Easter

Easter of old conjures up images of early childhood development. Mom always said “eggs are the time for Easter and Easter is the time for eggs”. We just accepted that without question, after all, we always got Easter baskets with candy eggs nested in lovely faux grass. The song still rings in my head; “Here comes Peter Cottontail, hoppin’ down the bunny trail”. Oh, the time we had as kids. Easter egg hunts in the Northport Park, finding them around the bandstand, in the bushes, under the bushes and in the grass. It was a day we looked forward to every year. The Easter basket routine continued in our family well into our teens, with voluminous amounts of candy which I’m sure helped keep our local dentist, Dr. Lazarus in business.

But why are eggs connected to Easter, the religious observance considered by many to be the celebration of Jesus Christ, resurrected from the dead. It’s a question that has consumed a lifetime of contemplation; after all, if Mom & Dad sanctioned it, surely it must be valid. Or maybe not. A little research on Google leads me to understand that eggs are a symbol of fertility and therefore symbolize the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And bunnies, everyone knows are a huge symbol of fertility. I guess if you stretch your imagination far enough, you can connect anything to anything.

I’m now considering the evolution of rhetoric. When someone doesn’t want to acknowledge another’s point of view, they deflect with shielded statements of rhetoric. A popular retort is “that’s fake news”. As I remember, when my uncle no longer wanted to hear my thoughts, he said “eat your eggs, Julius”. In other words, “end of conversation”. When my father was unconvinced by my presentation he said “what’s that got to do with the price of eggs?” As a child, when my older brother goaded me, my parents said “stop egging him on”. Highly intelligent people were said to be “eggheads”. A well-respected person was a “good egg”. A pattern seems to be forming here. Consider that eggs have less to do with Easter and more to do with the fascination of eggs. That being said, I am left with the question of why. This may well be one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe.

One of my mother’s favorite limericks goes: Willie died at the breakfast table from eating more than he was able. Up spoke his sister, Meg….may I have his other egg? Let me know when you solve this one! Happy Easter.

 

Room 10

It was 1957, I was eleven years old and making the transition from Ocean Avenue grade school to junior high school. Dad warned me about how life might change for me with the influx of “street savvy” kids from East Northport's Larkfield School who would become my classmates. Along with my peers from Ocean Avenue School we would now assimilate. I was accustomed to the naivety of grades K through 6 and now, I would receive an education in becoming more worldly by the streetwise kids at Laurel Avenue Junior High. Some of those kids had repeated several grades and were quite a bit older. I was 11 and had a lot to learn.

Ground zero was Room 10, at the north end of the building which doubled as a school lunchroom.  It defined our “homeroom” as class 7J. This was where we assembled each morning before our daily trek from room to room throughout the building to attend various different subjects with different teachers. Our homeroom teacher was Miss Reuben who married during our tenure and became Mrs. Rosenthal. Always carrying a facial tissue, I’m not sure if she had acute allergies or if she was just a sad person. I would guess the latter. She was also our math teacher during 7^th and 8^th grade introducing us to the practical use of numbers such as bill paying, bank interest, check book balancing, etc. One of the guys in our crowd somehow procured the teachers edition of the math book that contained all the lesson answers and for two years, we copied our math “homework” in the mornings right there in Room 10. What math prodgies we were! Amazingly, Miss Reuben never caught on.

In the early days of junior high, for a dime each, my buddy and I took the town bus to school, since the district didn’t provide bus service for everyone. Arriving about half an hour early, the bus schedule created a waiting for school to open. During the fall, we played catch on the front lawn with a “Pluto Platter” which has since evolved into the familiar “Frisbee”. As the weather turned colder, this activity lost its' luster and we soon sought access to the heated building. The north doors were always unlocked, so we just walked in and sat on the corridor floor in front of Room 10 with our backs against the lockers.

In time, that got boring and we noticed that the lock on the Room 10 door was a “skeleton lock”. We reasoned that if we had a skeleton key, we could open up the room and wait in relative comfort. I then visited Northport Hardware and purchased three skeleton keys of different configurations, one of which fit the lock. Voila! We were in. Eraser fights, a broken window and tossing blackboard erasers into the inverted cone overhead lights prompted disciplinary proceedings by the school principal, Big Ed Twining. The eraser in the light smoldered, the window was broken and "Big Ed" was displeased. The discipline?   I really can't remember as they all seemed to run together. Miss Reuben stated in the aftermath of our shenanigans, that she thought the janitor was opening the room each morning.

Room 10 had other attractions since it doubled as the lunchroom. In one corner was a chest freezer where they stored ice cream and other frozen food items. Our small group of hooligans hatched a plan to launch “the great ice cream heist”. We figured out how to defeat the lock on the freezer and decided that we would make this heist on the last day of 7^th grade, as our swansong. As June approached, school would soon let out. The temperature rose and this plan seemed impractical as all the ice cream would melt. We decided to abort our mission and it may well be the greatest caper we never made.

Those days are long gone, but the memory of who we were and what we did brings a little warm chuckle to the surface. Some of the kids from that class remain friends that I am still in contact with today, now sixty-five years later. We’ve all gone our own ways, visited every part of the globe and reunited in the new millennium. In 1957 it would have been hard to imagine the scenario of “sixty-five hears later”. But here we are, the train of life is still in motion, although when we arrive at our destination, sadly, most of us will need help to the platform and some of us will have already gotten off.   

Ode to Pete Young

 Ode to Pete Young

It's hard to believe that Pete is gone. Before I am gone myself, want to make a tribute to my old friend, Pete Young……..

I met Pete through a group of friends that frequented Seymour’s Boat Yard, around 1961 or so. Pete’s dad, John Young was a one-time dock manager at Seymour’s and had left to open the Harbor Marine Sports Store at the corner of Bayview Ave. and Main St. He was a good friend to all of us no-counts who regularly gathered at his store for a visit. He allowed us to call him “John” and to we 15 year olds, it was validation that we were adults (even though we weren’t). The players in this group were Pete, Myself, Jimmy Ball and Jamie Quinn. At the time, we each had our own powerboats and Pete (or Yuk as we called him) was no exception. We painted them all the same color (light blue with white trim) and Pete applied his artistic hand on the sides of our boats with our club name, “The Cavitators”. Cavitation is a phenomenon in which rapid changes of pressure in a liquid lead to the formation of small vapor-filled cavities, in places where the pressure is relatively low. When subjected to higher pressure, these cavities, called "bubbles" or "voids", collapse and can generate an intense shock wave. In our case, the voids occurred around the propeller which caused the engine to rev significantly. Making your outboard engine cavitate was the marine equivalent of hot rodders “leaving rubber” on the streets. We generally tore up the water ways, much to the chagrin of Dexter Seymour, Jamie’s grandfather who owned Seymour’s Boat Yard and ironically, was the Harbormaster.

