Looking Back

WELCOME TO THE NO BS ZONE OF TEDDY JACOBSON


I looked around today and started to realize all the things that have become so very necessary for our daily life and survival. I am going to take you on a journey back into time, where I come from and how I lived. I lived in the best of times but at the time had no clue how really good we all had it. Most of you younger people will have no clue what I am going to say, it will be very hard for you to understand what I am about to tell you.

During WW II many things were rationed and we had very little money, there were no frills of daily life that you have now taken for granted. No one had cars and besides if you had a car you could not buy a tire for it as it all went to the war effort. If I wanted some bubble gum, it was not available as the candy store was usually out of everything. You were told to save all metal cans for the war effort and they came around to collect these cans regularly. We had ration books that allowed us so much of some items per month and that was it.

Trolley cars were still running in Brooklyn. We still had the Brooklyn Dodgers, but that was when ball players played for the love of the game and no one made big money. I have been in Ebbets field many times and I saw all the famous ball players like Carl Furillo and Duke Snyder and Roy Campanella and I saw Peewee Reese and all of them, including the Yankees and the Giants. This was a world that you can only imagine. As I got a little older say about 8 to 10 years old, I still had nothing but the basics. My father bought me a Remington 550 - 22 caliber rifle. It always jammed.

In my daily life I had no TV, I had no air conditioning. We did not have a car until 1953. The highlight of my life was listening to the SHADOW on the radio. I was living in a prime time when people basically cared and all the neighbors would sit on the sidewalk every nite for hours to chew the fat about the very few things we had, it was all we needed. Not everyone had a phone and to use a public phone it was about 3 blocks away and it cost 5 cents. There were no cell phones of any kind, there were hardly any conveniences but we were not only happier but we had faith in our country and its leaders.

I had no toys to play with unless I made them or some one would make me something like a Toy gun. We had no fast food chain restaurants, there were no McDonalds or Burger King or whatever. We never had any money to go to a fancy restaurant, that was out of the question. I would look in my home in Brooklyn and there was a fan and some furniture but no electronics, except for an old radio that we all used. I shared a room with my brother and we had enough to get by, but nothing beyond that...

If I wanted to buy a pocket knife I could get what I thought was a good knife for 2 dollars and I had no sharpening stone. In order to sharpen my knife I had to sit on the curb and use the concrete curb as my sharpening stone. I did not know people had special stones to sharpen knives, it was beyond my world of reality. I never even had a bicycle until I was older and I walked everywhere, I remember a very big snow storm in I think 1947 that just shut down the city and we had drifts of snow all over that totally covered the cars.

The Police drove 2 tone colored Fords that was just a sedan and they had no great communications between them and the station. The cops that walked a beat alone had call in boxes every few blocks in case they needed help or wanted to speak with someone at the station. All the Police carried 38 special revolvers and they were very well respected. No one would ever talk back to the Police in those days, if they asked where you were going or whatever, you always answered them respectfully like I did. Do not get me wrong payoffs were made every where, but this was not a part of my world.

I was just a kid that spent most of his life on the streets of Brooklyn, thats all I ever knew. Money ?? I never had any. If I needed a drink I could go into a candy store and buy a 2 cent plain (cost 2 cents), all that meant was it was carbonated water, like seltzer. If I had a nickle which was 5 cents I could get a small glass of coke. I used to see people that had cars and I could never figure how anyone could get enough money to buy one. I spent a great deal of time painting pictures on plywood as I had no paper made for the paint I had.

Thankfully my father kept buying me rifles as long as he kept working and we got buy. I remember getting a Marlin lever action in 32 special caliber. I think that was the caliber and then I got a Winchester 88 in 308 caliber. I do remember those rifles so very well but I seldom got a chance to shoot the large calibers. I used to take my Remington 550 to a range in New York City and I carried it with plenty of ammunition in my bag and the rifle was in a zippered case. I had to take many trains each way in order to get to this Manhattan School of Firearms Range. No one ever stopped me or asked me where I was going or what I had. I was about 14 or 15 years old.

I miss those days of innocense and simplicity that none of us have today. I used to see many things happen on the streets but you learned to mind your own business and life goes on. I can not believe how much I had to walk in those days, it was nothing to walk miles every day, now I can hardly walk anywhere.

I will continue this tomorrow. Continued 5-24-06

As I had time to think about this commentary, I have a laser memory in some areas and I can even remember our first phone number in Brooklyn, all our phone numbers started with a name and we used the first 2 letters, such as mine was Gedney = which we used GE plus the number.

