I remember the 1960's

I've been listening to a lot of music from the 1960’s and remembering those days.

I remember growing up in the Bronx in the 1960’s.  My teenage years were spent on a street called Gates Place near Moshulu Parkway in New York City.  My parents, my brother and I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment. 

 I think back to those days and remember my friends.  We called ourselves “The Crowd” (Bernie, Lenny, Jeannie, Joyce, Bobby, Sheila, Barbara, Pookie, Glenn, Eppy, Herbie, Sandy, Marlene, Jeff and of course Pecker).  I remember my first kiss.  I remember the ball games we played around the block (three box, off the crack, punch ball, stick ball and softball).  I remember listening to Cousin Brucie on “77 WABC” on the transistor radios we carried around with us as we hung out on the stoop at Garafalo’s (The Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Little Eva). 

 I remember my Bar-Mitzvah at Twersky’s synagogue. I remember attending Nathan Strauss Jewish Center on Saturday mornings.  I remember the fine breads and rolls at Scheff’s bakery, the kosher deli’s on Jerome avenue (Epstein’s and Schweller’s with their great hot dogs and hot knishes). I remember the fresh hot bialys you could buy at a shop whose name I’ve forgotten; I remember Thompkins candy store on Gun Hill Road where I drank egg creams with pretzels, the great trip to the new world of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the many train voyages on the D train to 161^st street to Yankee Stadium with either my brother or Bobby Goldberg to see Mickey Mantle or Roger Maris stand at the plate and hit one out.  Those days seem so simple and innocent.  It was a great time and place to be a kid!

I remember those innocent days with romantic nostalgia.  But it was not always so nice.  There was the Cuban missile crisis which convinced us the end of the world was at hand, the shock of President Kennedy’s assassination (the moment we all grew up), the war in Vietnam, the many protest marches, the murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the Kent State killings, the election of Richard Nixon.

I remember my Dad, a Holocaust survivor, waking up and screaming in the middle of the night. I remember my parents arguing about money.  I remember the aging bed my brother and I slept in collapsing again and again followed by the terrible explosion of anger, panic, rage, blame and deep fear.  I remember the three times I ran away from the craziness of that apartment in the Bronx.  And I remember finding high school boring, depressing and loving snow days and vacations.

 I remember walking down the block, leaving home at 18 to join the Air Force and arriving in San Antonio scared, too young and wondering what I had gotten myself into. 

I remember the 1960’s as fun, frightening, complicated and full of craziness.  Maybe when we listen to our music from back then we will remember what we want to remember and forget what we can’t stand to remember.   As Simon and Garfunkel sang, “Time it was and what a time it was . . . A time of innocence, a time of confidences. Long ago it must be, I have a photograph, preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you.”