How JFK Changed My Life

I can't tell you why I remember this in as much detail as I do. I was only seven years old. It was October of second grade. John F Kennedy was in a tight battle with Richard Nixon, the Vice President.  The Democratic and Republican National Conventions of that summer were the first I watched.  My parents let me stay up well pass my bed time to watch the conventions.  I was glued to the TV. I felt I was seeing democracy in action and it turned me on.

You see in New York City the public schools are closed on all election days (November, primary day and any special election).  From the year I was born until I finished sixth grade my mother was a poll worker.  She would take me with her from 7:00AM in the Morning till 9:00PM at night.  I would play with the other kids.  My mother and the other poll workers would play MahJong..  I learned the importance of voting, and thus have missed only a rare election my entire life.  Even if I was going to live in a place one year I registered to vote.  In college and medical school I voted absentee from school.

Woody Station Wagon

Car bwith speakers

I clearly remember it was a Sunday afternoon in October 1960.  The election was less then a month away. I was walking home from Sunday Hebrew School.  It was a few minutes after noon.  As I was walking the last little bit to my house a Woody Paneled Wagon with giant speakers on the roof was coming down the 72nd Avenue toward me.  It was plastered with campaign posters for JFK.  I heard patriotic music coming from the speakers and the music and the station wagon stopped and out bellowed, 'COME MEET THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES".  It then said this was just two blocks away, on Jewel(70th Ave.) Avenue off the corner of 164th Street.  My heart skipped a beat.

PS 200 Front

I checked with my Mom and went to the rally.  It was two blocks away at the far corner of PS 200 elementary school.  This was the closest school to my house.  However I went to a school (PS 154) almost three times farther, because PS 200 was built specifically for the complex of apartment buildings call Elechester built for the men in the local electricians union. On the map below you can see where my house is ( by the d in 72nd AVE, after you move the little man and the 'A' bubble to top edge of the map.).




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JFK at another Rally

Flat bed truck but without rail.

There was a giant crowd.  I was standing on the curb right by the third tree from the left in the street view image above.  We all waited what seemed like hours but was probably 45 minutes and a shout went up that he was coming.  I couldn't see since I was so short (I was only 7) and was standing on my tiptoes.  All of a sudden some men cleared the street in front of my and I say a flat bed truck coming toward me down the hill.  It stopped right next to the curb between the second tree and the one I was standing next to.  Everyone surged around the truck and I ended up next to the rear bumper.  I looked up and two feet in front of me was a giant standing on the back end of the flatbed truck and holding a rail.  He reached down and shock my hand.  I was awestruck.  He then gave a speach, which I don't remember a word of, but I became a die-hard fan of JFK that momment and a life time Democrat.

This Blog Snippets of my life, is going to be a daily blog for at least one year. I will tell stories about me that I hope you find interesting. If you like them please do two things: click to become a follower; and post on your Facebook page or twitter them. I hope to have 10,000 followers by years end. Some stories will be very personal. I will try to remember the correct names of those involved, however, I have a terrible memory for names and some names will be completely fictitious. The stories however are completely truthful as far as I can remember. Hope you enjoy. Some of these blogs may seem mundane. However, they are important foundations for later Blogs.

I Can Believe I Ate the Whole Thing.

It was Friday night and the Spring Fling at Jamaica High School was just ending. I as the chairman of the ticket committee was the de-facto social coordinator of the cast party. I decided on Jahn's Ice Cream Parlor on Queens Blvd in Forest Hills Queens. I had my motives for having it there. Thomas McNeil, who went on to found Cyote Ugly, one of my best friends in High School and had graduated a year earlier, and I had a bet.

Here's some history about the real Coyote Ugly. It won't make the movie any better or any worse, but you will at least be armed with some facts:

Coyote stands alongside the best New York shots-n-beer saloons such as (in order that I like them): Doc Holliday's, The Patriot, and Duff's Brooklyn. There are other pretenders who copy these five saloons by letting girls dance on the bar, but forget them. All of these places, Coyote included, owe their existence to one man: Tom McNeil.

It was Tommy who owned the original Village Idiot from the 1980s until 1993 that introduced the concept of bars of this genre to New York. Tommy's formula for success is based on this concept: men will stick around a bar a hell of a lot longer, and spend way more money, if all the bartenders are female. (Gilbert claims that when Tommy needed new help, he would put out a sign that read, SHAMELESS SLUTS WANTED: NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY)

You have to realize Tom was twice my weight. At that time I was about 150 pounds and Tom was over 300 and played semi-pro football. Our bet was that I could out eat him. So thirty-four(34) of us went to Jahn's after the schools spring movie extravaganza.

We all got to Jahn's and I took charge and we got a table along the back center wall that was long and we could all sit at. You have to realize this table could be seen from the entire restaurant. Just what I wanted. Everyone was hyped because the show had gone great. I had enough from the party fund (I controlled the money) for everyone to pretty much get what they wanted. I sat against the center of the table with my back to the wall. Tom sat directly across from me. Everyone sat around us.

The bet was that we would each eat a Twin Jahn's Burger Delux and then a kitchen sink. We had to eat everything on the burger plate before we ate the Kitchen Sink. So everyone ordered their dinner and Tom and I ordered our Twin Jahn's Burger Deluxe. After we finished it we ordered two Kitchen Sinks. You have to realize that when they bring out the Kitchen Sink they have the whole staff parade behind making a racket with bowls and spoons. They wanted to make sure everyone in the restaurant knew that someone had ordered it. The waitress came with 34 bowls and started to place the two Kitchen Sinks half way down the table on each side of Tom and I. I said no one for him, pointing to Tom, and one for me. This got the attention of everyone.

The Kitchen Sink, a mammoth creation with twenty-two flavors of ice cream and eleven different toppings served in a huge tureen. The trick is to gather a crowd large enough - and it easily feeds ten to twelve - to finish it before it melts into a puddle of sugary goo. While the atmosphere suggests time has stood still, the price tag on this extravaganza reminds us it has marched on . . . what cost us $16.95 in our youth is now a whopping $42.65. The memories alone are worth five stars.

We started eating and the cheers went up. It was like a tournament. As we ate through about a gallon of ice cream each we gathered a crowd. I don't think anyone in the place wasn't gathered around our table. It seemed as each a cheer went up as each spoon went into my mouth. I heard a sigh and large exhalation of breath and looked up to see Tom slumped back in his chair and about a pint of ice cream soup in his bowl. Well I finished the last few spoons of mine and then took Tom's and finished his. Then I collapsed back into my chair and one of the loudest cheers I heard in my life went up. I paid the bill for everyone.

This Blog Snippets of my life, is going to be a daily blog for at least one year. I will tell stories about me that I hope you find interesting. If you like them please do two things: click to become a follower; and post on your Facebook page or twitter them. I hope to have 10,000 followers by years end. Some stories will be very personal. I will try to remember the correct names of those involved, however, I have a terrible memory for names and some names will be completely fictitious. The stories however are completely truthful as far as I can remember. Hope you enjoy.