World War II ended in 1945 – ten years before I came into being. By the time I started learning about the war and its carnage, it was two decades since it had happened. To me, it all seemed like it was far in the… Read More »An Echo of Horror in Northeast Philly
My father was born in 1914 and grew up in a crowded Italian American row home neighborhood in South Philadelphia. This area of immigrants and first-generation Americans was fertile territory for those who operated outside the law. His own father, Sebastiano, who had emigrated from… Read More »The Anti-Role Model
Back before the rise of the Internet and the complete submergence of society in computers, tablets and cell phones, there was a quaint information discovery mechanism called the library’s card catalog. The bigger the library, the bigger its card catalog’s listing of books and other… Read More »Do and Don’t Do
My high school and college days working weekends and summers at Dave’s Deli in Northeast Philly resulted in a broad education in business, management, customer service and human relations. Beyond that, it provided a source of funding for my formal undergraduate studies, as described here. … Read More »I’ll Take Care of You When You Get Married
Dad was born in 1914, and my mom arrived in 1920. As such, some of their formative years were spent in the midst of the great depression. It left a mark on each of them. They were very conservative with spending the money that came… Read More »My Chevy Biscayne
It was 1964, and I was nine years-old, when my youthful innocence was taken from me. The process took eleven excruciating days, and Chico Ruiz was the initial culprit. It was painful, and my recovery was slow. I didn’t realize it at the time, but… Read More »Finish the Job
A standard offering in any Jewish deli that wishes to retain its clientele is a wide array of pickles and other pickled products. I am not talking about mass-produced jarred products from companies such as Vlasic. Instead, I am referring to lovingly created items that… Read More »The Pickle Thief
Are you familiar with Hot Rod Lincoln, the 1972 top ten hit by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen? What a great bit of rockabilly that achieved commercial success! And the fabulous guitar riff that propelled the song was provided by Bill Kirchen, one… Read More »Excellence … Even When No One is Watching
[This is the conclusion of my Wildwood story, following part 1 and part 2.] To recap, my 1967 summer of joy in Wildwood, New Jersey, had turned into a mini-disaster. I had lost my promised dishwashing job and ended up flat broke in a kid’s… Read More »Joe the Shoeshine Boy
[For Part One of this tale of woe and occasional joy, go here.] So, my summer of wonder and enchantment in the kid’s dreamland of Wildwood, New Jersey, had come to an abrupt halt. I was unemployed, tapped out, and the prospects for money were… Read More »Joe the Lifeguard’s Errand Boy