IN PRAISE OF THE BROOKLYN PARENT

In the early days of television, the lovely homes and picturesque small towns our favorite characters lived in sometimes made us wonder if we weren’t the only children in the entire country who lived in apartments on crowded city streets. As for TV parents, they were the ideal mothers and fathers. Ward, June, Ozzie and Harriet were always impeccably dressed and spoke perfect English. They reasoned with their children, discussed things with them, never lost their tempers and certainly never raised their voices. Conferences between fathers and children took place in Dad’s den. Mothers rarely left the house at all and were perpetually found in the kitchen. They always knew exactly what to say and do and barely possessed emotions. In other words, they bore absolutely no resemblance to our own real-life mothers and fathers.

The Brooklyn parent is a species like no other. Any baby boomer fortunate enough to be born to natives of the County of Kings no doubt received the legacy of a king-sized sense of humor. The mothers and fathers who presided over the households in our television sets wouldn’t have survived a day in our world. The Brooklyn mothers who reared us were a strong breed. They possessed special talents and abilities unknown to the June Cleavers and Harriet Nelsons. They could easily summon their children home from two or even three blocks away. They’d simply open their windows and lean their heads out. Bracing themselves firmly on the concrete window ledge with both hands, they yelled their children’s names as loudly as they could. It worked. In a matter of minutes, their children were standing on the sidewalk below the window, answering “What?”

Even if, by some strange chance, a child didn’t hear its mother calling, some other boy or girl in the vicinity would. They sought out the child and urgently announced “Ya mother’s callin’ ya!” For on rare occasions, when a child didn’t respond to the ‘Call of the Wild’ and a mother had to actually leave the apartment to go look for him or her, it would not be a pleasant sight when the offender was finally found. A few of the more troublesome children in the neighborhood ignored their mothers’ calls and even hid behind parked cars or in hallways when they stormed out looking for them. We certainly didn’t want to get involved in those situations. We just continued to play, pretending we didn’t see or hear them.

Likewise, our mothers all knew their own children’s voices and were quick to come to the window whenever we called them from the street below. I never had to run upstairs to collect a sweater or jacket if I felt chilly. My mother would toss it down to me from the kitchen window, the same way she threw money down to us when the ice cream truck or the “Half Moon” ride stopped on Hawthorne Street. She had a good right hand and her aim was perfect. When my brother and I went downstairs to play in the snow during the winter, Mommy would tell us, “Let me know when Daddy comes.” As soon as we saw our father turning the corner, we’d call up to her and watch as she scooped all the snow from the window ledge and shaped it into a ball. At just the right moment, she’d pitch the snowball down, hitting my father square in the head as he approached the stoop.

Sometimes, my mother wrapped money in a tissue and tossed it down to me so I could go to the store for her. She loved to send me to the grocer on Nostrand Avenue to ask for “two nice tomatoes.” For years, I was under the impression that “nice” was a type of tomato. I had no idea that in only three words I was telling the grocer he couldn’t fool me with any nasty old over-ripe tomatoes and he had better send me home with the best of the batch. He probably hated me, but I always left the store with two nice tomatoes.

There were plenty of things my mother could do exceptionally well. She made my first Halloween costume when I was four years old. She took a brown paper bag, cut two eyeholes in just the right places and drew a scary smile on it. I put the bag over my head and sat on the stoop waiting to frighten passersby out of their wits. It must have been a good costume. No one dared come near me all afternoon, except the mailman who chuckled and patted me on the head as he walked into our hallway. But then, mailmen are used to scary creatures.

Two years later, my mother enlisted the help of her sister to fashion a more sophisticated costume for my first grade Halloween party. After researching the life of Saint Ann, they designed and sewed a brown ankle-length robe and sky-blue veil. It was simple, but beautiful and authentic. There were plenty of bearded Saint Josephs and Saint Thomases but I was the only six-year-old grandmother of Jesus in the school cafeteria on Halloween afternoon.

The way I saw it, there was nothing my father couldn’t do and no situation he couldn’t lend himself to. I especially admired his sense of humor as it came so naturally to him. He didn’t have to try to be funny. He just was. I loved going to school and repeating my father’s remarks to the nuns. When one of my teachers told a boy in my class she was sending him straight to reform school and not allowing him to go home one afternoon, I relayed the whole story to my father the same night. Without batting an eye, he said “Tell Sister there are laws against kidnapping.”

When I was assigned a science project that involved wetting a piece of bread and waiting for mold to grow on it, my father decided I could do without that particular experience, especially since my brother had done the same tired project two years earlier. “Tell Sister God says it’s a sin to waste food,” he instructed me.

Whenever we were absent from school for a day, the nuns expected us to call someone on the phone and get the homework assignment for that night. This made no sense to my father. When my teacher asked to see my homework the morning after my absence, I gave her his message. “My father says if I’m sick enough to stay home, I’m sick enough not to do homework.” Case closed. And when I told a nun my father said only an Italian would be selected to become the next pope, she clutched her chest and looked as if she might faint. While she was trying to convince me this was totally untrue, other kids piped in and told her their parents said the very same thing. It was great fun because no matter how aggravated they might have been, the nuns wouldn’t dare punish us for repeating things our parents said.

Our parents ruled. There was never any question about that. But with us and amongst each other, they displayed a sense of humor unique to Brooklyn adults. They were secure enough to let their sillier sides show in front of their children. That in itself caused us to admire the grown-ups in our lives even more. Our Brooklyn parents used expressions that Wally and the Beaver would never have understood. When we flicked on too many lights, our mothers never came right out and told us electricity was expensive. Instead, they asked us, “Whaddaya got stock in Con Edison?!” We got the message and switched off the lights. When our fathers wanted to call somebody cheap, we’d overhear one of them declare “He wouldn’t pay ten cents to see the Statue of Liberty lift up her dress and piss in the ocean!” Now, that’s cheap. Of an exasperating person it was often said, “He could confuse a two-car funeral!” A trouble maker was referred to as “a stick a’ dynamite in a barrel of apples!”

Hearing our parents say that someone was “ready for the ‘G’ Building” told us in no uncertain terms that the person wasn’t quite right in the head. Kings County Hospital was just a few blocks away and we all knew the ‘G’ Building was where they kept the mentally ill and criminally insane. In fact, our parents sometimes swore that we kids were preparing them for a trip to that very same building! Such remarks were usually preceded by the dreaded cryptophasic question “Whaddayawannasmack??” I don’t recall ever hearing Harriet ask Ricky and Dave that question. Then again, I don’t suppose anyone in the Nelson household ever referred to the rear end of the Thanksgiving turkey as “the pope’s nose” either. And if, perchance, Ward had ever said “Gimme the Bible!” would Beaver have known enough to hand him the TV Guide?

Whether they meant to be or not, the adults in our lives were always good for a laugh. Their supreme sense of humor made the bond between parents and children unbreakable. For this gift, this precious inheritance, I am eternally grateful.

 

© 2000 - Fair Mile Books