, I’m sure. If you resented your relative enough to bring them there in the first place, you were NOT going back for them. It is really too bad they weren’t aged Eskimos, sent out to sea on an ice floe when they were no longer productive. At least with an ice floe in frigid temperatures, you knew the end was in sight. Unfortunately for these people however, they were kept just healthy enough that they would live way past what they probably wished for. So, day after day, the sad, lonely senior citizens just sat, lined up in their wheelchairs or on benches, staring out at the sea; winter, spring, summer and fall. I always wondered if they wished they could just hop the railing down to the beach and walk slowly, deliberately into the ocean, an army of wasted wisdom and forgotten souls with blue, silver or bald heads, weakly yet methodically marching like lemmings into the water, hoping to surrender their souls to the surf and finally be free of their quiet, endless torture. I never asked though. I don't know if I would have liked the answer. As if holding it’s ground like the 300 Spartans defending their City-State defiance of the blighted hotels and all they represented,

Long Beach was still beautiful. With its long white sand beaches, see breezes, and changes of seasons, it stirred the heart and was extremely inviting. Plus, for those of us in the West End, we had the boardwalk, the good parts. The menagerie ended before the state streets began, so we liked having it. We only ran into Special People when we ventured there, but you learned to pretend they weren't there. Nice, right? You did see a lot of hospital scrubs and nurse’s uniforms, but unfortunately, as I have said before, no visitors. There were places along the boardwalk that were still suitable for families, like a bowling alley, amusement park, an arcade with Skee-Ball, and Hot dog and Ice cream stands. So, you could pretend the whole stretch was like that. Unless someone came up to you and asked if they could borrow your duck and tell you to watch out for the bicycle tires that were falling from the sky. During it's heyday, The West End had large houses with plenty of yard space around them, about an acre each, large streets and small service alleys in the back. After the downturn, however, the large houses went away, and the large lots were subdivided into pretty little yards that measured 30 feet by 60 feet. The average house was 25 by 55 feet. If you were at the dinner table and asked someone to pass the salt, chances were good an arm could come through the window from the house next door with it for you. The houses that went up were uninsulated summer bungalows for the most part, with a few scattered year round residences. Ours was a hybrid. It started out as a bungalow, but my mother's first husband, (who apparently was a very gifted handyman, among other skills) raised the single story structure up, and built a first floor below. I still don't understand, unless the original structure was so shoddily built that it wouldn't support the weight, but then, why would a skilled craftsman leave it standing at all? Anyway, it was retrofitted with insulation, a heating system, and some new windows. The house always remembered its origins, though, and in the winter, with cold winds blowing, the house would whistle like an Irish Banshee. The place was fairly deserted during the off seasons, and only about 3 kids on my block to have snowball fights with. When the weather started picking up, and the end of school was in sight, the summer families would start heading down and remove the boards from the windows and air the houses out. During the summer, the 3

kids within shouting distance jumped exponentially to about 15 to 20. I always thought the people with summer houses there, and permanent city houses were absolutely RICH. They happened to be some other people, whether permanent residents or not, who actually had an empty lot next to their house, as a real yard. Now those were the billionaires. Lucky for us middle class folks, days spent running around in shorts and bathing suits erased imagined class divisions. During summer days, a couple of parents usually would take the whole gaggle of kids to the beach, the adults sharing the responsibility, rotating days and so forth. The kids would spend most of the day doing anything they wanted, within reason. Things like swimming in the water, bodysurfing, eating Italian ices and wonderful New York Pizza at Vito's Bel Aire Restaurant. Vito's was a little place that had some service windows opening onto the beach. The Boardwalk began right next to Vito's, but luckily, no duck hunters around this end. On the way home from the beach, we would pass neighbor's houses, and our parent's would stop and chat for a minute, and make some impromptu plans for a barbeque or small party or get together later that day. I would always remember that spontaneity, and how wonderful I thought it was, how it was something I always searched for the rest of my life, Friends and neighbors enjoying each other's company at the spur of the moment. When we kids had all finished our after the beach showers (you had to shower. Sand and sea salt chafed like a bear), we would head outside and meet up for an afternoon of summer bliss. We would run around playing al types of kid games, while the parents hammered out plans for communal dinners. When evening came, we would all hear our folks screaming our names from yards and second story windows. We would head home and have fantastic cookouts, we kids laughing and planning our night, our parents laughing and emptying the liquor cabinet. After dinner was over, our parents would cut us free to go and play, and we were allowed to play all night until our parents went to bed. Sometimes, parents would agree to watch the early bird parent's kids, and by the end of the night, 2 couples might ostensibly be watching 15 kids. More of the Charm of Long Beach and the Trials and Tribulations of John to come…

Thanks for reading.

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