THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME
There exist fewer things I enjoy more than going home. I have lived in many places in my life, and each has played an essential role in my development, attitudes, fond as well as unhappy memories. Each home has special significance, so I will write about the outstanding ones in chronological order, remembering the most exceptional memories each has created affecting my life.
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943. The world was a much different place in those days, not for just the world but for me and my immediate family. My parents were part of a reasonably wealthy family, and I was the youngest of three brothers.
Our house was a three-story, fourteen-room house located on the bridle path side of Ocean Parkway between Avenue L and Avenue M. It was a very affluent location. We also had an unattached four-car garage, a large backyard with room enough for a well-stocked vegetable garden and croquet court.
The interior of the house was very spacious. There were so many róoms. Beautiful rugs and smart-looking furniture everywhere, as well as paintings, mirrors, and tapestries, were covering the walls. There was a concert grade piano in the spacious living room and the most comfortable upholstered furniture. As I recall, the maroon-colored couch was huge and very deep.
The kitchen was immense, and I recall helping my mother cook chopped liver. I learned to cook simple dishes when I was eight years old. She would fry the liver and onions while placing the liver, onions, and hard-boiled eggs through the manual grinder clamped to the counter. The smell was terrific, and I took particular pleasure in stuffing the eggs into the grinder. It was as if they were exploding.
Behind the living room was a banquet-sized formal dining room outfitted with all hand-made top-of-the-line furniture adorned with table cloths and napkins. My folks were in the imported linen business.
My parents had a spacious playroom build for my oldest brother Ben in the rear of the house. On the back wall was a built-in train table that a system of pullies could bring down to waist. When the table was lowered, it revealed several built-in shelves and cubbies for trains and accessory storage. The table was equipped with tracks, tunnels, structures, fields, meadows, and little people and animals. On each side of the built-in were two large toy boxes located under large windows. There were two plain day beds along the rear of the rooms covered with spreads that made them appear to be tailored pieces of furniture.
Going further to the rear of the house, there was a sizeable closed-in sunroom with windows that went all the way from one side of the house to the other. The room was well furnished with of view of the oversized garage and backyard.
The exterior front view of the house showed an attractive garden and beautiful bushes leading to a wide staircase to a gigantic covered front porch loaded with gliders, rocking chairs and other appropriate furnishings.
Behind the double front door was a vestibule with a stairway leading to the second and third floors. One day my Grandma was carrying me up the stairs, and she tripped on the runner, and we both went tumbling down. She was such a good sport. We must have laid there for five minutes laughing while she was suffering.
The main bedrooms were on the second floor. My folks had a bedroom suite comprised of a large bedroom, dressing room, and laege bathroom that resembled a health club. From the dressing room, there was a door leading to a half-covered porch the width of the front of the house. Towards the rear of the second floor were my brother Stu and my bedroom. Then came Ben’s room, and behind his room was a large bathroom. To the left of our bedroom was the ironing room, where I learned how to iron. I spent lots of time there, and I iron my clothing to this day. Ironing is a good thing to remember, and I’m glad I did.
The third floor was a series of small storage areas and the maid’s quarters. The attic was where my brothers and I hid a Christmas tree every year. That was fun.
When I lived in the New York area, I frequently found myself crossing my way through Brooklyn, many times passing by the old homestead. For some reason, each time I passed, the structure seemed to shrink even though it was still a large home for that location. It must have cost my parents a pretty penny back in the day. Going through the neighborhood would conjure up several memories.
The following are a few. Roller skating on Ocean Parkway, the military parades of soldiers marching with tanks on their way to the navy to be loaded on their way to war, the times the skys would fill with planes heading to fight the war in Europe, the day my uncle Harold died after an auto accident on the Brooklyn Bridge, Mattie our maid who actually raised me, the day my dad slipped on the ice breaking his nose and spending the night on that beautiful living room sofa holding ice bags on his face, eating pizza for the first time at Coney Island, falling in love with Marjorie Krinsky down the street, playing cowboys and indians in the corner lot, Ben shooting me in the ass with his BB gun after shooting out all of the windows in the four car garage from the rear porch, Stu practicing piano, the time I went missing during a snow storm only to be found by the police around the corner while belting out Christmas carols at the top of my voice, learning how to horseback ride on the bridle path in front of our home, trips to the city visiting the Museum of Natural History and the Heyden Planiterium, Radio City Music Hall, learning how to ice skate at Rockefeller Enter, playing stick ball and stoop ball, attending Public Scool 99, eating Chinese food at Joy Fong on Avenue J, visits to my uncle Mike’s house a few blocks away and playing alone in his doctor’s office, going to Cookies Restaurant and Jack’s Toy Store under the L on Avenue M and the terrible time when we ran out of money and the good times ended forcing us to lose our spectacular home and leave the area and all of my friends. I was turning nine at the time.
My Dad lost the business and we went from riches to rags. Camelot had ended. ‘Things were a changing. We were gone forever.
Next stop Queens, New York.
