The Bike Shop
When I was attending grammar school there was a small bike repair
store on Lyons Avenue next to Slonim’s drugstore across the
way where my section of Clinton Place met Lyons Avenue. It was the
messiest and dirtiest store you could ever encounter but it was
owned and operated by a kindly old man who knew everything there
was to know about bicycles. His hands and his work attire matched
his store and they were always filthy with bicycle grease. His dirty
calloused hands bore the marks of a hard working man who never caught
a break in life and I always wondered if he ever made a decent living
out of this small store. The store itself was so cluttered with
broken bikes and their parts that he was forced to work on his current
bike repair job outside on the sidewalk. I would imagine during
bad weather he would clear a space in the clutter and work on them
inside his store. Despite the disarray of his store he was quite
a bike mechanic and there wasn’t a bicycle made, foreign or
domestic, that he didn’t know the details of. If you needed
a part, he had it. If you wanted to sell him parts from a discarded
bike, he would buy it. No receipts and no paperwork were required
in your business transactions with him. I would always see him working
on something when I passed his store on my way home from school.
My sister knew his daughter from high school and met the entire
family. She said they were nice people who were very nice to her
and I think she mentioned that their ethnic origin was of German
descent which was quite unusual in a Jewish neighborhood! Many years
later when I would work on my own car my hands would get dirty like
his and I would always think of him when the job was finish and
I was washing up. I never let the greasy dirt get into my pores
like he did because Dad had some special soap that quickly dissolved
this greasy dirt. When I was finished washing my hands it looked
as though I never worked on my car. Later on when I became an industrial
tool mechanic the company had a lotion you could rub into your hands
at the beginning of the day and it would prevent the dirt from ever
touching your skin. If it did manage to get through this barrier,
it washed off very easily without any hard scrubbing. One of my
fellow mechanic’s wouldn’t use the lotion and he ended
up with dirty hands just like the old man that owned the bike store.
I always wondered how they could eat their lunch sandwiches with
those filthy hands! I know my current girlfriend wouldn’t
let me touch her unless my hands were spotless down to my fingernails,
enough said!!
Angie’s Sicilian Food
Angie was the wife of the neighborhood shoe repairman whose name
was Jerry. He had serviced almost everyone’s shoe in the neighborhood
at one time or another and he had a thriving business because he
did an excellent job of putting new leather soles or heels onto
your old leather shoes and made them almost new again. His shop
was an impressive array of belted machines and mechanical wizardry
that he used all day long to repair the shoes that were brought
to him. He was another one of the true workers that avoided paperwork
at all costs. His wife Angie worked in a factory and traveled by
bus everyday to and from her workplace. She always came home tired
but despite this she would always smile at me and say “Hello”.
On the weekends she would sometimes look out from her third floor
hall window and watch us kids play in the backyard. I would always
wave to her and more than once she would call to me with her thick
Italian accent and say “Heya Bingy, come on up. Mangia, I
got some thing for you to eat!” and without hesitation I would
run up to her house on the third floor and she would serve something
Italian to me. It was already known to the neighborhood that Angie
was an outstanding Sicilian cook and one of the things she used
to make for me was Sicilian pizza that was to die for. This was
long before the pizzerias of the day knew anything about Sicilian
pizza or, in fact, before anyone knew about it! All I knew was that
it was good!! Without even knowing it, she set the standard for
Italian food on my palate. I loved her home made pizza sauce and
the thick doughy bread of her pie. Our families got along famously
well despite the slight language barrier and we did each other favors
for as long as I could remember but my Dad would tell me not to
expect anything in return for the favors he did Jerry and his family.
I would always wonder if the food Angie cooked for me was their
way of repaying my family for the various things we did for them.
The Haircut
Long before I became a long hair hippy rock musician my Dad would
cut my hair for me since he had at one time attended a barber class
at the same school his sister Ruth was attending to become a beautician.
Dad didn’t really have the best tools to do the job and as
a result, he would pull my neck hairs instead of cutting them with
his manual clippers more than once causing me to cry out in pain.
He just told me to “man up” and laughed at me. I was
just a little kid and I remember the constant swishing of his scissors
in between his cuts of my hair and I dreaded this sound because
he would nick or stab me more than once with his scissors during
this “free” haircut and they were sharp, so it hurt!
When I needed another haircut I would ask my Mom for money to go
to the neighborhood barbershop a half a block down from the house
and she would smile at me when she gave me the money. I don’t
think I ever asked my Dad to cut my hair again! At least at the
barbershop I was never cut, stabbed or clipped and it made the experience
a whole lot more pleasant. The only thing that irritated me was
the small hair clippings that would find their way down into my
shirt despite the cotton band and cape that the barber put around
your neck to prevent this from happening. When I got home I would
take my shirt off and shake it out but still some of the tiny hair
clippings would stay embedded in my shirts so I changed my shirt
and I was fine. Later on I found another barbershop up on Lyons
Avenue just beyond the Shop Rite supermarket on the corner of the
next block that didn’t let these small hairs fall into my
shirt and I switched to them until I swore off barbershops entirely.
The owner of this new barbershop was a one time magician and he
would occasionally treat the kids to a mini performance of his magical
talents while they waited to get their haircuts. All the barbers
were a lot more personable than the old fuddy duddies in my old
barbershop! Throughout the store there were mementoes of the owner’s
career as a magician and he had a silver dollar cemented to the
floor with numerous fingernails scratches on the floor from kids
trying to pick it up off the floor with no success! It made for
an interesting wait and taught me if I wasn’t satisfied with
the service at one store then another store might have better service.
