Several people have commented on the smallness of the world simply within the LTC universe. That caught my attention & forced me to set aside my reticent nature & take up space here again.
At least 3 native Noo Yawkuz spoke up:- Denise & Nini from the middle-class strivers of Queens, & ChatKat from the riotous outpost of Brooklyn. My own roots are buried within the cement of B'klyn, & I wondered whether her roots & mine had achieved any early intertwining.
My own world was south Williamsburg, at the foot of the W'burg Bridge, behind the Navy Yard. North W'burg was made more famous by Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"in the '40s. It brought travel agents & tourists. Once, a large bus loaded with gawkers mistakenly came to our southern streets (hi yizall), forcing a halt to our punchball game so it could pass. We could hear someone inside describing our tenements & jammed streets in unkind terms (in retrospect, probably accurate). Enraged, we threw garbage at them. The windows came down; the description ended; the bus fled & never returned. I always remembered this, with some embarrassed sympathy, whenever a ship deposited us on the unfortunate population of some small & doubtless backward island.
The world of my childhood in the streets of W'burg was, I believe, vastly different from that of today's non-ghetto children. We hit the streets after breakfast (after school on week-days) & were free, unsupervised. We had only to re-appear for lunch, then resume our street lives until dinner. Seldom asked what we had been doing, we almost never volunteered anything. We spent the hours in invented seasonal games. Without supervision, arguments constantly interrupted every game, requiring countless "do-overs". When a do-over resulted in an undeniable outcome, the complainant in whose favor this went jeered his opponent with cries of "Chinky-Cho".(Probably originally 'Chinky-Chose'. I don't know the origin of this but it seems ugly now & best forgotten.)
Most games were innocuous, a very few dangerous (jumping roofs; a little thievery), & some disgusting (eg, playing marbles in April, rolling glass balls through puddles of accumulated filth along the curbs). This exposure probably gave us all robust immune systems.
Middle-class children now seem never to be alone. I dislike Little League because it seems to stamp out spontaneity & to press the child with the need to live out the parent's fantasy. I understand parents even make formal social appointments for their youngsters, planning every party, hovering, directing. It saddens me that these children never seem to know the joy of full, private freedom & getting away from adults.
Here endeth today's lesson. To continue, please deposit another 25 cents,
On review, this ramble seems out of place here, so after this indulgence I shall try to restrict any comments I might make in future to matters more cruise-ian.
Al
