The mayor of New York at that time was Jimmy Walker, probably one of the biggest crooks to run a major city. Nobody cared because he was such a dapper, elegant guy.
We all felt special when he was around. Eventually he resigned when an investigation was close to revealing his shenanigans.
Here is my very top memory: People who lived near us were friendly with Babe Ruth and he would come to visit them in a big limo. When we spotted it we ran through the streets shouting, “It’s the Babe.” He’d exit the limo larger than life, wave his famous cap and say, “Hi kids.” We were in heaven.
My father and his brother owned a taxicab. Dad drove days and Uncle Irv drove nights.
My father would bring home the meager two or three dollars he earned in fares and then he’d take about half back for the next day’s gas. My mother made my clothing and repaired my broken kites. We ate chicken on Thanksgiving and rushed to early movies to get the low admission.
We lived in an apartment a block from the elementary school I attended: P.S. 148. The board of education was unable to think of names for schools so they just got numbers. Labor was cheap so there were a lot of services. For instance, milk was delivered every day and usually from a horse and wagon. There were plenty of trucks, but it seemed to be a tradition. Everyone marveled at the fact that the horse knew where to stop.
There was also a junkman who came around on an awful-looking wagon with a horse to match. His cry was, “I cash” that must have been shorthand for “I have cash.” We would ball up sheets of tin foil and cash them in for pennies.
The best visitor of all was the Italian organ grinder. He would stand at a spot with the maximum number of windows in view, grind his organ box, sing and urge his monkey to dance. Women wrapped pennies in paper and threw them out the window.
I very clearly remember lying on my bed with my father in the room when Orson Welles announced that men from Mars had invaded us. We did not believe for one second that it was anything more than a lark but many people did believe it.
Here was the strange part: They thought we were in imminent danger so they started selling their property. Figure that one.
Everyone we knew was poor, but parents and teachers were anxious to teach us how to save. Every Friday we handed in a few pennies that were exchanged for stamps that we pasted in a book. At some point they applied interest with another stamp. It didn’t work. I have never been much of a saver.
I went to high school at Newtown High in Elmhurst. We were able to get special low rates at sporting events. The seats were limited so we would go an unbelievable number of hours before the game time.
Our favorite was seeing the New York Giants football team play at the Polo Grounds. It would be bitter cold but we lined up and waited for the gates to open. There actually was a football team called the Brooklyn Dodgers led by the great Ace Parker. I remember a Sunday when we saw them beaten by the Tuffy Lehman-led Giants. All through the game the public address announcer called out the names of Army and Navy officers wanted immediately.
When we left we found out why. The date was Dec. 7, 1941. I was 15 at the time, and three years later I was hunkered down with a field artillery unit in Germany.
What made those times so different? Well, for one thing, it was the last war we fought with a unified sense of purpose. Nobody questioned the necessity of defeating the Nazi menace. Since then, we are never sure we should be in a particular war.
Being poor felt different then. We seemed to be all suffering from it – no rich lobbyists or hedge fund managers.
Are we better off today? Despite everything that seems troublesome, I think we are.
More people own homes, there is less discrimination, almost everyone plays golf – a rich man’s game then – the age of communications has brought us closer together and we are coming out of a depression. Keep the faith and the great experiment of democracy will once again prove to be unbeatable.
Marvin Rosenfeld is a 45-year South Bay resident and is a former engineer and magazine publisher.
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