All this was before anyone ever heard of the word, cholesterol. We were told that each day we were supposed to have four glasses of whole milk, plenty of liver, sufficient fats to keep the body warm, butter for your digestion, sweets to give energy, bananas (or strawberries) and cream (that's sour cream), eggs of course (and raw for better growth) ... all this was recommended by the best authorities. Now they're all "verbotin," forbidden, forget it. Tomorrow we'll be told to keep away from whole grain breads, from skim milk, from fish, and from olive oil. Let's hope what they are telling us is bad (milk, liver, ice cream, butter, eggs, cream, and hamburgers) will become the path to good health in days to come. Too bad I won't be here to enjoy it.

I particularly remember Garfield's cafeteria on Flatbush and Church, and Dubrow's cafeteria and "The Famous Dairy Restaurant" (on Utica and Eastern Parkway diagonally across from each other). Famous would have long lines, blocks long on Sunday night. Among many dishes they would serve were vegetable cutlets and kashe varnishkes for dinner. All these restaurants were always a treat to visit. And there were, and still are, restaurants serving meals of all nationalities in Brooklyn. Now I can afford to eat in all these places and am too lazy to get out, and then all that cholesterol, oh well (nothing like medical research to spoil the party).

I mentioned Flatbush ... Brooklyn people run the gamut; there are all kinds. Here's a Helen Chuckrow who went to Erasmus Hall High School some years ago, one of the oldest high schools in this country, and across Flatbush Avenue from the church she writes about (I found this surfing the net, she's speaking of old Brooklyn):

"The Dutch Reformed Church, on the corner of Church and Flatbush, had this old, old cemetery you could walk through, as a short cut. There was this small stone there: 'In memory of Helen, daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Clarkson who departed this life the 13th of August, 1794, aged 1 year 4 months and 29 days.' I memorized it because of the name, Helen. Then, in the 60s perhaps, there was a bad storm and a lot of stones got knocked down, including Helen's. Soon, they removed the pieces completely and I thought, maybe no one now knows what it said on that stone but me. I felt bad. But now it's on the Internet, so Helen's memory is virtually preserved. After all, she was a Brooklynite, too."

Well, there's Brooklyn people for you. Not all, but many have beautiful souls, like Helen Chuckrow's, who went to Erasmus Hall High School some years ago.

A note of interest: Barbra Streisand (whose name was really Barbara up until that 1965 CBS special, "My Name is Barbra") went to Erasmus and was an excellent student there. To be excellent there meant you were competing with some of the best students in Brooklyn and doing well by comparison; which was no easy accomplishment. Other alumni from that school are: Jeff Chandler (Ira Gossel), Neil Diamond, Miriam Dressler Griffin, Theodore Elsberg (past president of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators of the public schools of NYC., have to mention him, that was my organization), Bobby Fischer of chess fame (a strange bird but a chess genius), John Forsythe, Bernard Koppel (the doctor on Love Boat), Dorothy Kilgallen (remember her on television?), Samuel Lefrak (real estate), Bernard Malamud, Beverly Sills (opera star and then director of the Metropolitan), Morrison "Mickey" Spillane, Barbara Stanwyck, Eli Wallach, and my wife, Joan.

That same CBS show was on an April 28th, and I'll tell you something else that's celebrated on this date: Fletcher Christian led the mutiny on the HMS Bounty, and Capt. William Bligh was set adrift, with certain crew members, out in the Pacific. The real lowdown is that after his trial in England (he was found not guilty), Fletcher eventually came to the states, and changes his name to Clark Gable, and takes up with a Vivian Leigh who is herself going nutsy over the impending loss of her plantation, Tara, and all the southern tradition around it. She dies from over indulging in mint juleps and Fletcher, now Clark, couldn't care less, just didn't give a damn. He leaves the Tara plantation for good and becomes a rabbi in Boro Park, Brooklyn; such are the ways of fate.

And as for Bligh, well, you know the rest, he marries Elsa Lanchester, his first marriage I assume her second, (as I know she formally was the bride of Frankenstein, another weird guy and we won't talk about him). This same captain, who would puke every morning looking at Elsa (who was no raving beauty), he having suffered some back pain rowing on that sweltering Pacific all the way to 10 Downing Street, divorces Elsa, who gets a hefty alimony from his captain's pension, he moves to France, and applies for and gets a position as bell ringer in some local parish church called Notre Dame. His last alias was Quasimodo, still suffering with the back, and last I heard he was sheltering some gypsy girl from the lustful vengeance of a priest in that same church. I'm getting off the subject (remember, I'm writing about me) so "enough said" but someday I intend to write the true story of the Bounty.

Back to food ... there was the Automat, a coin operated cafeteria where all kinds of foods were kept behind glass windows and all that was needed were a few nickels to open them up. They also had the counter area for hot meats and vegetables. I think a dollar could get a meal for two. What I enjoyed watching most was the person making change. I would give her a dollar bill and she would count out twenty nickels with BOTH hands at once, tossing out five nickels with each hand at each toss and I don't remember her ever being wrong.

