My Neighborhood in Manhattan

My memories of where I lived don't go back before the age of three. I'd lived in Texas and Oklahoma during WWII because that's where my father was stationed. He was a second lieutenant during all or WWII. I think that's a record. But I don't remember any of that.

Between the ages of three and seven, I lived in Manhattan at 155 Ridge St. We had a three room apartment (not three bedrooms, three rooms all together). The building was in the shape of an H. Our apartment was on the third floor and the windows of our apartment looked down into the courtyard in front of the building.

At the time, the neighborhood was a bit of a slum in that there were vacant lots and vacant buildings within a block of our building. My friend, Angelo, and I explored many of the vacant lots and buildings even though I was, in theory, not allowed to cross any streets. The problem with the vacant buildings was that there was lots of broken glass and dog poop in them. Otherwise, they'd have been great places to play. Once, I slipped on a staircase in one of the buildings and got dog poop on my right hand. It took me what seemed like a very long time in the rest room of a nearby restaurant to get the poop, and the smell, off my hand before I could go home. I didn't want my mother to know I'd crossed the street to investigate a vacant building.

There was a bigger kid, whose name escapes me at the moment, who my mother paid to walk me to school once I was six so I could cross the street with someone who was tall enough so the drivers might actually see him. There were two girls, Eileen and Nancy, sisters, who Angelo and I would play with at times. Not often though since they usually wanted to play girls games.

I never actually went to kindergarten. My mother took me there the first day, but I didn't understand how she could know we were in the correct line at the beginning of the first school day. Then some girl started to cry so I started to cry, too. My mother took me back home, and I never went to Kindergarten. Angelo didn't go to Kindergarten either, so we got a whole year of playing around when other kids had to go to school. When it was time for me to start the first grade, my father took the day off work and brought me to school. I knew that crying wouldn't get me out of school if my father was there so I didn't bother to cry. It turned out that I liked school anyway. I got to sit next to Angelo. I suppose his father brought him to school that first day of the first grade, too.

There were three reading groups in that first grade class, the roses, the tulips, and the zinnias. Looking backward, I suppose the teacher, whose name and face escape me, used flower names to prevent the kids from knowing which group was the upper, middle and lower group. But it was clear to all of us that the roses were the top group, the tulips were the middle group, and the zinnias were the bottom group. To this day, those three kinds of flowers are the only flowers I can actually name if I see them. All other flowers, to me, are just generic flowers.