The following year, 1962 ushered in a new era of hooligan behavior when Jamie became the first in our group to be accepted by the DMV licensing division and we all took to the road in Jamie’s hot rod ‘48 Ford truck. The four of us piled into that old pickup truck like sardines and boldly careened around Northport and East Northport hurling cat calls at the fair sex on the sidewalks and generally making fools of ourselves the way young punks do. I remember one time, Jamie threw me the keys to the truck and said “hey Bruyn, take the truck for a spin”. The fact that I had no license was of little importance to me, so Pete and I got in the truck and took off on a joy ride. On return, coming down the steep hill of Lewis Road became a wild adventure when I applied the brake and my foot fell to the floor. I knew enough to downshift so I did, managing to slow down to about 30 miles per hour but as we approached the bottom of the hill, I realized this was going to be a white-knuckle turn. Somehow, we made it onto Bayview and luckily, no traffic was coming. I parked the truck at Seymour’s and gave Quinn his keys back. Jamie said “you dumb-ass, you should have pumped the fuckin’ brakes”. Like so many things in life, hindsight is 20/20.

By early in 1963, I passed my road test (after three tries) and became a legal driver. My first car would soon follow, a ‘56 Chevy with all the cool stuff which blinded me to the fact that it was a major oil burner, exactly what my dad told me to avoid when buying a car. So, at age 17, it seemed to me that performing a ring job would be an easy enough thing to do. But where? We lived in an apartment. Pete was happy to volunteer his dad’s garage for the operation. I had no mechanical experience but not to worry, Pete would be our guide! His dad, John had a different view. He didn’t mind letting me use the garage, but he told me Pete was only good at disassembling cars; in other words, he was a “junk man”. Undaunted we set out to do this over the Easter vacation of 1963 which was about two weeks and as it turned out, we needed all of it. I borrowed some specialty tools from the auto shop teacher, Mr. Phillips and we spent every minute of every day working on this car. Pete’s dad (John Young) would come home from work each day and just shake his head. I can still recall some of the music on our shop radio. Andy Williams “Can't Get Used to Losing You” and the Chiffons “He’s So Fine”. After two weeks of dawn to dusk dedication, we finally were victorious and all of Pete’s Hot Rod Magazine education paid off. I would have many hours of “happy motoring” until a larger engine caught my interest, but that is another story.

Then there was the famous (or infamous) camping trip at Colonial Sand and Gravel, a dredging site the north side of the Asharoken isthmus. In those days, camping certainly did not mean camping; it was a euphemism for a “drink-out” and we were onboard. This particular “camping trip” started downtown on Main St. where we found someone old enough who was willing to buy us beer……..a case of it. The plan was simple; just carry the beer by foot down to Colonial Sand and Gravel, a laborious trek by any measure. We chose the route as “the crow flies” which took us across Steers Sand Pit, over hill and over dale. A case of beer gets pretty heavy after awhile so we passed the load back and forth. We finally did arrive at the “camp site” on an entrance channel off of Long Island Sound and planted the beer in the water to keep it cool. As we finished putting it in nature’s cooler, we saw a large tugboat under a full head of steam, plowing up ocean sized rollers as it approached the channel. We quickly jumped in the water to surf those big rollers. Our drink-out was starting off with a whole lot of fun written all over it! But not so fast! When the rollers had dissipated and the Tugboat slowed down to make it’s landing, our thoughts turned to opening a brew but we discovered that the rollers had washed our beer into the channel and all 24 cans were gone. We launched a Search and Recovery Operation but never found even one. Now we had to deal with the thought of camping all night without any beer.

We lit a campfire and began to tell campfire stories. The real scary kind like the hatchet murderer on Scudder Ave. who was never found. Vegetation in that sand environment was just dead trees with no leaves and Pete’s naturally deep-set eyes by the flickering fire light became the marquee for his horror tale. Each of us took our turn in relaying stories like the “hook man” and tales of escapees from the nut-house. We all scared the Hell out of ourselves, and nobody slept that night…..at all. There seems to be a thrill of some kind for kids of that age to dabble in the subject of horror and that night was more memorable than if our beer had not been washed away.

Pete had an artistic flare and he expressed it by making airbrush “weirdo tee shirts”. He made me several and as I remember, one of his favorite characters was that of “Hiram”. This character rode in a ‘32 Ford roadster with a ridiculously large engine from which he would cook a hot dog on the exhaust manifold as he drove. Hiram also had a hypodermic needle sticking out of his head. I understand Pete used his talent to become a commercial artist.

We remained friends for some time, well into 1963 but the natural effect of new interests became reality. For me, it was the young ladies. It always seemed to be a deal breaker for old friends. My interest in one particular young lady could be construed as tunnel vision and I saw her to the exclusion of just about everyone. In time, Pete went one way and I another, normal attrition to be expected with growing up. I did talk to him on the phone in year 2000 and he was tentatively making plans to come to a reunion in St. Augustine, but he had to beg off due to family constraints. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to see him, but I’m sure glad I got to talk to him. To Pete, I dedicate this little slice of life from the early 60’s. Sail on, old friend!

                            I Like Ike

For years, we had Basset hounds stating with Katie, then Homer, Beethoven and finally, Sir George. At one point we had all four at the same time. Bassets are lovable little creatures but stubborn and not especially bright. In time, they would all pass and the last was Sir George whom I nick-named “Pucky”, a nod to his huge paws that mimicked hockey pucks. After my stroke of 2007, when I first returned home from the hospital, I was unable to walk but with rehab work, I was soon able to take them on short jaunts by leash. By 2009, sadly, they had passed on and we were “dogless” for the first time in seventeen years. We would remain so until 2011 when Ike would make his debut.

