What Life And Thanksgiving Used To Be In Brooklyn As we get closer to Thanksgiving, it reminds me again about how the Thanksgivings of my childhood were celebrated. First of all, the weather was very different. By the time Thanksgiving came it was extremely cold where we lived. I am talking about living in Brooklyn, New York. We lived in a very poor neighborhood. We were so poor there were times when my mother would have to ask her best friend if we could come over for dinner, because we had no money for food. I used to think we were the poorest until I saw others who couldn’t afford shoes. They would take an old pair of shoes which were too small and cut the backs out of them. One of the reasons we were in such desperate straits was the fact my father was not with us. I only remember seeing him two times in my life. Many of us didn’t have refrigerators, but did have ice boxes. An ice box was a wooden or fiberboard made box that stood up like a refrigerator but you would have to buy ice from the iceman who would deliver it to you. There was a pan under it for the melting ice which had to be emptied. I lived in an apartment building and we were lucky the landlord was an understanding man because it seems we were always late with the rent. My mother eventually found a factory job and we were able to get off Home Relief, which was the name for welfare in those days. It was very strict and sometimes agents would come around and make sure you were not buying things like cake with the money. If they found you were, you could be taken off welfare. In cold weather we would utilize the fire escape which was outside our kitchen window. This saved on ice. The problem was it was more like a freezer by that time of year. I remember when we went to get a bottle of cider we had stored out there for Thanksgiving and the cider was frozen solid. Once my mother began her job things got better. She didn’t make a lot of money as a factory worker, but enough to afford us some little pleasures. I even got a tiny allowance. I thought I was rich. You could do a lot with a small amount of money in those days. There was a store named Cheap Charlie’s which was near my school and it sold all sorts of cheap stuff. It had used comic books priced 2 for 5 cents. They also sold the cheapest of toys like the Chinese finger traps for a couple of cents along with other cheap toys. You could get a lot for your nickel. If you were really feeling flush you could get a milkshake from the local ice cream parlor for 25 cents or an egg cream for about 10 cents. Coke sold for 5 cents a bottle. In case you are wondering when I am talking about in was the 1940s. I am really giving my age up here. My grandmother lived in the same building but died when I was really young. Eventually my grandfather moved in with us. It was very unfortunate, but the area I lived in was crime ridden. We just couldn’t afford to move out. Shootings were a common occurrence. My grandmother and grandfather were deaf mutes. I mention this because she was robbed and stabbed to death in the street. My grandfather was also killed by being beaten to death. Believe me, I know what crime is and it saddens me to see what is happening to America today. We actually had bullets wedged in the brick wall of the building we were living in. All my memories are not bad however. All the neighborhood kids had lots of fun together. One of the things we would love to do was if we found wood of any kind like old crates from the vegetable store on the next block, was build things. I remember one time we found a pair of roller skates. In those days they were made of two front wheels and two back wheels and went over a shoe. The front and back were separated by a nut and you could open them and get two individual pieces. This was perfect for making a scooter. You would take a plank, nail a crate on the front with a board for a handle and mount the front half of the skate on the front and the back half of the skate on the back and that made your scooter. There was an old shoemaker shop on the block and the old guy hated us kids. We had never done anything to him, but he thought we were too noisy. When we would pass his shop he would come out as fast as he could, which was not very fast, and try and hit us with his cane. I don’t think I need to tell you this made him our target. We would stand outside and make a racket and when he would come out we would run away. He never caught any of us. As we got a little older we would play the games of stoop and stick ball. The traffic was lighter than today because not many people could afford a car where I lived and many of the ones that had one, had a very old car from the 1920s. I remember not thinking and running into the road after a ball and almost getting hit by a car which was so old it had wooden spoked wheels. We would play stick ball in the road and stop to let cars by. This was not unusual at the time, kids in Brooklyn did this everywhere and the drivers didn’t seem to mind. Today it seems Halloween is the big day for kids, but when I was little, it was Thanksgiving. The kids would disguise themselves with cheap costumes of old clothes. I would go as a bum with old clothes and my face blackened to look like I needed a shave. We would go around the neighborhood to the stores and ask if they had anything for Thanksgiving and all the shop keepers would give us something. If you went into a drug store you might get a box of cough drops, or a piece of fruit from the vegetable store. I think the store owners had fun doing it. When I tell others what Thanksgiving was like back then, people are amazed and most never heard of getting stuff on that day. To them it is a day of travel and food. It was so much more in the old days; it was a day we were all thankful for what we had and a day of fun.
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