I would always give my business to the store I thought was better
and I still do!
The Hospital Adventure
When I was seven or eight years old my neighborhood friends and
I were adventurous souls and we liked to do slightly outlandish
things at night. By outlandish I mean that it was out of the ordinary
for most of the other kids in the neighborhood but mostly it was
just bike rides after dinner through the darken streets of the city
and playing tag under the cover of darkness. At one time we were
all fans of the TV show “Combat!” which showed us what
it was like to be a soldier in World War II in Europe. We started
to go on “missions” and on one night, I volunteered
to scout out the “enemy” encampment which was actually
Beth Israel Hospital down the street. This portion of the hospitable
grounds had a steep hill that was nicely landscaped and it led down
into the parking lot which surrounded the hospital on this side.
There were always some people walking around down there and my mission
was to count the number of people and get back to my squad who were
waiting to “attack” the enemy. I sat hidden among the
bushes waiting for people to appear so I could report back when
I heard a sound and looked around. To my surprise there was a huge
German shepherd dog staring at me from beyond the bushes. He was
poised to attack with his ears pointing straight up until his owner
told him to sit. It seemed like forever until the owner appeared
and he told me not to move because I had a German shepherd that
was trained to attack staring at me. Once he put the leash on the
dog and told him to lie down, I felt some sense of relief. The owner
asked me what I was doing down here and I told him about the games
my friends and I were playing. Then he asked me if they were coming
down here right now and I said “No, their waiting for me to
report back” He laughed and said “Well, you better get
going!” and with that I was off! I told my friends about what
had happen and they all laughed. I laughed too but I never did this
again nor would any of the other kids, our daring war adventures
were now officially over!
The Indian Pizzeria
The Indian Pizzeria was across from the YMHA on Chancellor Avenue
and down the street from Weequahic High School. It was more of a
hangout for us high school kids than anything else but I’m
sure the owner made a living from selling his pizzas. Most of the
kids hanging out there in the store were not there for the pizza,
they were there to brag about how manly they were and the place
stunk of male hormones on the weekends! The macho man ego boosting
antics always brought a smile to the owner and he allowed things
like arm wrestling, drinking contests (soda mainly) and can crushing
spectacles (the cans were made of steel rather than aluminum back
then) all the way to the outright bull stinking about the various
episodes they say they had with the opposite sex! It would always
end with an outrageous statement which made everyone laugh! Even
when you didn’t know anybody, you still felt you were part
of this macho group of teenagers. The owner would promote this banter
and encourage the guys to hangout while he worked behind the counter.
I guess he figured that if people saw a lot people in the store,
it would make them more inclined to patronize the store. Anyway,
many a good time was had in this pizzeria and the owner even came
outside to the sidewalk to get an out of city bully off of me when
a disagreement blossomed into a fight. He never knew my name but
I would always be thankful to him for his help. I do remember eating
some pizza there since it was only twenty five cents a slice and
a whole pie could be had for less than five dollars! Heck, back
then that was a lot of money since you could fill your car up with
gasoline for five bucks!
Auto Maintenance
As I got older and started to drive around the neighborhood in
my own car, I was faced with the responsibility of taking care of
it too. This meant learning how to change the oil, fill the tires
with the proper air pressure and maintaining the battery water,
brake fluid, transmission fluid and radiator antifreeze for their
proper levels. I learned most of this maintenance by watching my
Dad as he took care of his car and eventually, it all started to
make sense to me. Over the years I would replaced my water pump,
electric starter, universal joint, radiator hoses, air filter and,
of course, my brakes in addition to my normal tune up procedures.
Through all this was my local auto parts shop that sold me the supplies
to do the job. It was run by an old car mechanic by the name of
Phil and his store was located on Lyons Avenue on the corner across
the street from the barber shop I patronized. Both of these businesses
were across the street from St. Peter’s Catholic school. Phil’s
auto store started as a small store but eventually he expanded into
the store next to it as he became quite popular in the neighborhood
as the place to get your car supplies. Many times I would ask Phil
a question as to how to do a certain repair and he would always
give me good advice. I went out and bought my own set of Craftsmen
tools from Sears Roebucks. Of course being a young teenager I didn’t
have unlimited funds for tool purchases so I picked my tools carefully.
Most of the time Dad had the tool I needed and I could use his tools
just as long as I cleaned them and put them back where they belonged!
Phil became my go to guy for all my car supplies and he showed his
appreciation by giving me a break on certain items when my cash
was low.
Later on, I became a “factory trained” industrial tool
mechanic where I learned to use different tools like an arbor press
to install and uninstalled ball bearings, a varsol/mineral spirit
tank to clean the tools, a spray booth to paint the tools and a
hi pot tester to see if they were any breaks in the motor insulation.
I also had assorted hand tools to take the motorized tools apart
and a large paper catalog of the tools we repaired that contained
all the details of each tool including an exploded diagram and part
numbers so we could repair the tools with the proper parts. I enjoyed
this job until electronics lured me away to a much more profitable
career. I always prided myself in doing a good job as a mechanic
and took no shortcuts to speed up my work output. The Regional Manager
appreciated this and commended me on more than one occasion for
this type of attitude towards my repair work. In fact, I received
a bonus check for doing an outstanding job on one of our industrial
customer’s account just before I quit this job to go back
to school for electronics. I would always work hard and never let
anything distract me from focusing on the job at hand. This work
ethic would always serve me well in whatever job I held in life!
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