OK. Here I am, a gawky, skinny 15-year-old walking into where he was talking, not nicely, to my mom.

There he is, way bigger than me. He coulda easily killed me.

I said in my high squeaky voice, “Frank, you’ve had too much to drink. I think you’d better leave.”

He looked at my mom and asked, “Do you want me to go?”

She answered, “You heard him, didn’t you.”

I was so proud of her. He left without further incident.

Let me back up.

My mom was an attractive “widder lady,” as they would say in some small towns. But we lived in the biggest “small” town anywhere, New York City. Ergo she had lotsa suitors, and I had lotsa uncles that weren’t really my uncles.

One such “uncle” who I liked a lot was Uncle Frank.

When I first met Uncle Frank, he was part of a pair. Uncle Frank and Aunt Emma. Yes, he was married. Aunt Emma wasn’t with him when he visited frequently, apparently on his way home from work. He and my mom would usually sit on the sofa and talk. He would send me out a lot to bring home ice cream. I was never gone more than 30 minutes, and they would still be on the sofa talking when I got back. He was always kind and generous to my mom and me.

Uncle Frank was a big man. An electrician, plumber and general handyman, who worked at several big factories in the NY area. One he mentioned a lot was the Breyer’s Ice Cream factory in Long Island City. The iconic, gigantic Breyer’s Ice Cream sign was a fixture on my many subway rides from my hometown, Flushing, to Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.

Uncle Frank enjoyed a drink now and then.

One evening near Christmas, he arrived after having several drinks somewhere. After a short conversation with my mom on the sofa, he became verbally abusive. Since they weren’t whispering and our apartment was small, I could hear every word from the kitchen. I heard her ask him to leave. He didn’t start to leave right away.

So, I walked in.

As scared as I was, I still think I kinda became a man that Christmas, at that moment.

But that wasn’t the only moment.

I’ve been thinking about when a boy becomes a man. Not the legal stuff — the voting age, the draft age. I mean when does he start behaving like one. When does he accept responsibility. When does he understand the impact of his behavior on the people around him.

For me, that incident with Frank was the first.  Here are the other two.

The Draft Card

At age 18 in New York in 1957, I received my Draft Card, formal documentation of manhood. With a Draft Card at that time, I could buy booze.

The day I received it, I entered a local liquor store and bought my mom a pint of Imperial, an inexpensive blended whiskey. I knew she enjoyed a very occasional highball. That’s a shot of whiskey in some Club Soda and ice. She couldn’t afford it normally, so this would be a well-deserved treat for her.

First legal booze purchase… went straight to my mom.  Yes, we had a unique mother/son relationship.

The Dentures

From about age 12 to 18, we were dirt poor. We were squeezing the nickel so hard, the Indian was ridin’ the buffalo. (Google that one, young folks.)

My mom needed a set of dentures bad. Her front teeth were terrible and she was embarrassed.  She often covered her mouth with her hand while talking. But the $$ were not available for the dentist.

Then things started to get a little better. I was working part time with the Post Office. My pay went from $1 an hour, as a porter/dishwasher, to $2 to sort mail. For you math majors, that’s double. My mom had a decent paying job at Family Circle Magazine. We were paying our rent on time.

So I saved enough to help her get a set of dentures.

How often does a young man buy a set of false teeth for his mom?

Enuf.

She was young. She was beautiful.

And I, a nine-year-old kid from Flushing, Queens, had a giant crush on her.

Mrs. Swenson, my fourth grade teacher, was the person that taught me so many things that are essential for an enjoyable life. Sure, she covered the basics. English. Math. The kind of fundamentals that are not successfully covered for many of our kids today.
But more important for me, she taught me to live.

She taught me to dance. She instilled confidence in me that I could stand in front of people and speak, sing, act, and be a presence that others could understand and enjoy.

She was in charge of entertainment for the PTA meetings, and somewhere along the way, I became her go-to-guy. Her “pet,” if you wanna call it that. I’ll take it.
I was Casey, who waltzed with the Strawberry blonde. Shirley Royes was that blonde. Wonder where she is now, some 76 years later? Wow.
I sang “Sweet Adeline” in a kid’s Barber shop quartet and got a laugh from a room full of grown-ups, not cuz I was good, but because I “gently” elbowed a fellow singer who hit a wrong note.

In a skit about the importance of vocabulary, I was her “Dictionary”–a lead role that had lots of words for me to recite in a costume my mom fashioned from a large cardboard box. As a 10 year old, I impressed the PTA by just not screwing up my lines. LOL

For a while, I thought I was hot stuff.

