written by Mike, a
true Brooklynite, 1997
I had a dream last night. I dreamt that all of us from Brooklyn
got together and TOOK IT BACK!!!!! We stormed our neighborhoods
and threw out all of the intruders and sent them packing to
Manhattan. Then we took back our apartments, brought back our
parents and our friends. Good Humor men, Bungalow Bar, JAVELLLL
man, Fruit trucks, Drove half the cars over to Manhattan and left
them there, cleared our streets for punchball, stickball, kick
the can, squareball, ringolevio, tag, touch football. Took
Nathan's back, brought back Steeplechase, the Tornado, 25 cent
movies, 15 cent tokens, buses with windows that opened and seats
with foam, schools where you could go home for lunch, Mayor
Wagner, the World's Fair, Subway trains with ceiling fans and
comfortable seats and heaters that actually heated. Incandescant
light bulbs, the 5 & dime, 3 baseball teams, transistor
radios, WMCA, WABC & WINS, 45 rpm's, GoodGuy sweatshirts, 15
cent Pizza, 10 cent cokes. 5 cent Nestle bars, 15 cent egg creams
and 25 cent Malteds. REAL GLASS glasses, cars with wings, milk in
wax quarts, Kirsch's and Hoffman sodas, real candy stores, 5 cent
baseball cards, the Daily Mirror, Journal American, World
Telegraph, the EAGLE, Willie, Mickey & the DOOK. Parks with
grass and NO FRIGGIN cars parked on the grass along the Belt
Parkway. The Loew's Oriental, the Benson, Louie the Barber, comic
books, Spaldeens, pensy pinky, REAL roller skates, bicycles
without helmets, kneepads, elbow pads etc. corduroy pants, Red
Ties for assembly, PF Flyers, shoes with laces, "RELEASE
TIME", spelling pre-tests on Mondays and re-tests on
Fridays, 7 TV stations ONLY, Saturday double feature matinees,
horror movies, the 3 stooges, cars with fins, stick pretzels in
that litlle flat box that cost a nickle, automats, A & S,
Mays, Korvettes, S. Klien, Gimbles, stamp collecting with our
fathers, coins of real silver, "ZONES" not zipcodes, 3
cent stamps in blue with the Statue of Liberty, Telephone #'s
with character(Coney Island-6, Esplanade-3, Beachview 4, etc.)
telephones with BELLS, Apartment houses with open doors,
home-cooking smells in the hallways. Dinner at the table with the
whole family and NO DAMN TV. Classic Illustrated comics,
Fireworks every Tuesday night.
Rock n Roll, songs without deeeeeeep messages, no synthesizers,
real pianos! MEDIUM RARE BURGERS at a real restaurant served on a
real damn dish, no styrofoam, ketchup in a bottle of glass,
Wonder bread in WAX PAPER, the decimal system, drugstores where
the owners were called "DOC", MD's making housecalls,
chickenpox on Halloween, actually being able to EAT the halloween
treats, snow piled under the "EL", "KING of the
MOUNTAIN".