Thinking back I saw all the famous Yankees play and it was a very long trip for me to go to the Polo Grounds where the Giants played and then to Yankee Stadium where the Yankee team was based. My favorite places to go when I was very young was to Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island where I always went to Nathans which was a famoust eatery for everyone. A Nathans famous hot dog was about 15 cents. I used to take many buses to get somewhere local and if I went fishing and caught a lot of fish I carried it all home in a burlap sack.

Many bus drivers would not pick me up when they saw my burlap sack as they knew it would give their bus an aroma that they could not deal with. When they did pick me up they told me to sit in the very back of the bus. I never minded sitting in the rear with 40 or 50 fish in my sack. After I got off the bus I had at least 5 to 7 blocks to walk to get home. I remember one time I caught about 196 small tinker Mackrel. Those were the days of innocence and good times. We had limited money but times were better and people had more faith in this countries future.

In the 50's in Brooklyn it was full of street gangs that were segregated by neighborhoods and one had to be careful where you went and what you said or you could get a knife in your back. I went to junior high school in another area where it was controlled by a gang that was un controllable. They would shake you down or at least try to for your lunch money on the school grounds or in the stair wells. Most kids carried 35 cents for lunch and everyone had their money hidden somewhere. I had more street fights than I have hair on my head.

Everyone made guns by hand in these gangs, they were called Zip guns and fired a 22 caliber bullet. It was easy to make if you had some hand skils and understood the basics. These were very crude guns and you could make them using a tube from a car antenna. This was a period of the Korean war and people basically had good lives but if you did not ever learn to be street wise you were in trouble. I miss those early days more than I can ever tell you, the street people were always out hanging around and it remained a simple life. I always had rifles but I never owned a handgun until I was 18 years old.

Even at this time being in Brooklyn in the summer it was very hot and NO ONE had any air conditioning, so many people slept on the fire escapes and some even went on the roofs of apt. buildings trying to get a breeze in order to cool off. I guess looking back its the ghetto life where everyone is out every nite on the sidewalk having conversations that I think about most. I only carried a small pocket knife and I never had the money to buy a quality knife and I guess thats why I do not think twice about spend 200 or 300 dollars for a good knife today.

These street gangs used knives and clubs and a favorite weapon was to steal the handle off of peoples metal garbage cans to be used as knuckles in a street fight. As you walked around during a garbage day pick up you would see all these garbage cans with no handles every where. They would just use electrical tape on the garbage can handle, to protect ones hand as these handles came in various shapes and sizes. A hammer was used to rip the handles off these garbage cans, they used the claw part of the hammer.

There was crime like every where else but the "CONNECTED" people were not going to rob you, they were busy running numbers and gambling and chasing women. I saw one well named Mafia man beat a woman senseless right in broad daylight and no one would ever come to help her. Even the Police car would just drive by and say nothing, some of these people were bent on revenge if you did not mind your own business. I used to speak with these organized crime guys all the time in passing but it was not worth getting involved.

Their women felt important to be seen with these guys and in the end they all lost. Most of the people I grew up with are dead. Very few survived into a long life as no one understood eating habbits and living with out the stress the streets require. It all caught up with everyone and after high school many people just left Brooklyn. I was one of them but I want to tell you about the high schools I went to before I conclude this commentary so I will continue this later.

My first year in High School I decided to go to School of Industrial Art in NYC, I had to take 4 trains each way. The school was for people that wanted to learn drafting and art, it was a mixed bag of screwballs that came from everywhere. There were fights everyday about something and the goils were always caught in the stairwells doing what they should not. I was sick of it after 1 year and decided instead of continually fighting to survive I would switch over to my regular district High School where Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond went.

This school was called Erasmus Hall High School and there were so many kids that it was divided up into a morning and an afternoon session. I always had the morning session and there were always fights and trouble in the school of thousands of kids from Brooklyn. I had no choice but to work 3 years in a butcher shop for $12.00 per week and my grandfather laid the law down to me so I had to attend a Hebrew school after my regular school which I went to for 7 years. I had to comply as my options were none, zero, ziltch, nada, it had to be done. I have no regrets now. There was a woman I remember and she was my good friend but shes dead now.

I never ran into Streisand and I did not know Neil Diamond. I would not know them if I passed them in the halls. You can go to www.erasmushall.org
you can look all this up on their famous website and see all the famous alumni that attended that school. Many famous and well known people came from Brooklyn which had about 2 million people. I think Woody Allen went to Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. There were a lot of liberal schmucks that came out of Brooklyn, there must have been something in the water to damage their mind.

Those are the days that I can remember and always regretted leaving the Brooklyn of the 50's but it does not exist anymore. If you really want me to go into more detail, you can email me and let me know. I have endless stories about the 18 years I lived in Brooklyn, some things I can not write in a blogger but I can give you an idea of how life really was and how cheap life was on the streets.


Teddy