Short while.

My buck teeth were coming on their own and pretty much destroyed my self confidence for a while. Ahh pre-teen adolescence!!

Mrs Swenson also had so much courage. She took a group of us 25 nine or ten year olds on several field trips to learn about the greatest city in the world, right under our nose. We visited museums, zoos, the fire department, the Statue of Liberty, Hamilton’s grave site, Skyscrapers!
Her biggest outing was, unfortunately, one I missed. She took the class to see High Button Shoes a Broadway musical hit of 1948. That was almost 80 years ago….Sheeit!
That missed opportunity was finally assuaged in 1957 when I saw my first Broadway show, “West Side Story”. Wow, worth the wait!!
To this day, The Big Apple has played a major role in my life. I’ve introduced my family to its magic, sometimes one grandkid at a time. I still plan future visits, as possible. Thank you, Mrs Swenson.
Enuf.

“Sir, it is with great humility that an insignificant example of the species homo sapien, a fluke of nature, such as I doth approach an omnipotent majesty, an exalted guardian of democracy, a sagacious seer such as thou, with this matter of minor magnitude. I am but flotsam on the seedy sea of disrepute, but I must speak ere courage desert me, for I must fill my miserly quota for one week and seven days make one week, sire.”

That was my required approach to get weekly signatures from 5 cadet officers and 10 cadets of enlisted rank who were members of Arnold Air Society (an Air Force ROTC military honor fraternity that I wished to join). That meant I memorized and recited, on one breath, that stupid approach speech about 75 times in a 5-day school week.

For 58 years now, it has made a home in my memory. I think I did forget a few words.

Yay.

Question: How’s the cow?

Answer: “Sir, she walks. She talks. She’s full of chalk. The lacteal fluid extracted from the female of the bovine species is highly prolific to the nth degree, sir.”

Question: What’s leather?

Answer: “Sir, if the fresh skin of an animal is cleaned and divested of all hair, fat and other extraneous matter and then immersed in a dilute solution of tannic acid, a chemical combination ensues. The gelatinous tissue of the skin forms a non putrescible substance, impervious to and insoluble in water. That, sir, is leather.”

Again, I may have missed a few words, but those responses (required whenever I was asked by a cadet member) have stayed in my head for 58 years.

How’d I do, Adolf?

My dear friend, who rattled off those stupid responses with me when we pledged for Arnold Air Society together in 1958. Our lasting friendship epitomizes the “cliche” that going through stressful processes together creates strong bonds. Like all cliches, it ain’t always true. I had many close colleagues in Air Force Survival Training and in my Tan Son Nhut year, with whom I withstood lotsa stress. But somehow, I didn’t stay in a close friendship with many of them.

Life is full of contradictions. Generalities usually don’t stand up to challenges.

Enuf

A fabulous town.

A filthy town.

A dangerous town.

A crime-filled town.

A fun town.

A rich town.

A poor town.

A helluva town.

The town I grew up in.

What a terrible place for me to come of age.

Let’s see how “terrible” it actually was.

I lived in Flushing. A neighborhood in the Borough of Queens (a major residential section of the biggest city in the world). And within walking distance from my small apartment on 194th Street and 37th Avenue. Five of my best friends. My elementary school. My high school. Two Catholic churches with schools. A playground with swings, slides, and monkey bars. A sandlot where I learned to play baseball and football.

Two large grocery stores. A Jewish deli. A pharmacy. A luncheonette with an ice cream counter, candy, cigarettes, newspapers, and a soda fountain. (I worked part-time at both the pharmacy and the luncheonette from 1955 until 1958. My first real jobs. What a great learning experience.) There was also a liquor store, a dry cleaner, a butcher shop, a barber, and a handful of other retail shops.

One block away: a bus stop.

Fifteen cents. A bus every fifteen minutes. A fifteen-to-twenty-minute ride to Main Street, Flushing (where my whole daily world opened up). Two large movie theaters. Eateries including, of course, a Chinese restaurant and an Italian restaurant. Two major department stores. A bakery. Clothing stores. Shoe stores.

Flushing alone had over 100,000 inhabitants. (Over 200,000 now.) It was kinda my universe.

Another “terrible” opportunity: at Bayside High School, the school nurse noticed my large overbite (aka, buck teeth) and guided me to obtain a $5,000 three-year orthodontia job. At no cost to me.

