Cops in the 1960's and my encounter with them.

 Back then, a cop could and did meter out his own justice.  We all knew most cops were crooked.   In our neighborhood in College Point, we had good and bad. They would park in a commercial area and drink instead of doing their rounds. We saw this many times.  

They took bribes. If a cop got a complaint about you, he might take you for a ride, and give you a talking to and or a few whacks.

So, in 1965, when I was 14 I got to see the back seat of a cop car.....

We kids hung out down Grantville, a place by Flushing Bay, across from  LaGuardia airport.  My friend Jean was there and a bunch of  boys. About 5 of us were sitting on the cliff. There were boys setting off fireworks on the beach (illegal). Another group of boys were playing penny poker near us (illegal).

Someone yelled COPS! The boys on the beach and playing poker all ran towards us.  The cops yelled for all of us to go by the car.  They asked Jean and me our ages and told us to get in the backseat of the car because we were minors.  The cops are still outside talking to the boys. 

Jean shows me what is in her pocketbook. It is a GIANT KNIFE!  She is crying. My cousin Brian use to tease her all the time and she would tell him, "one day I am going to stab you with a knife!"  so today was the day she brought a knife. Jean had long lashes and she would put on thick mascara on her upper and lower lashes. She put it on so thick it would clump. Now she has black rivers going down her face because she is crying.

I am thinking, if they look in her purse we are going to JAIL!  I am so scared I can't even talk. The cops get in and start driving us home. She is hysterical, begging not to be taken home, she will NEVER hang out down there again...etc. I don't have to say anything she is begging and crying enough for the both of us.

 We are passing the Club Safari and I scrunch down in the seat so no one can see me. My brother in laws family own it. In this town if a cop car passes with someone in the back seat we always look to see if we know who it is.

I am thinking, its a nice day, my mother will be outside with the neighbor mothers and here I come in a cop car. 

She will beat me twice, once for doing something so wrong the cops had to take me home and once for embarrassing her in front of all the neighbors. 

They turn on 25th road and 122nd street and stop.  Two blocks from home.

They tell me we will let you off here, give me your address and don't lie, we will check up.   I give them the only house address I know by heart which is my friend Maria's address who lives 3 houses up from me.

They leave and I can still hear Jean begging and crying as they turn the corner and go to the other side of town where Jean lived. She did keep her word, she never hung out there again.

About a week later, Maria's mother(who did not speak English but understood it) is outside sweeping her stoop and sidewalk when a cop car pulls up. 

They ask her if she has a teenage daughter. She says yes and they leave.  Maria came home from school and her mother beat the crap out of her asking her WHY were the COPS asking about her! What did she DO! And she got punished for a weekend. 

To this day, I did not tell her it was my fault. I could tell her because we are still friends on FB. But I don't think I will.......

My Grand Aunt Rita

 Margarita Cuddy Bick Fitzgerald was born in Manhattan on July 2nd, 1899.  Her sister, Mary, was born 2 (or 3 ) (I have to find my paper work) years later. Mary was my grandmother. 

My grandmother died before I was born, so my Aunt Rita was more of a grandma to me, than an Aunt.

Here she is near the end of her life with her second husband, Uncle Billy.  He was a wonderful kind man and all the children loved him.

Looking at this picture it's hard to believe what a wild woman she was.  In this picture you can also see Geraldine. That is their youngest child.

By all accounts, Rita was a beautiful woman. My grandfather actually chased after her, but was turned down, he then married her sister.  My father had a crush on her. 

She  married Charles Bick. He was German,  he was a butcher and  he was very athletic and liked to show off his skills and body. When I find the pictures of them two at the beach I will put them here.  They had money,  he had a butchers schedule, he had to be in bed early to get up for work around 1am.   They had a son, Charles Bick. 

They were at the beach one day when show off Charles dived off a pier. Now days they always warn, DON'T jump/dive off anything without inspecting the water below first!  He dived and hit something that killed him.  

What a shock that must of been for Rita. She is now a  young widow with a young boy.

Here is a picture of them, probably soon after the death of her husband.

Rita always loved to dance, so she joined a dance troop that traveled to different clubs.  She was a flapper. Her son was left with her sister a lot of the time.  Rita liked her booze too. She drank and danced her money away.  She met Bill Fitzgerald and lived with him for 9 months before getting married.  My mother told me this in hushed tones many years later. lol

They had  4 children. Billy, Rita Ann, Bobby, Geraldine.  When Rita Ann  was 6 years old she died of appendix. The doctor was treating her for a cold. My mother told me because of the poison in her body making her bloat she looked like a 9 year old in the coffin.

