Memoirs - Early Days
(preliminary)
Chapter Contents
I was
born in
I think
I was a normal baby. My parents,
Maurice
(Morris) Spaiser and my mom, Estelle Chayt were lower middle class and they had two of us,
me and my sister Annette, who was already eight years old when I was born. We
lived in a place called Bensonhurst in an old
apartment house.
We had a two bedroom apartment - meaning I had to share one bedroom with my older sister. I don’t think this was ever such a good idea and neither did my sister. She moved out just as soon as she could. I think she was only sixteen although that seems a little young. Maybe she was eighteen. Before she moved out I remember the dinner routine. My mother cooked the dinner, and after dinner, my father washed the dishes, my sister wiped the dishes and I – didn’t have to do anything. After all I was just a little kid.
The apartment house was on Bay Parkway and 82nd street (noted by the ellipse on
the map). Bay Parkway was kind of
a main drag in the neighborhood and ran all the way down to the bay - part of
New York Bay near Coney Island.
There were several boys about my age in the building including one who lived directly next door, Felix C. His father was a wonderful concert pianist and even had a Steinway baby grand piano in his apartment. Mr. C. also had the most magnificent collection of tropical fish, probably one of the best I have seen in a private home, I believe he had a 50 gallon salt water tank - unheard of outside of pet stores that sold tropical fish. He had a small school of big Angel Fish, Kissing Fish, and a slew of others.
I believe we lived on the 2nd floor (of a four storey building). The building was a rectangular red brick structure with a courtyard in the middle. When we lived there it was already quite old, but to my great surprise, the Google Earth real-time mapping program shows it still to be there, although around it there are many new and much taller buildings (the tallest buildings anywhere around then were 6 stories high). The other big building on the block just southwest of 8200 was there, it was six stories.
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The building with the white
roof is 8200 Bay Parkway. |
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When I was old enough to go to school my mother took me to the nearest school that had a kindergarten. I remember it was very far away, and when she left me the first day all I did was cry. The next day she said, that school is too far away (no bussing in those days - the early 1940s) and she broke the law and I did not go to kindergarten.
Next year I probably went to P.S. 128 which was an elementary school up to grade 9 (Junior High School). I went there until 1954 when I graduated. Just around that time my parents bought a cooperative apartment in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, so I went to James Madison High School instead of Lafayette High School.
When I was young Felix was probably my best friend. I don't think he went to public school, I believe he went to a Catholic parochial school. One day when we were still quite young his dad died. I remember them taking the piano out of the window with a crane. I don't know what happened to the fish, but before long a lot happened to Felix. Without his authoritarian dad around his mother had little control over him. He shortly started hanging around with kids I wouldn't associate with. He started wearing black leather jackets and in short became a "hood."
He also started having sex. I remember one day (of course when his mother was not around), a bunch of guys came over with one girl. He told me her name was "Bubbles." The guys were going to have a "gang bang." I suppose I was invited but declined. I don't think I had any idea what it was all about! With all this, however our friendship remained, and that was good for me. Nobody messed with me. If they did I told Felix and he could fix it up!
In 1953 I was thirteen and was a Bar Mitzvah boy. We were not religious but still, as Jews, I had to have a Bar Mitzvah so my family sent me to a "rebbie" they hired to teach me the prayers and the chants required for the ceremony. I memorized the whole thing, even though I did not really know what it meant. I just wanted to get it over with. My Bar Mitzvah was held in a small "schul" down the block, and some of my family was there. I got presents and "gelt" (money) as is the custom. One of my cousins who later became an executive at a big drug company bought me a chemistry set. Oh boy, what fun!
I started doing experiments in my bedroom. The one I remember best is when I made hydrogen and it blew up. Fortunately no injuries were sustained but I still remember the cork and the glass tube on top blowing off and hitting the ceiling. That was the beginning of my exciting life as an amateur scientist.
I also took some of the chemicals into Felix's apartment (this was before he became a hood and we still played together). His mother wasn't home and we wanted to see how the metal magnesium burns. We knew it was hot so we took what we thought were the appropriate precautions and put a mat of asbestos (supplied) on his mother's brand new Formica kitchen table. Fizz - Foom - the magnesium burned brightly, and must have been very hot, because when we lifted the asbestos there was a brown hole burned through the Formica into the wood underneath. An eighth of an inch of asbestos was no match for the heat of burning magnesium. I believe my parents had to pay for either a new table or a replacement top. They complained that it was just as much Felix's fault as mine, but it WAS my chemistry set and my idea. I know after some squabbling they reached some kind of equitable agreement. As I said, Felix remained my friend and later became my gangland protector.