To discourage becoming sedentary, we decided it would be a good idea for my health to get another dog that would require regular walking, one that would force me off the couch and onto the pavement. We visited S.A.F.E (an acronym for Save Animals from Euthanization) with the thought of a lightweight dog that would be of manageable size. They presented “Ike” a mixed breed at 70 lbs., three years old, and housebroken, about 50 lbs. heavier than we had been considering. We promptly took him home.

He adapted well with us, but that was not necessarily the case with other people. He taught us that he had a strong disliking for kids on skateboards, UPS, Fed Ex, USPS, garbage men, fat people, black people, brown people, sloppy people, rednecks, Amazon delivery men vans of all types and my brother. We’re really not sure, but we think he may have a questionable history with some or most of the above.

Now, Ike at fourteen years takes daily two-mile walks at “The Canopy”, a paved walking trail through the woods where he meets all of his new-found friends who fawn over him and call him “Old Grampa”.  He has also become a celebrity here at Grand Ravine, where we live. Ike has done a wonderful job in filling a void for us physically and emotionally. While it is true that we have provided for him a “forever home”, he has earned his place in our family. It’s as true today as it was in 1956, I Like Ike!

 

The Legend of Soo Nippi

Steve & Dave Bruyn with Soo Nippi and Figaro at Twin Lakes, Connecticut (1950)

Seventy plus years after the fact, the Legend of Sue Nippi still haunts me. It all started around 1948 or so when my maternal grandmother stayed at the western New Hampshire resort of Lake Sunapee, a vacation spot for those who sought escape from the hustle and bustle of urban life. Imagine the setting of the movie “Dirty Dancing” and the legend of the indigenous tribe, the Algonquin Indians who once inhabited this area, naming it Soo-Nipi, their phrase for “Wild Goose Waters”. The word Soo-Nipi here, has ironic significance but more on that later.

That summer, while Gramma was enjoying her frolic, I was a budding young boy of about two, just learning to hone my skills at walking and talking. Ma, as we called her brought me back a souvenir of her vacation in the form of a small black, fuzzy, stuffed dog. A cute little fellow, just the right size for a two-year old, and we quickly bonded. I was told that this little critter came from Lake Sunapee and that I might name him “Sunapee”. At that tender age, my diction had yet to develop, and I called him “Soo Nippi”. The name stuck and my new pal accompanied me nearly everywhere. The irony is that the name Soo Nippi was nothing more than toddler-speak, but in actuality, the Algonquins picked the name long before I did.

As time passed, Soo Nippi became my sidekick as adventures unfolded before me in life. Some two years later, our family took a vacation trip to Twin Lakes, Connecticut, Soo Nippi in tow. By now, I was four and brother, Steve, seven. Under the watchful eye of Mom & Dad, we did a little rowing and “swimming”, Soo Nippi by my side. What I couldn’t have imagined on that trip was how dark things would soon turn.

When the vacation was over, and we began our rural ride home in the family Hudson, I took my assigned seat behind the driver (that would have been Dad). In those days, there were no seat belts or air conditioning. Clouds of cigarette smoke billowed from the front seat, and we opened all the windows for fresh air. I decided that Soo Nippi could use a gulp of fresh air too, so I held him out the window as we breezed along that country road. Oh, that country road. I had not yet learned about wind resistance and had no idea that Soo Nippi would be force-ably ripped from my little hand.

And so it was, Soo and I had unexpectedly parted ways. I was horror-stricken and didn’t want to let Dad know as I was afraid, he’d be mad. I began to cry and shrunk down behind the front seat. Some miles later, Mom & Dad did a well-check and found me crying. When asked, I came clean and told them what had happened. Dad turned the car around and we back tracked for maybe 20 miles or so, but we never found Soo Nippi. It was a lesson in emotional loss, one of many that we as human beings suffer on the road of life. To stay grounded, I refer to the spirit of this vignette when someone else experiences great loss.  I think if most people reach down far enough, they will find their own point of reference to help them stay grounded. Food for thought………..

You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out

                                                     You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out

In the beginning.............This story begins with a neighborhood friend who was a studious looking fellow, of slight build with tortoise shell glasses, a kind of cutting-edge nerd prototype in appearance. This guy proved that appearance could be deceiving, as he enjoyed trolling for trouble just as much as the rest of us. One day, we decided to borrow my brother’s BB gun and see what kind of mischief we could create. Now in my youth, I never actually owned a BB Gun as I proved myself to be far too irresponsible as you will soon see. I suppose my parents were thinking I would shoot my eye out and given the chance, I’m sure I would have. Anyway, this BB Gun of my brother’s was a Daisy "pump action" and would hold about 50 BB’s in the magazine. What fun! We could find lots of trouble with that high powered BB rifle! Ahh, and..........surely we did.

The stage is set.....................We decided to go off to the "pits" where we often found some kind of mischief. For those who are unfamiliar with the "pits", it was the Steers Sand and Gravel Pits where the concrete ingredients for much of New York City were strip mined. There was lots of cool stuff there, like a conveyor belt that we could walk on. On the weekends, it was always idle, but it was fun to imagine the danger that it could be switched on at any given time and we could be swiftly swept into oblivion with a Bazillion tons of sand and gravel, only to become concrete aggregate and a permanent part of a New York City highway, building or bridge. Then, there was always the danger of being caught by the watchman which kept us "walking on the edge". The "pits" offered all kinds of entertainment with it’s different topographical features. In the "flats" at Bluff Point Road, we played many a game of baseball. That was when we were not in the mood to find trouble. Then, there was the sand cliffs that were so loose and unstable. We tried to create avalanches there, but were never successful. Next came the plateau area which was then rather large. It offered machinery, steam shovels, bulldozers to climb on, scattered large tools and equipment here and about, and of course, the famous conveyor belt. Then, there were those large piles of illegally dumped trash, that could be found nearly everywhere. "It don’t get no better than this!"
I know a place where we can go.............. The vastness of this Long Island dust bowl enabled us generally mis-behave and to smoke, visually undetected, or so we thought. In reality, I don’t think anyone cared. Our smoking array included cigarettes, corn cob pipes, cigars, cigarillos and tea-gars (our own homemade blend, using paper straws and loose tea). This place was a veritable wonderland of trouble that had our name on it! Proceeding eastward, the plateau gave way to the "bowl" where there was a single asphalt road named Steers Avenue, with limited access to Ocean Avenue by way of a locked chain. That is where sanctioned drag races were held around 1958 or so. A local hot rod club called the "Torque Masters" would drag on weekends from the Asharoken end of the road, using the hill for deceleration at the end of their run. In attendance were some of the fireman, ambulance, police, etc. Actually, it was a great opportunity for the young testosterone charged machos who wanted to abuse and destroy their vehicles (or their parent's vehicles) in acceleration speed trials. These young drivers were our heroes! The "bowl" was also the site of the fireman’s fair which was held each year in the summer and that is where the Police Shooting Range was located which brings us back to the Daisy pump action BB gun. By now, a picture of the pits should be emerging as our personal playground for the not-so-rich and infamous. A badlands for bad boys. The Orlons later sang "meet me on South Street, oh, yeah.........hurry on down". Well, the hippest place in town for us, was the pits.