I was named after her, my name was supposed to be Rita Ann. But when my mother gave the nurse the information when I was born, the nurse put the Ann down as my middle name.  I used to be called Rita Ann by family,  which I never liked. 

I loved going to visit Aunt Rita because she would make me strawberry malteds! She lived in Brooklyn and she would take the buses and trains to visit us in Queens. I would be told to wait up the corner for her and I can still see her coming and me running towards her.  She did pinch my cheeks pretty hard. I did not like that so much. lol  My father would drive her home.

When Ag was little  we would visit Aunt Rita in Staten Island. She loved Agnes and the feeling was mutual. Agnes had a stuffed baby superman doll that she called Aunt Rita and she had to keep it near her at bedtime. 

Aunt Rita told me her mother was afraid of storms and during a storm she would light holy candles to keep safe. Rita did not like storms either.

On July 17th, 1982, Rita told Bill she was going in to nap. She would put a hankerchief over her face when she napped.  She never woke up.  

My aunt Mae told me they went to visit them one night and looked in the window and saw them watching TV, holding hands. They had a great marriage. Uncle Bill did not live long after the love of his life died.

* Because her first born, Charles was with my grandmother so much, he was closes to her, not his mother and he always resented the fact that she did not put some money aside that his father left for them, for him, instead of partying it all away.

*Rita was talking about some woman when her sister picked up a plate of butter and smashed it in her face saying, "you  have no right to talk about other people!"  Bringing up the fact that  Rita "lived in sin" with Bill for 9 months. lol

*We were at a wedding, it could have been the wedding of the picture above and there was a piano (we would walk her back and forth to the bathroom) and I asked her play. 

She did play a little tune and showed me her fingers, how her nails turn up a bit and she said that is because she played the piano.

UPDATE: More pictures! 

Here they are, handsome couple.

I am guessing it is their car. I don't know who the woman on the left is, but she is in a lot of pictures and I wonder if she is a relative of Charles Bick. 

These pictures are  almost a hundred years old.  So the quality of this picture is pretty bad, but you can see Charles posing for the picture. And there is Aunt Rita in her black bathing suit posing for the picture too. 

I wonder if this was the day....he died.  We will never know.

This is their son, Charlie, all grown up.  He  had AAA, abdominal aortic aneurysm, that they did not know about and died having minor surgery when it erupted.  Aunt Rita had it too, but she did not die from it. (Aunt Mae had it too)

He was a wonderful man,  lots of fun, I miss him. 

Growing up Catholic and sinning in 1950s-60s

My parents were Catholic, and grandparents etc.   In the Bronx my sisters and cousins went to St. Peter and Pauls Catholic school.  I went to St.Fidelis when we moved to Queens.  

We had to say, I am a ROMAN Catholic.  It seems there are  also Greek Orthodox Catholics and it had to be made CLEAR we were not one of them, although I have never met one.  

My family was a bit odd, they did not (thankgoodness!) force us to go the church and they did not go, yet we had to go to Catholic school and do the sacraments. (Baptism, First Penance  First Communion,  Confirmation).The school forced us to go to church though and you could be thrown out of school if you constantly missed church.

So, any THOUGHT, DEED or ACTION could send you straight to hell if any of those were a Mortal sin. But a Venial sin, a little sin,  will not cause the soul eternal damnation.  

Confessions were every Saturday, so you could receive communion on Sunday at church.  Father Conway was a mean priest and NO ONE wanted to go to him for Confession. We would all line up at different confessionals (these were around the sides of the church). A nun would have to force some kids to stand at his confessional.  A priest would sit in the middle and there would be two lines, one person would enter on one side and confess, when he/she left someone would enter on the other side.

Not our church but you see the confessional booths.  On more than one occasion, Father Conway would start screaming, get out of his booth and throw the boy who was confessing out of the church! Thus, everyone that had to go to him to confess...lied.  You made up little venial sins so he would not embarrass the hell out of you.

 After confessing your sins, he would bless you and give you prayers to say at the alter rail, appropriate to the sins you confessed.