When we were old enough to be downstairs by ourselves we played on the street a lot. One thing we played on 82nd street, right outside of the building was stickball. This is a variant on baseball, where you use a broomstick and a rubber Spaulding ball. This was ok because the cars in those days were built stronger and the ball would just bounce off of them without any effect. It was quite safe. However, unlike a bat, the broomstick has no flare at the bottom. This was not so safe. One day in a pretty aggressive game I took a big swing and the broomstick flew out of my hand at the end of the swing, sort of like an unguided missile. On the ground floor of 8200 Bay Parkway along side of us across a small lawn was a Chiropractor's office and the stick flew directly into his office window. My parents also had to pay for that window. That seems to be the beginning of my troublemaker future history.
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P.S. / J.H.S. 128 was nearby. |
I don't remember much about the early school years, except that since this was now the nuclear age and the "Cold War" with what was the Soviet Union (the Russians) was considered a big threat, I remember the air-raid drills. The air-raid sirens were ubiquitous and tested daily (to remind of the "terrible Russians"), and we "took cover" under our desks (in case an atomic bomb landed nearby!).
Anyway by the eighth grade I was a budding scientist. This was now junior high school and we had departmental classes, my favorite, of course was science - or chemistry or both(?). Our teacher was one Mr. Brecher who liked me a lot. I was good and was also quite a show off. In one project I wowed the whole school buy building a star projector (using some of the lenses my uncle Dave gave me - which you will learn about later), that projected on the ceiling of the main auditorium. Somehow I made slides of the stars and planets and had the lights turned down. I guess it was a success, and on graduating from J.H.S. I won the school science medal.
J.H.S. 128 Diploma with science medal
P.S. / J.H.S. 128 Class of '54
(can you find me?)
I was also a spelling champ. I remember being able to spell the word archaeopteryx in a spelling bee. Not bad for a fourteen year old kid.
Mr. Brecher had a hard time awarding the science medal that year. There was a contender (his name was Henry and he is the fat kid on the top row, 2nd from the left). I think Mr. Brecher said, "I wish I could give out two science medals." Unluckily for Henry he chose me.
I remember just a few of the names of some of the people in the picture, a couple of guys and a couple of the girls. Probably they were in my home class. I remember some of the girls because I started to develop an interest in female anatomy, in particular breasts, which some of the girls had. I remember a girl named Joan who sat next to me who was well developed for her age. I also remember a beautiful young woman named Florence Cabales. She is not in the picture. She was tall and blond and well developed. She sat on the other side and behind me so I did not gawk at Florence. I did know she was beautiful though. Too bad I didn't take Felix up on the "gang bang." Maybe I'd have got to know some of these attractive girls better if I knew what my interest was all about. But that's a whole other story.
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Pauline and Willie Shernicoff |
This is part of this section because my aunt Pauline and her family figure in strongly in those years. They lived down Bay Parkway, between Benson and Bath Avenues. My grandma and grandpa lived with them so they had a very big apartment, at least 5 rooms so everyone could be comfortable (and in those days apartments were big).
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My grandmother and grandfather (bubba and zaida) posing for their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 1937 (before I was born). |
I don't remember my grandfather - he died in 1944 - when I was only 4 years old, but I do remember my grandmother "bubba." She did not speak English, so it was hard to communicate with her (she spoke Russian and Yiddish). But I remember once when she came to visit us that I took out my stamp collection and showed her some stamps from pre-Soviet Russia. She got very excited and pointed to one which she obviously remembered. Thus I did communicate with her. She lived quite long and even made visits to our cottage (see Kauneonga Days) in "the mountains."
Bubba and mom in Kauneonga Lake.
I guess she came with aunt Pauline and uncle Willie, who - as you will find out, also summered in Kauneonga Lake. Eventually she got senile and was moved to a nursing home a few blocks up Bay Parkway from us where she ultimately died in her 90's.
CONTINUE TO: High School Days
Temporary End