Sunday, Sunday!.............It was a cold windy March-day in 1958. I know that because I was in the 7th grade. My accomplice with the tortoise shell glasses was in the 6th grade. We were veritable men of the world as we readied for a little "shooting practice". Setting up a few beer cans on the target range, we picked them off with deadly accuracy, but this soon became BORING! I guess we figured there must be more challenging targets. There was a storage shack down there at the shooting range that I guess the cops used for storing their shooting equipment. That looked like fun! We zeroed in on the brass keyed door lock with the idea of trying to hit the key slot. We did hit it many, many times. Enough to destroy it for use. Then, we decided to look through the door glass which had some hardware cloth over it for protection against guys like us. I took the barrel of the gun and "bumped" it against the hardware cloth which promptly gave way to glass breakage! Oh, man, we had done it now! Broke a window at the cops shooting range! The answer was.........run! And we did!!!!!!!!!

Sunday night................In unraveling the reality of our caper, that night I concluded....... "hey, this was a vast wasteland of sand and gravel with no one for miles. Kind of like the desert in New Mexico we had seen on TV where the likes of The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy would ride. Who could be the wiser?" Who could have seen us? Figgetaboutit!

Monday, Monday (can’t trust that day)................Stopping at Craft’s Stationery on the way to school, as we often did to buy cigarettes, with another trouble-making buddy, I chanced to run into a celebrated man that knew me ....... a little better than I thought. We all knew him as Police Chief Percy Erwin. He greeted me with a "Good Morning, Mr. Bruyn" (those were his exact words). He asked me if I was on my way to school to which I answered in the affirmative. He then said that he would like me to stop by his office after school for a "little chat". For me, it was Black Monday. I sat in those old wooden desks at the Laurel Avenue School all day, just thinking about the trouble I had created and how I would have to pay for it when school was out. Surely, I had painted myself into a corner, but how could he, or anyone have known? The pits were vast! Who could have seen us? Oh, boy, that was the Monday from Hell.

Can’t fight City Hall!.................In those days the cop shop was across from the old library in an old wooden building which once housed the Fire Department. It now was the offices of City Hall, the Building and Zoning Department, the Jail and the Police Athletic League, of which I was a member. There was a long wide flight of creaky wooden stairs in the center of the building which led to the cop shop upstairs and ultimately to the Chief’s office. The climb up those creaky old stairs that afternoon was like climbing Everest. When I addressed the desk sergeant and announced that I was there to see the chief, he asked me if I had an appointment. An appointment I thought?  Uh.........Yes, I guess I did. I was seated in Mr. Erwin’s office and the Chief commenced to scare the Hell of me. Someone had in fact seen us mis-behave in "pits" and we were busted!

Learning new words...........Can you say restitution?............ Oh, my God, I was busted now and would certainly be branded as a "JD", would have to get a "JD" card (whatever that was) and maybe be "sent up the river". My life was done! I was barely 12 and my future was toast! The Chief really did paint some dismal pictures for me, and I was very remorseful. So much so, that I sang like a bird. Told him who my accomplice was and told him that I was sorry, and I wouldn’t ever do it again and I really was a good boy and please, please, please, don’t tell my parents!. Well, he compromised. He did tell my parents, I was made to pay for my part in this destructive little caper and I had to serve a penalty at home. I guess my accomplice did the much of the same. The compromise was that I didn’t have to learn to make license plates!

Hail to the Chief..............The lessons learned that afternoon ended my BB gun career and 45 years later, I am grateful that Chief Percy Erwin did the right thing and made me responsible for my misdeeds. Today, I still have use of both eyes and, in spite of myself, did not shoot my eye out! You never know how other people may cross your path in life and enrich you in some subtle, but lasting way. If you are reading this, you may very well have both out your eyes too! 

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

 

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

The year was 1969 and nearly twenty years of Northport living was behind me. I was now married with one child and living in an upstairs apartment at 101 Main Street, a building my parents owned. We were one of their tenants and they lived in their "loft apartment" in the same building. It was winter and I had a nasty "Nyquil" cold". As I prepared to turn-in that night around 10:00 PM, I blew my nose and produced a torrent of blood, something that was not all too unfamiliar for me since I had a pretty strong history of bloody noses going all the way back through childhood. What made this event different was that this time, I was unable to stop the bleeding. My young wife, Jessie tried to help but to no avail, so she summoned my mother who had dealt with my bloody noses throughout my upbringing. Mom came right over and applied all of her historic expertise in an attempt to stop the bleed, but she too, was unsuccessful. Time was of essence and if we were going to stop this hemorrhage, it would require the help of the Northport Fire Department Rescue Squad! Jessie made the call, and I could hear the sirens as they rushed down Main Street.

In a very short time, the well-known townsman, Mr. Fred Piercey and his rescue squad partner arrived with their gurney followed by the Northport Police Department. On duty that night was the cop we always called "Wyatt Earp" who wore pegged pants, a low-riding gun belt, hat pulled down over his eyes and a swagger-walk to match. I never did know his real name, but his nick-name reflected his demeanor. Mr. Piercey and his partner loaded me onto the gurney and carried me out into the hall of that two-story walk-up and at the landing, they had to make a sharp 180 degree turn, handing the whole kit and caboodle over the guard rail to address the downward stair slope. This would require a little extra muscle and Wyatt was there to pitch in. As I watched the ceiling rotate 180 degrees, an audible rrrr-i-ppp was heard and the fireman (rescue team) broke out in laughter. Wyatt Earp had ripped his pegged pants and bruised his ego all in one motion. I think the NFD and the NPD had a little competitive thing going back then.