Afterwards, all will be forgiven and your soul was clean and you will go straight to heaven if you died at that moment. But just one little tiny venial sin ( I wish I had Laura's hair, O NO, sin of Envy!) you would end up in Purgatory.

~Purgatory, the condition, process, or place of purification or temporary punishment in which, according to medieval Christian and Roman Catholic belief, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven. ~

You can still go to heaven,  I used to pray all the time to get my family out of there. Because, you know, there was no chance to go straight to heaven. 

We were taught, gay people, were going straight to hell. 

You could NOT eat meat on Friday. All Fridays.  Because Jesus died on a Friday and this was a recognition of his sacrifice. I had to look it up because I forgot why. (how stupid..) You had to confess if you did eat meat on Friday.

You had to dress decent for church and females HAD to have their head covered in church. I remembered being told it was because Mary covered her head. Hello..that's how they dressed back then. Males were not to have their head covered.

When you received the host (body of Christ) you had to just have it lay on your tongue and let it dissolve. I'm pretty sure if you chewed it you would go straight to hell with thorns in your eyes. 

If you married a non-catholic, your children HAD to be brought up Catholic.

We were taught ONLY CATHOLICS, probably ROMAN Catholics, went to heaven.  I was so happy I was born Catholic. My cousin Mary became an Episcopalian to marry her husband. I was HORRIFIED she would give up her hope of getting to heaven! 

The Jews killed Jesus. I don't think we were really ever taught that Jesus was a jew.  

I slowly started to question a lot of things. 

It took me awhile, I was an adult before I told my mother that I did not believe in the church any more because I did not know how she would react.   But she was ok about it and we had some good conversations about life after death. 

When my mother was dying, my very religious Aunt Lee (although she drank beer every day and swore like a sailor) called her Bishop  and he gave my mother the sacrament of Extreme Unction right before she died. 

The Last Rites are a religious process for cleansing one of his or her sins before they leave this earth. Since Catholics believe in judgment after death, they want to leave this life as clean souls free from sin. The practice and prayers of the Last Rites protect the recipient on their journey to the afterlife.

 Although I did not believe it any more, it was a comfort to me. 

The Church became more lenient over the years, from what I understand.  My personal opinion is all organized religions are just a business to get your money and keep you like sheep so you continue supporting them.   

The Church works for many people.  I say, whatever gets you through this life,  is fine with me.

St.Fidelis, where I spent many happy and sad moments of my life.

Why old people talk about the past...

 Although I can't speak for all old people, I can speak for myself.  

I talk about the past so the grandkids can understand what it was like to live back then.  But mainly, so it's not forgotten. 

I am sure these stories are boring and they thought..."oh no there she goes again talking about when she was little.."  

When I was a kid, I loved hearing these stories. But I know not every kid likes them. 

My father told me he used to ride his tricycle in their apartment hallway. The wood stairs had metal protectors on the edge of the steps. He fell down the stairs and that is where he got that deep scar by his widows peak. 

My mother and her sister were sleeping with their mother when there was a loud crack from the ceiling above. Their mother pushed them out of the bed just before the ceiling came down that cut their mothers face.  She got to live there rent free till she moved.   It was not unusual for kids to go to the bar when the parent (s) went. My mother and her sister would sit in the corner on top of a table and have a soda and snacks while their mother danced and socialized...etc. Their parents were separated for many years.

So, there is nothing special about the stories I heard, it just tells about their life, how they lived, what they did...

Like how my mother, when she was a teen,  was fired from Woolworths because  a co-worker ordered a soda from the fountain, where she was working, and my mother would not take the 5 cents from him,  a boss saw her and fired her.    I'll probably do a post about each of my parents one day.

It is a way of life that we had, that is gone forever and we try to not let it be forgotten.  Many of my thoughts are.."they will never know what it felt like to..blahblahblah. Or  thank goodness they will never know blahblahblah... 

So, that's why old people talk about the past. And since they have been through so much in their life, they try to pass down advice, so you  don't make the same mistakes. But, making your own mistakes is how you learn.  We try to protect you the best we can..

Going to Grandma's house....well, Apartment.

 When I was little, the only grandparents still alive was my father's mother and my mother's father.

My Grandmother was married to her second husband, Joseph Brincil. They lived in a Tenement  apartment building in Manhattan. 

I have photo's of spending Thanksgiving there. How she managed to cook for everyone is amazing!  Her daughers and daughters in law would also bring dishes to eat and help with the setting up and cleaning up. She had 5 children, they were all married with kids. I know there had to be a kids table. 