The food was delicious and a typical dinner for me was a chopped sirloin steak, cream spinach, mashed potatoes, carrots, and a roll, all followed by some blueberry pie, sometimes with a scoop of ice cream on top. I could be wrong but all this might have cost between 50 cents and a dollar. I think what sent them out of business was the overpopulation of the homeless in the city where they would make the cafeteria a place to sit out the day until time for the city shelter (or the park bench or a corner of some alley). The last Automat was on 3rd Avenue and 42nd Street, and that closed on April 10, 1991; a great loss to the city; I certainly miss it. I wonder what the women in the change booths did with those unique nickel tossing talents.

Pizza is made best here in Brooklyn (I'm told the breeze coming out of Jamaica bay has a beneficial effect on the curing of the dough) and Chinese food "one from column A and one from column B" (as a kid we called it "chinks" but it was never done with malice; it was just ignorance) is made here with what I believe is a Jewish "tam" (taste) in mind, and it is delicious. I think removing the msg spoiled the taste but, that's progress. As for "curing the pizza dough" ... take it for what it's worth; I just made it up.

In our late teens and early 20's the "gang" used to go out to "eat Chinese" (combination dinners were 75 cents; later when I got married it was $1.25; choice of soup, chow mein, fried rice, egg role, and desert. Kosher didn't mean anything to us as kids so we would order a center plate of shrimp with lobster sauce. One friend, Seymour (his claim to fame is that he was probably the slowest mail man in the government) was also a slow eater. For every shrimp he removed from that center dish the rest of us had each removed two or three. Sometimes nothing was there when he got up to the main course. Conclusion: either we had no manners or you have to be fast with your chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant, or both.

I remember the old downtown Brooklyn (we called it "downtown"). The Brooklyn Paramount, Fabian's Fox, and the Albee theaters were there. It also featured good shopping: Howard Clothes, E. J. Korvette's, A&S, Namm's and Loeser's (or was it Namm's-Loeser's), Martin's, Woolworth's, McCrory's, May's etc. The stores have changed but the district is still vibrant with shopping. Closer to home was Fortunoff's on Livonia Avenue (a half dozen stores under an elevated train; that was the real "source" as the commercial goes, never mind what Lauren Becall says).

Belmont Avenue was a "less expensive" center of shopping, along with Blake Avenue, both with pushcarts selling anything that was needed; food, house wares, clothing, including hot chestnuts, roasted sweet potatoes, and knishes. Pitkin Avenue, one block north, was a center of house wares and clothing (Abe Stark, a borough president had a store there). Kings Highway, between Coney Island and Ocean Avenues, was our "Fifth Avenue" shopping district. I suppose it was debatable which was better, the "Highway" or "Pitkin" ... certainly wasn't the "L" where I grew up, and today it is no longer debatable.

Home to a large population of Holocaust survivors, hardworking family oriented and an amazingly energetic, this area, East New York, was a bustling part of Brooklyn, with outdoor "shopping plazas" (the pushcarts on Blake Avenue), boutiques of all types (dry goods and shoe stores) and culinary delights to suit everyone's taste: delis, bakeries ... and pickle stores too. Today it is one of the most impoverished areas of the city ... but, in this great city are always in flux, meaning change is inevitable. Whether you welcome the change or not depends upon where you are on the social ladder; again, that's life.

Did you know that Harry Houdini is buried in Cypress Hills cemetery along the border of East New York and Queens? I know every year the Society of American Magicians would convene around the grave, mumble a few words, and break a wand over the grave. Up near Highland Park, along the Interboro Parkway (now Jackie Robinson Parkway) are the cemeteries. It's like the old "cemetery hill" in the old west. All that part of Brooklyn, Eastern Parkway, Prospect Park, and Bay Ridge is up on a hill, part of what we learned was the "terminal moraine." That's why walking to Eastern Parkway from any directions is walking up hill, that's why the name, Highland Park. And sleigh riding down "dead man's hill," and bike riding down Snake Hill, was (hopefully still is) the way kids had their fun.

And Canarsie (Flatlands?), and all of south Brooklyn, is really part of the "outwashed plain." Look up "terminal moraine" if you're interested; I'm retired now, no more teaching. Anyway, the kids in that nabe (neighborhood) would visit his grave on Halloween; maybe to see if the old buzzard made his final escape. It's a gruesome thought but how would they know.

The Highland Park I speak of is where we brought the cub scouts for their outings. I remember the rope we used for the tug-a-war. Same rope was used earlier as a clothesline when camping with the family, (and shhh, looking around, no one can hear; whispering, using all small letters, it was the same rope i used on my boat 20 years earlier, before getting married) ... AND I STILL HAVE IT. While writing this I didn't realize that I was using that same rope to pull my oldest grandchild, Sarah, on the boardwalk, teaching her to ride her first little red three-wheeler; those were great days.