I was whisked down the stairs and loaded into the back of their shiny 1958 Cadillac ambulance that the NFD kept in such good condition. For the first time in my life, I wasn't watching the show; I was the show. Mr. Piercey and his partner wasted no time in getting me secured, fired up that Cadillac and headed for Huntington Hospital in full lights and sirens regalia. In no time, we were at the Emergency Room where they packed my nose, a painful procedure that still rings horror in my memory. They released me that night and by the time we collected all of our composure and return transportation arrangements, it was probably around 2 or 3 in the morning. When I got home, I went right to bed and continued to bleed all night.

At daybreak, Jessie and I stumbled to our '62 Chevy with the idea of returning to the hospital to complete this failed medical procedure. Mr. Piercey, who incidentally was a neighbor, saw us backing out and came over to inquire about my well-being. When he discovered I was still bleeding, he went ballistic. Jessie and I continued on to the hospital where they finally stopped the bleeding, but in the meantime, Fred Piercey was steaming. He drove down there that afternoon on his own time and raised Hell. The hospital had failed the very people that the NFD Rescue Squad served, and he let them know that without a stutter!

Northport once was a working town, where everyone rallied as community. For better or for worse, we were all family and through our scrapes and disagreements, we all cared for each other. Mr. Piercey was an unsung hero who helped forge the template for humble giants who came after him. Just a working guy, doing what he did for the public good taking life in stride without fanfare. It really wasn't until nine-eleven that we all realized the full-depth, importance and commitment of first responders, but the fact is..........they've been around for a long time. Now, in the year 2020, the Coronavirus has taken center stage in the theater of our well-being. The next generation of heroes have stepped up. Will the circle be unbroken?

Thanks, Fred and may you rest in peace.

Where the Woodbine Twineth

Where the Woodbine Twineth

  

During the Christmas season of 1955, when I was 9 and my brother was 12, Mom & Dad were just getting into their "freedom from childcare" phase and would sometimes go out on  Saturday evenings to the local entertainment venues. Adult supervision? I think not. Dad  reasoned that my brother & I could just watch ourselves for a few hours.                                  

 

Our first venture into autonomy was "dinner out" at the Woodbine Restaurant, which Dad always called the "Woodbine Twineth". An easy walk from our Bayview Avenue home, as nearly everything was, we were indifferent to the origin of the term "Woodbine Twineth" since it subliminally smacked of culture.

Now, Dad had a practical joke streak in him and instructed us to order the vegetable plate. We protested that our agenda was HAMBURGERS! He chuckled and said "oh, yes, that is what they call hamburgers at that restaurant". So, on that early summer evening, off we went to the Woodbine Twineth, a sojourn into dining maturity.

We perceived ourselves as well-respected men about town, legends in our own minds and were now in a position to dictate our own culinary destiny. Naively, we both ordered......"The Vegetable Plate". I don't know what my brother's excuse was, but I stood behind the idiot defense. The waitress firmly questioned the order, which we confirmed and soon, she returned with two vegetable plates, which struck horror to the core of our souls. She was a little angry but did accommodate us and changed-out our dinners for hamburgers.

The next day, Dad was in disbelief of our gullibility and grabbed a good laugh. I hope he went down there to the "Twineth" and compensated them for that caper.

There is a subtle significance in this little vignette. On that early Northport evening of so long ago, the waitress gave us the motherly gift of patience and understanding even though we deserved to be held accountable for own actions. The restaurant suffered a slight monetary loss, and she may even have been given a reprimand. In the grand scheme of things, she was, alas, an "angel disguised as a waitress" who unwittingly seared her act of kindness into my brain.

At Christmas time, even to this day, while the rest of the world is singing, "and in the dark street shineth," in my head I'm singing, "and in the Woodbine Twineth." I hope everyone has a "Woodbine Twineth" event in their life somewhere to cherish and to hold on to forever.

When I Was Your Age, Sonny!

 

When I Was Your Age, Sonny!

I really never thought I would live long enough to utter the words, "when I was your age, sonny", but here I am, signed, sealed and delivered, solidly considered an "elder". Over my lifetime, with growing sadness I've watched respect for fellow man, social graces and the family unit decay and deteriorate like a tattered rag doll of years gone by. I was raised in Northport in the 50's when "United We Stand" had a genuine meaning. When togetherness was a way of life. I revisited that feeling just 10 years after the collapse of the towers on September 11, 2011, when most folks let their guard down and acknowledged their friends, loved ones and neighbors, openly weeping and sharing their raw feelings if only for a day.

There was a time, long ago in Northport when this way of life was a birthright, an every-day norm. Most dads would come home from work, mom would make supper and the family would gather at the dinner table, exchanging thoughts and ideas, verbalizing intelligible phrases, celebrating triumphs of the day or venting frustrations. The warmth and richness of that event was knowing that you were a secure part of the family unit. After dinner, Dad would usually put his feet up and read the evening paper while Mom did the dishes. There were no dishwashers, just a large cast iron wall-hung kitchen sink with an integral dish drain. Things were a lot less complicated then.

Margaret, David & Steven Bruyn 1947

We always knew what to expect because we were held accountable for our little corner of the world. I hear a lot of bashing today about days of yore and allegations of "child cruelty", how the female of the species was "dissed" and more cries of inequality. Messages of "Ozzie and Harriet", and the "Leave it to Beaver clan ring in ridicule as though it were the plague. Admittedly early TV subject offerings raised the family unit perception to a plane that was not reasonably achievable, but one must remember....it was TV. In my opinion, these early TV shows were special because they portrayed wholesomeness, a concept that today, escapes definition.

In those simpler times, it was common for the family to sit outside in the early summer evenings, chatting with the neighbors while sipping iced tea, or we kids would perhaps play "Phantom", a hide and seek based game we devised with our own imaginations. When it got too dark, we went inside and often played cards or watched.....you guessed it....Ozzie and Harriet with street sounds floating through the open windows on the light summer breeze. Wintertime focused on sleigh riding, snow fun and of course, the big event, Christmas. Even at a young age, while we were anxious to receive those wonderful gifts, we were also filled with anticipation of those gifts we gave. At any season, our friends were welcome in our home to break bread as we were by their families in a similar fashion. I can remember being urged to "eat" by my friend's parents, a show of genuine concern. It wasn't a perfect life but a simple one, void of all the technological distractions that had not yet been invented. Air conditioning, big screen TV, video games, cell phones, texting (the list goes on) are examples of those modern "electronic babysitters" that have helped to isolate society and create a "me" generation with an entitlement mentality.