My mother said grandma Maude  would get up around 4am to start cooking, so soon after dinner she could be out cold on the floor, drunk but also very tired. We have pictures of that too, and I was told she was playing games with us grandkids. 

I remember playing with my cousins. The Silk boys, Tommy, Kevin and Bobby. DeMonte boys, Tommy and Andy. Symmonds boys, Philip and John and my sisters. 

The apartment was a railroad apartment. You came in the apartment at the kitchen  and you walked straight down a hall through (no doors) bedrooms, usually two and ended at the living room that might have a small side room off the living room. 

At some point we would get packed in the car and the trip home back to the Bronx. 

I don't remember a great deal, large gatherings like that, consumed lots of alcohol. So, lots of laughing and talking loud and smoking. Just about everyone smoked.  

I will have to post about the Grandparents one day. 

Grandma with Grandpa Joe, my dad in a white shirt and Uncle Andy. I think they could be his sons.  In grandma's kitchen.  

sweating in the 1960s

Needless to say, we did a lot of that in the summer time.  There were no air conditioners ,just fans for the most part.  Yes, there were air conditioners but they were expensive and who could afford the electric bill! 

So, windows were open, screens kept the bug out.  An exhaust fan in the kitchen help blow the heat out. But it was always unbearably hot in the kitchen,in the summer.  Window fans offered tiny relief.  

To make mom suffer even more, a sheet was put up in the door way of the kitchen and living room. Plus the swinging door was closed to keep the heat out of the bedrooms making the kitchen an infurno! 

I can still see her, face red and glistening with a wet dish towel around her neck, cooking over the stove. sigh

Livingroom sofa and chairs would be covered in a sheet to sit on, so you sweat on that.  The sheet would be shaken out , turned and put back on for the drier side to be sat on. 

I had this little round trinket box ,mom gave me,  that had powder and a powder puff.  She told me, when you feel too hot (I used to faint in school too)  put some powder on your wrist where the veins are, that will cool the blood and make you feel better.  It was a placebo, but it worked. lol

Beds just had sheets and if you woke too hot and called for mom, she would come, shake out the top sheet, turn it and put if back on the bed, Plus you would turn the pillow to find a dry spot.  You were stuck with a sweaty bottom sheet. 

School was not much better. The windows were all opened, top and bottom but most classrooms did not even have a fan.  Sometimes a nun would say, put your pens down, put your head on the desk and let us rest a bit in the hot classroom.  

Deodorant was awful in the 60s! They were a roll on.  You had this liquid in a plastic bottle with a rolling ball on top so when you put the rolling ball on your underarm it would "roll out" the liquid. But many things would go wrong. To much might come out or it would stick and nothing would roll.  Also it was very COLD in the winter. You are not cold enough you have to put cold deodorant on!  It was also sticky. Just horrid! 

Getting dressed, doing your hair and make up in the summer while sweating was a nightmare! 

I always look back to the past with fond memories, but I never forget how terrible it was during a heat way in the summer. 

I will also do a post on good summer memories, since there were many. 

This was the type of deodorant we had. 

The Great Northeast Blackout-1965

I was 14 and living in College Point, Queens, New York when the power went out.  It was Tuesday, November 9th. I got home from Flushing High School, had dinner and I had just left the house to hang out with my friends down Grantville, 3 blocks away.  I was around the corner  when the lights went out at 5:27pm. 

I just thought it was a local outage. But continuing on my walk, I saw all the lights were out in the area.

When I got to Grantville, friends were there and of course we all talked about the blackout.  Some of us had our radios and we heard it was more than a local outage. 

It was....exciting!. 

To show that I was even weird back then....I was pissed that we had a full moon, because I wanted to see how really dark an area could be with no lights because I read that Jack the Ripper actually killed  with people only being feet away but they never saw him do it. 

We decided to jump into cars and drove to Flushing to see what was going on there. We only went to Mainstreet and Northern Blvd (By the movie house) Because traffic was horrendous, people were trying to direct traffic  to keep it moving with flashlights.  

The lights were out about 13 hours.  People were stuck all over the place, elevator, trains, buildings.  

Of course some people took advantage and robbed stores since the police were all busy and alarms didn't work.   

They said there was a baby boom nine months later. lol

We had more blackouts and brown outs after that, but nothing again like the Great One.