Brooklyn Summers of Old

If it was summer and my mother was frying cutlets in her cast iron frying pan at 8:00 in the morning, I knew somebody would have to run out to Mazzola or Cammareri for fresh rolls because we were going to the beach! Growing up in Brooklyn meant that we were lucky enough to hop on the F train or into my dad’s Buick and before you knew it, you were gazing at the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. There was no better way to spend the summer.

Of course, we also had the Prospect Park Zoo, Union Street Park (which has been gone for decades), the johnny pumps on DeGraw Street and Strong Place, and the street, sidewalk, and stoop right in front of our house, which provided hours of unbridled playing and hanging out time.

When we were very young, my sister Lisa and I spent our summers in the Catskills where my grandmother had a little bungalow. We had a blowup pool, lots of blackberry bushes, and the aptly named Lake Paradise. After my grandmother passed away, my mom was too sad to spend the summers up there without her. And so the beach became our number one summer pastime.

We always left early so as to make the most of the day. If it was a weekday, we would take the train and on the way to the station, we would meet up with my Aunt Angie, Aunt Little Mary, and Cousin Tessie, plus all of us kids: me, Lisa, my brother Frankie, my Uncle Louis (who is just a little older than me), and my cousins ChiChi and Luann would all squeeze into the rotating turnstile on President Street. We would then all pile into those old F train cars with the wicker seats and whirring ceiling fans. The excitement built as we got closer and closer to the end of the line. It felt like a long trek from the Stillwell Avenue station to the boardwalk and then over what looked like the Sahara Desert to just the right spot, by the lifeguard.

I can actually remember when you could rent green canvas umbrellas and slingback chairs at Coney Island which they would carry and set up for you. After we set up our chairs and anchored the blanket down with all our sandals and beach bags, we were immediately hungry (the ocean air does that to you) and would begin with hardboiled eggs. We might take a little dip and then start anticipating lunch. If my mom hadn’t fried the aforementioned cutlets, we would pick up potato and egg and ham and mozzarella sandwiches from DeFonte’s or roast beef sandwiches from DeMairo’s. We had a huge plaid bag filled with peaches, plums, chocolate snaps, Mr. Salty pretzels, sand pails and shovels. Of course, we had to wait after eating before we could go back into the water but that didn’t mean we were done eating for the day. There was always room for a hot knish or a cold fudgie wudgie, which were miraculously kept hot or cold in brown paper shopping bags that were carried back and forth from bay to bay by a man who was as tan as the shopping bag.

On the way home, sometimes we would pick up a bag of salty french fries smothered in ketchup from Nathan’s that we dug into with those little red pitchforks. Or we might stop off at Monteleone’s, after getting off the train, and pick up a lemon or chocolate or cream ice. Those ices tasted so perfect when you were hot, sandy, and more than a little sunburned!

If it was a weekend, my dad would drive us to either Coney Island or Manhattan Beach. I remember him sitting on his beach chair struggling to light his cigarette and to keep the Daily News from blowing away while he tried to read it. We had the same trouble if we were playing cards on the blanket. If we couldn’t play cards, we could always bury somebody in the sand. But mostly if we weren’t eating, we were in the water. I know Coney Island is not pristine like the Caribbean or the Mediterranean but I always loved being in the water there. The waves were always nice, never rough, and the temperature was always refreshing. The ocean air smelled heavenly. There was always great summer beach music or the Mets game playing on a transistor radio. At the end of the day, my parents would bring us up to the boardwalk, rub all the sand off our feet with a towel, sprinkle us with powder, and we would get into the very, very hot Buick and ride home with the windows open and the same great summer beach music playing on the car radio.

The beach-going crowd changed as the years went by with my Auntie Rie coming along on weekends with her boyfriend, Joe, driving us. And when my baby sister, Cristina, was born in the 70’s, we started anew with the sand pails and rounds of ring-around-the rosy in the water. In those days, we would go to the lower bays of Coney Island, closer to Seagate.

On summer nights, we might sit by the water along the Belt Parkway and play charades with the fragrance of honeysuckle in the air. Sometimes we went to the gorgeous bar at Lundy’s for clams on the half shell and oyster crackers and walked along the piers at Sheepshead Bay. It was a really special treat if we went to an amusement park like Deno’s, Astroland or Peter Pan Playland. If it was Tuesday, we might go back to Coney Island for fireworks from the boardwalk and hotdogs from Nathan’s. Or we might just sit on our stoop, with pitchers of iced tea, the Daily News Night Owl edition, ice cream cones with sprinkles from Ralph’s truck, and hot bread from Mazzola’s, talking with neighbors until the wee hours of the morning.

The lake in the Catskills is still called Lake Paradise but the Brooklyn I grew up in was another kind of paradise, one of simple good times spent with loving family and neighbors who felt like family. We may have not had much in the way of material things but little did we know that we were rich in ways that could never be measured.