Back in the day, we created our own share of rowdiness, but it was not angry, vicious or threatening. We found recreation in one another's company, used our creativeness and communicated in audible sentences, a kind of socialization that begs for reprise. The act of helping one another was instinctive and commonplace, a code of conduct that still survives in us "old folks".

So, in this day of bigger, better and faster, I'd like to stop the clock for just a minute and eulogize the bygone era of human respect, dignity, character, honesty, fair play, and honor. They are not just words, but a way of life we inherited from our community, our teachers, and our parents. It is a way of life that I fear will descend into obliteration with the eventual demise of the baby boomer generation. As I hand over the torch, I do so with trepidation.

Three Feet

 

Three Feet

In 1954, "Three Feet", a simple gated access path to the harbor, diagonally across the street from our house at 114 Bayview Avenue provided an opportunity for my brother, Steve and I to become accomplished swimmers at an early age. It was also the home port of JIB, our first family rowboat that Dad bought from Emerson Boat Shop on 25A, near Reservoir Avenue. Mr. Emerson told Dad in his down-eastern brogue that the boat just "weeped a little" but was a "dahn good buy fah fifty bucks!" He then sweetened the deal by throwing in a set of oars. Dad bought Emerson's charm and the boat which he dubbed JIB, his own initials. Our little family boat more than "weeped a little" as it spent the entire summer of 1954, swamped to the gunwales. Undaunted, we continued to use it each day and bailed with a bucket, and a steel coffee can. Hurricane Carole in the fall of that year struck a blow, but not to worry, Emerson Boat shop was there to make the repairs (for fifty bucks). Dad was now experiencing "the boat.....hole in the water syndrome" (literally), but the following year, we were back on the water, merrily bailing and rowing. We had to be careful of barnacles on the inside of the boat though, an inconvenience we shrugged off as standard operating procedure. Mom joined us nearly every day that summer, rowing all over Northport Harbor and we took turns at the oars yelling the senseless phrase, "Aye, Matey! Nothing but carrots aboard"!

The following year,1955 marked the appearance of a, Mississippi Delta "steamboat" style dredge that excavated Northport Harbor mud all summer long, 24/7. Across the water on those hot summer nights, you could see the dredge profile, the upper & lower deck lights and hear the churning of machinery. Occasionally, steam whistle sounds pierced the darkness with great authority, adding to the drama of the operation.

It was the hottest summer I could remember in Northport and we actually became quite proficient as junior mariners. We had no personal flotation devices as they were not in common consumer use back then. If you fell overboard, you just swam. If you didn't know how to swim, you had no business being in the boat; it was that simple.

In our tenure at "Three Feet", we would witness the actual eye of Hurricane Carol, news of Russia's orbiting satellite "Sputnik", TV coverage of the Andrea Doria demise and.....the launch of an obscure entertainer from Tupelo, MS who was introduced to us on the Dorsey Brothers "Stage Show" as "Elvis Prez-ley". We were part of a lifestyle that is now ancient history, content with the simple things. Soon, we would be trading in those oars for the outboard motor and the Harbor Patrol would be standing by to enforce the harbor speed limit. Chief Percy Erwin might even put in a word or two. Oh, how they always seemed to show up at the wrong time.

Wolverton Mountain

                                                           Wolverton Mountain

The year was 1965 and I was dating not one, but both of the Baker twins at the same time. At age 19, I had no idea how volatile that situation could be and had no experience with the competitive sharpness of the female species! What I found out later was just how explosive those girls were behind closed doors.

Surfin' Safari, the endless summer, the top down, those lazy hazy crazy days of summer, beer & chips at the beach and causal dating with the twins. What could be more fun than that? What the Hell was I thinking? Clearly, I was not.

Those gals had a different idea of this dating game and the fallout was not pretty. Oh, yeah....I guess, there were plenty of arguments up there, where they lived on the old Geissler Estate, a sprawl that was maintained by their daddy....the caretaker. I likened him to Clifton Clowers from Wolverton Mountain. For those unfamiliar with the song, Clifton Clowers lived on top of Wolverton Mountain and had a "purty young daughter", but....he was mighty handy with a gun and a knife! This song could have been written especially for me. Now old "Clifton" never threatened me with any kind of bodily harm, but he was an unforgiving and unaccommodating sort of man, a trait that became more evident with each beer he regularly consumed.

I guess he finally had enough with the bickering of those two twins and he came to me one day and told me straight up "you better go home, son and make up your mind". I literally did have to "say yes to one and leave the other behind". I'm not sure how many guys can say they had that experience. Not to worry though, plenty of male folk standing in line to date the twins. I don't guess twin sister sat out even one Saturday night without a date.

So, life has it's little twists and turns. I did make a choice that day, and 56 years of marriage later (at this writing) Jessie Baker Bruyn is still my best friend. We've been down many roads together....some dark and foreboding, some sunbathed in euphoric bliss. Like many relationships, success does not come easily. It is something that requires effort, patience an understanding. These are words I heard from elders when I was 19. I had no idea then, what they were talking about.

In some ways, I wish I was 19 again and yet....in many ways, I don't. We like to think that the outcome of our decision making is our own, but in reality, it's an educated guess and a spirited roll of the dice. For me, saying "yes" to Jessie was a "hail-Mary" that panned out.

The song ended......."I don't care about Clifton Clowers, I'm gonna climb upon his mountain...I'm gonna get the girl I love, I don't care about Clifton Clowers........It was the easiest mountain I ever climbed.

The ‘Wright Place"

 

The ‘Wright Place"

In a very real sense, the five and ten-cent store on Main Street was the center of Northport in the 1950s and 1960s. Most people referred to it as the “Five and Dime” and images of that old place remain etched in my memory. As a small child, I was fascinated by the toy section and it only became magnified at Christmas time with the display of electric trains, fake snow and Christmas decorations. The passenger cars had replicated stainless-steel exterior rail car cladding and the windows lit up with the silhouettes of the “commuters”. They were the most expensive train offering in the store. My train layout, which I co-owned with my older brother Steve, didn't include that discriminating choice. We ran a basic “freight line” with Diesel Switchers. “Instant gratification” was not yet a buzz phrase, and any tendencies toward that end were discouraged, a philosophy which I believe was for the best.

