Hand packed ice cream

Subway trains with ceiling fans

Water balloon fights

Mr. Softee

Stick ball, Stoop ball, Punch ball, Box baseball and every other kind of ball

Spaulding ‘High-Bouncer’ and Pennsy Pinky

A ride to Jahn’s to see if anyone can really finish a Kitchen Sink

2 cent plane

Cypress Pool

Skate keys

The pot belly stove on the Van Siclen Avenue El train station

Loew’s Warwick

The Embassy

Fortunoff’s

Going down Miller Hill and trying to stop in time

The orange and blue of Thomas Jefferson High

Good ‘n Plenty

Clamp-on roller skates

Street hockey

Decorating your homemade scooter with bottle caps

Cream Soda

Johns Bargain Stores

Monopoly marathons

East New York Savings Bank

A ‘slice and a coke’

Going to see ‘The Song of Bernadette’ with the entire class

CYO Day Camp

Chinese handball, a.k.a. Ace, King, Queen

Red light – Green light

The fish truck selling fresh fish on ice

War (I declare war on ………)

Do-overs

Having to pay an extra token to get off the train at Rockaway beach

Ariola’s pastry shop

The vegetable man

The scissor and knife sharpening man ringing that bell

Saturday at the movies: serials, cartoons, coming attractions, 2 features, all for 25 cents

The matron in her white uniform and hair net (and 100 years old) telling us to be quiet

Johnny-on-a-pony or Buck-Buck

Snake Hill with that terrible bump

Collecting bottles for the 2 cents deposit

Sleigh riding in Highland Park

Chinese laundry

The cobble stones on Jamaica Ave. and Miller Ave.

The Cleveland St. el station that rocked every time a train pulled in

The Arlington library

Pinky’s drugstore

Moe’s Tavern on Fulton St.

Dr. Lancillotti on Warwick St.

Dances at St. Michael’s

Swimming at the St. George pool

Starrett City

The ‘roller coaster’ of lower Pennsylvania Ave.

Going for ‘Chinks’ (Chinese food)

X-raying your feet every time you bought shoes

Eastern Parkway Arena and Friday night fights (boxing)

Ring-alevio

Putting your initials in wet cement

The A&S store

Harmonizing on the corner or in the park

Fireflys in the summer

The Sunrise Drive-in

Steeplechase Park

The White Castle on Atlantic Ave.

The opening of the Verrazano Bridge for the exorbitant toll of 50 cents.

The Hale bowling alley

Doo-Wop in the vestibules (it always sounded better)

Doctor May (dentist) on Jerome St.

Listening to The Shadow

The Strauss Store on Pennsylvania and Atlantic where I got my first bike

Voting for Miss Reingold

The Italian feast of Saints Cosmas and Damion at St. Rita

Oh, those Egg Creams – made, of course, only with Ubet syrup

Clapping the blackboard erasers

School trips to Rye Playland

Hoffman and White Rock soda

Flipping baseball cards

Spending your allowance on 45 records

Having to bring a half lemon on the last day of school to clean your desk

Going to the movies at the Pitkin Theatre with the rats before it was condemned

Bohack grocery store

The trolley along Fulton St.

Going to the Automat and watching the cashier making change with amazement

Picking a chicken for Sunday dinner at the live chicken market on Atlantic and Warwick

Allen Freed, Murray the ‘K’ and Cousin Brucie

Dishes (‘premium china’) given out at the movies

The landfill next to Starrett City

The trolley tracks on Jamaica Ave.

Never meat on Friday

No eating before Mass

Taking the train to Gertz in Jamaica

A “two sewer man” was a proud boast, often more talk than performance.

Swimming in the raw at the YMCA

The parades along Arlington Ave.

Bottle caps filled with wax and playing ‘Skelly’

Milton Berle on Tuesday

Going to the Catskills in the summer with only one bathroom per floor

Watching the Italian men play bocce in the park

Kick-the-can

Shopping on Blake Ave.

Staten Island Ferry for a nickel

Reese, Robinson, Snyder, Furillo, Gillian, Hodges, Campanella

Collecting Elsie (Bordon) ice cream sticks to get into the bleachers at Ebbets Field with

Furillo in right and Snyder in center

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Climbing the trees in Highland Park

Those hot summer days when you could carve your name in the gutter with a sharp

popsicle stick

Black and white ice cream sodas

The Valencia in Jamaica

Pea shooters

Flash Gordon and Rocket Man serials

The Indian (stone) Bridge in the upper park

Balsa wood gliders

Ballentine beer

Pizza was called ‘a pie’

Cypress Rink

The clowns with their electric shock sticks at the Steeplechase

Hoody Doody

Rootie Kazootie

Take cover drills in school

Happy Fulton’s Knot Hole Gang before the Dodger games

Pez

Italian ices

S&H Green Stamps

Mighty Mouse Playhouse

Schaefer Beer

Roller skating in the street

Solemn High Mass in Latin

Winky Dink

The vinyl film you put over the TV screen change black & white into color

Houdini’s grave in Cypress Hills Cemetery

Cherry Bombs and Ash Cans

Eeeny-Meeny-Miney-Moe

Maxwell’s bakery

Telephone booths

Bungalow Bars

Carvel

The Showboat on Jamaica Ave.

Shopping at City Line

Frappes

Shooting linoleum squares from home made ‘guns’

Sugar dots stuck on paper strips

Our parents calling us to come in and eat now

9 o’clock Mass on Sunday

Wonder Bread

Hit-the-penny

Schwinn bicycles

D-A haircuts

Poodles on the girls’ skirts

Riding between the subway cars

Nathan’s hot dogs were great but the fries were better

Having the greatest friends in the world where every day was an adventure

It wasn’t Camelot. It was just a magical place called Brooklyn - - a place we all called home. I wish I could go back for just a day but after seeing it on my last visit, I realize you can’t go back. My Brooklyn is gone. It is now a state of mind - - a lovely, wonderful state of mind. Thanks for the memories.

Lastly, the cry that will echo through the ages:

Hey mister, catch the ball before it goes down the sewer!