A child's vacation destination for all seasons, I could have camped at the “Five & Dime” indefinitely if the manager, Mr. Wright, would have allowed it. There were cap guns with holsters, ray guns, toy soldiers, delivery trucks, police badges, all the action toys that are the stuff of young boys’ dreams. There was an equal amount of toys for the girls, such as dolls, ballerina outfits and other foo-foo stuff, but those items were just blocking my access to pursue the likes of Captain Video, Audie Murphy and Hop-a-long Cassidy.

Aside from the obvious appeal to the youngsters, it was a store for everyone. Mom could buy inexpensive dishes, candlesticks and yard goods while dad could peruse the hardware aisle for 19 cent paint brushes and various household items. As we prepared for school each fall, the stationery aisle was where you would find your classmates stocking up on pens, pencils and notebooks. This elbow-to-elbow event signaled the end of summer. I used to dream of carrying those books for a school crush, something that never materialized.

The “Five & Dime” was more than sticks and bricks. It was an institution. Those creaky wood floors and the stairs leading the second level where the AT & T operators ran those large switchboards hearkened back to an era of communication now sadly past, but, for me, the legacy of the store's “Mr. Wright” remains the real subject of “Northport Five & Dime” history.

Mr. Wright managed the operation of the “Five and Dime” with the creativeness and precision of a symphony orchestra conductor. With a pencil that almost appeared surgically implanted behind his ear, he knew every inch of that place and his employees performed with similar perfection. Not only was he serious about his work, but his love of community was exemplified by his dedication as a volunteer fireman who reliably responded to the call day or night. He often helped coordinate gatherings at the firehouse, an important community hub, and raised much needed funds ‘hawking’ at the annual Fireman's Fair. The same care and dedication that he demonstrated at work, he devoted to his community. It is something that I took for granted then, and appreciate only now in hindsight.

In the very early years, I can remember my mother and her peers using the phrase “waiting for “Mr. Right” when referring to young eligible bachelorettes looking for a steady boyfriend. Without giving the conversation much attention, I simply thought “Mr. Wright” was down there at the “Five and Dime”.

As I morphed into young adulthood and became part of the Main Street business machine of the day, I came to know Mr. Wright as “Fred Wright”. “Fred” was a positive role model and unassuming pillar of Northport, with much of what he contributed to our little village probably going unnoticed at the time. He was part of a group of men and women who instinctively considered community more important than accolades. The “Five & Dime” was more than just an address on Main Street. It was a blueprint for life that, sadly, is now gone forever, a memory that survives only for those who have had the good fortune to have lived it.

Given the challenges of parenting, the question is often posed: how many people does it take to raise a child? The generally accepted answer would be two, a mother and a father. In a broader perspective, Mr. Wright's character role and others like him in Northport, demonstrate that the whole community looked out for us all and therefore we had considerable parenting. I am blessed to have experienced that era and the folks that made it so special.

The Volcano

 

The Volcano

Along about the 8^th grade, we were assigned a science homework project. I teamed up with Frank Janella, a fellow classmate and we decided to build a volcano which we touted as nature’s sub-surface safety valve. We painted it black with red “lava flows” and built in a “chimney” at the center which would allow us to emulate an eruption. In reality, this project had no redeeming educational quality and did not accurately depict anything that might result from the forces of nature. All that aside, we were determined to have fun with this. The result would allow us to light it off in science class, all sanctioned by the teacher, Mr. Clark (more on him in another essay).

The construction of this project would involve a trip to the hardware store for some window screening and a bag of plaster-of-Paris. Oh, and a stop at the hobby store for some Jet-x fuel, the main ingredient in making the smoke and fire! On a Saturday morning, my mother drove me to Frank’s house where we commenced construction in his basement. We found an old piece of cardboard for the base and set up our “chimney” in the middle, from which we draped the window screening to form the slope of the mountain. The real fun had begun.

As we mixed up the plaster-of-Paris, I hadn’t noticed the destruction of my clothes and shoes as the plaster spoils fell at my feet. We continued to work on the volcano until we got it just the way we wanted it when Mrs. Janella came down to check on us. She was horrified. She warned me in her own words, “your mother is going to kill you!” I just shrugged and told her that mom won't mind. It was a gross miscalculation of what became my mother’s actual reaction. She was furious. My brand-new shoes and school clothes were caked with plaster and clearly, I was in the doghouse. The ride home was a cold one and I promised her I would never do that again.

A year later, in the 9th grade, we were handed a similar assignment by a different teacher. Since I already had volcano building experience, I thought I’d build another, the philosophy being “different teacher, different project”. This time I’d wear old clothes.

We lived in an apartment at 52 Bayview Ave. and my science class partner, Johnny Schmidt also lived in the same building. This seemed like a “can’t miss” deal. We could set up construction outside on the concrete patio and this would be a “walk in the park”. True to my word, I wore old clothes which I’m sure made Mom happy, but Dad…..not so much.

Johnny and I had failed to put down a protective tarp over the concrete deck and we got plaster-of-Paris all over the patio. I thought it was no big deal as I would just wash it off with water. That was another gross miscalculation. The clean up work effort far exceeded that of the project. I can’t remember how either project was received by the elders in the science community but a “Gentleman’s C” would have been liberal. And in retrospect, we must have made a mess out of Frank Janella’s basement floor, something that I don’t remember being addressed at the time. Fair to say that my career as a volcano builder was in serious question.

I’ve come to believe that there are lessons to be learned in nearly every endeavor of life. They say if you continually repeat the same mistake, and expect a different result, you define insanity. Giving myself the benefit of the doubt, I’ll attribute the error of my ways to adolescent foolishness. In my adult life, I’ve managed to remain volcano-free, although admittedly, I’ve destroyed a fair quantity of my own clothes through thoughtlessness. This is a fact that my exasperated wife will easily attest to. I do believe that I demonstrate the axiom “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. But then I repeat myself.

The True Measure of Wealth

                                                       The True Measure of Wealth

The year was now 1959, some three or four years after being reprimanded by Northport’s finest for throwing rocks at Jesse Carll’s barn on Lewis Road. By now, our landlord, Mr. Zillian had purchased the barn from Mr. Carll and scheduled it for renovating and conversion into a grandiose residence.

Concurrently, my boat-building effort at a friend’s house had stalled, since his own project consumed all of his valuable expertise leaving me in the “tomorrow” pile. I had no expertise…I was a grunt. It became late fall and it seemed obvious that my project would be covered for the winter, leaving me “boatless” for yet another season, an unacceptable notion. I asked Mr. Zillian if I could complete my project in his barn and he agreed but told me that when the renovators got to that part of the barn, I would have to vacate.

My brother and I managed to get this partially built boat into the barn by tipping it sideways and sliding it through a series of doorways and on down to the designated spot where Mr. Zillian agreed to let me work on it. Ironically, this was the very spot where just three years earlier, one of Northport’s finest had threatened to “draw” on my brother for his “on-foot-fleeing and eluding” caper during our rock-throwing episode. But then that was nearly a quarter of my life-ago. Time had changed everything and now, I was a serious young man of 13 with an agenda.

I had already addressed this problem with Dad and he agreed to fund the unfortunate event with tools; thirty dollars worth. I was so thankful to everyone for the faith they had shown in me. Now, I just had to figure out how to do this. Even in those days, thirty dollars didn’t go that far in the tool aisle, a constraint that precluded power tools. I remained undaunted.

My “fatherly” tool seminar got underway with mentor, Ed Staab of Snug Harbor Hardware (and later....marine) who led me through his tool labyrinth. One of his oft used phrases in response to my questions was ”you buy cheap…...you get cheap”. I reminded myself of my budget and bought cheap. With a hand drill, Japanese “knock-off” Yankee screw-driver, a hand saw, block plane and a few other hand tools I was ready to craft a fine vessel of beauty. What I lacked in experience, I would make up for in determination. Fortunately, my older brother Steve did hang around for a time and provided some elbow grease. With those hand tools, there was no shortage of that need.

We got the bottom battens installed and the deck framing complete when the renovators gave us our 3-day notice. In compliance, we moved the still-unfinished boat toward the patio behind our apartment. I say toward……as we had to overcome a glitch (the term "glitch" may have been in it's infancy at that time). We had created the classic “boat-in-the basement” dilemma, the real thing! My beautiful boat that we had worked so hard to get to this stage of completion wouldn’t fit out the door. The crown of the deck made the boat too beefy to fit through the door opening when turned on it’s side! Major building support columns of perhaps 16” x 16” (typical of old barns that had been constructed by shipwrights of the 1800’s) flanked the opening. We pushed, pulled, coaxed and measured. Something had to be changed to make the boat fit through. Surely, it wouldn’t be the boat. The keel on this boat was just ¾” thick and that was all we needed to gain clearance for exit. We reasoned that if we cut a notch in the support column, we could fit the keel in that notch as we slid the boat on through. This made perfect sense to us, so with an old hatchet we created some minor engineering modifications to Mr. Zillian’s barn.

The boat slid through and into the sunlight where it spent the winter under a tarp on the patio, not 3 feet from my bed. Come spring, at the advice of Mr. Don Windus of Northport Lumber, I planked the decks with Rotary-Cut Lauan Mahogany Marine Plywood. I finished the boat with paint and varnish, rigged it with a windshield, remote controls, steering, etc. and capped off the transom with a 15 horse Evinrude.

By the spring of 1960, I was now 14 and ready to rock & roll. I launched the boat and very few of my peers believed that I had actually built it. It was the highest praise.

Having had the privilege to grow up when I did….. in the little town where I did…… with the people I did, is a gift that allows me to recognize the true measure of wealth. It was these early lessons of responsibility and a little help from these unwitting mentors that gave me the message that I could. I was thirteen. I built that boat because I didn’t know I couldn’t. Steve pitched in because he thought it was a plausible time investment in his little brother. These values are from a bygone era. Less fortunate folks may never understand the impact of "the true measure of wealth".

The Struckmother!

 

The Struckmother!

My first formal foray into social interaction began at age four when I began my scholastic career, one that would be a lot shorter than my parents had planned for me. I was a kindergarten inductee, like it or not while my older brother, Steve was already a veteran of scholastic achievement having successfully completed the first grade. I was full-young, but the school agreed to accept me, and mom was glad get me out of her hair for a half-day.

In those days, nobody worried about predators, sexual deviants and the like. Mom took me by the hand, and we crossed Main Street together where she turned me loose for my Ocean Avenue School walk with my little friend, Ali McDevitt who I would call for along the way. Each morning, we would walk hand- in-hand chattering, skipping and singing in typical childish fashion without a care in the world. Then one morning, the boom of reality fell upon us. It was the neighborhood bully! He seemed quite older, maybe five. I had no experience with this sort of thing, after all, I was four! The exact nature of his offense is gone from my memory now (almost 70 years at this writing) but I do remember his final threat. He told us that he was going to get his STRUCKMOTHER after us. That sounded pretty ominous. I should have given him an uppercut right then and there, but I was frozen. If he was looking to instill the emotion of fear, he did it up right and I came up short on chivalry.

After the altercation, we continued on to school, thinking about the struckmother and about what she might do to us. The specter of the struckmother played in the back of my mind for some time. I told my dad about the incident, and he could only conclude that the bully must have meant “step-mother”. My solution to this dilemma was simply to avoid this boy whenever possible. As the years rolled by, we transitioned into young adults and beyond, I forgot about him.

It all came flooding back in 2008 at our 45^th class reunion when I ran into Ali, my little girl friend that I failed to adequately protect that fateful day in 1950. An entire lifetime had passed, and we talked about the old days, I asked her if she remembered that incident. She certainly had and we chuckled thinking about our mindset and the innocence of youth, lost forever. With so many years gone by, one might think that this chance meeting is the end of the story. Oh, no…...

One afternoon in 2019, my phone rang here in Florida and it was the bully! He just called to catch up and talk about old times in Northport. He told me that he had been in the Marines and spent a good bit of time in Viet Nam. I guess a guy like that would have done very well in the Marines. I could tell from our conversation that he is still a tough guy but that his roots are very important to him, revealing a softer side. From my experience, Northport folks share a common tie. Everyone knew each other in our hometown and many are, or were related at some point.

And now, the obvious question that I’ve wanted to know the answer to for 70 years. What is a struckmother? When he was able to connect the question with the incident, he said oh, that! I was probably trying to say “I was going to get my big brother after you”. This gives insight as to the stage of our development. He wasn’t even old enough even say big brother! Ali, if you are reading this, take comfort in knowing the answer to this question that we pondered nearly seventy years ago.