From Bayside, I applied and was accepted at Queens College, one of five city colleges in our “terrible” city. Tuition: about twelve dollars a semester. Literally free.

I graduated from Brooklyn College (another of our terrible city’s tuition-free colleges) in 1961, with a commission in the U.S. Air Force as a Second Lieutenant.

Thus started my thirty-year career as an Air Force officer.

Yeah. A Terribly Terrific place to grow up. It marked me forever.

What’s it like now? The media still paints New York as dangerous. I don’t know for sure. But I suspect it still holds its opportunities for a young kid who wants to make something of himself, who’s willing to walk a few blocks and catch a bus and do the hard work.

It sure did that for me.

Enuf.

In my senior years, it has struck me that we make many of our life-affecting decisions when our heads are full of mush and we know so very little about life. In other words, between 18 and 25 years of age.

Those are the years when we confidently decide things our older selves will spend the next 60+ years living with.

I recently had the privilege of speaking with my grand nephew in med school, struggling to decide which branch of medicine to pursue. I also spoke with an honor student in law school wondering what field of law to follow.

But those aren’t the only weighty decisions made with mush for brains.

• Who will I spend the rest of my life with?
• Where should I spend it?
• What do I want to do with my life?

It’s a true Crap Shoot, with similar probabilities of success.

For any healthy young man of my generation, one life-affecting decision had already been partially made. At age 18 you were required to register for the draft. You were going to serve somehow.

You had three primary options.

1. You could wait to be “drafted.” That meant at least two years as a U.S. Army enlisted man.

2. You could join the Reserves. I called that the six-month, rest-of-your-life plan. Six months active duty. Then you were in the Army Reserve Corps and could be called to duty for several years. Perhaps in the midst of a promising civilian career. Or at a very difficult time to be yanked away from your budding family.

3. Or, if you were in New York City and fortunate enough to be accepted into Queens College, one of five essentially free colleges in that city, you had another choice.

I was standing with my best friend, Oleh, talking. I looked across the campus about 50 yards and saw some young men in blue uniforms marching and drilling.

“What’s that all about?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s ROTC,” he said. “If you join and stay in that program for your four years here, you will be commissioned in the Air Force as an officer when you graduate.”

Hmmm. I liked the sound of that.

Within a week, I had one of those blue uniforms and was enrolled in AFROTC. That’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. I took an elective class called Air Science in which they taught you about our Air Force, military customs and way of life, aviation and the art of war — all subjects I knew absolutely nothing about.

During my short time at Queens College I learned a lot. I especially relished my time with my ROTC colleagues, many of whom are still dear friends some 65 years later.

As it turned out, that moment — that glance across a college campus by a young man with mush for brains — was the spark that ignited a rewarding, somewhat successful 30-year career as an Air Force officer.

But sparks don’t burn long without tending.

In my junior year, after being accepted into the Advanced Corps of AFROTC, which essentially guaranteed a commission, the program at Queens College was discontinued. But…Brooklyn College still had AFROTC.

Welcome to a two-hour commute each school day.

That was my first real test.

Was this just a whim… or was I committed?

It was more than worth it.  At Brooklyn College I came into my own. I commanded a military honor fraternity, earned high enough grades to become a Distinguished Military Graduate, and received a “regular” commission instead of a “reserve” commission. Just a bit more job security.

The decision mattered…but sticking with it mattered more.  God bless the Air Force and the USA.

Enuf.

Flushing, NY, NY.
That wasn’t a typo. Back then, it meant Flushing, New York City, New York State.

And for a 12-year-old, lower-middle-class Catholic kid in the mid-1950s, it was the center of the universe.

Things that felt completely normal to us might have seemed unheard of in Columbus, Ohio, Columbia, South Carolina, or Robinson, Illinois. But in Flushing, this was just a typical summer Saturday. And yes, that was 74 years ago. OMG, I’m Methuselah!

Out of bed early. (8 a.m.)
Brush teeth. Comb hair. Sorta.
Get dressed: underwear, polo shirt, shorts, socks (yes, socks) and sneakers.

Make the bed. Do a few quick chores. Take out the trash. Put away the dishes. Straighten up the room.

Slop down a quick breakfast. Cold cereal.

Out the door by 9.

First stop: Kenny’s townhouse.
Stand on the street and yell, “Hey, Kenny!”

Watch the window. Sometimes his grandma appeared, frowning. Was she waving? Or shaking a fist? Hard to tell.

If I was lucky, Kenny came bounding out.

Next stop: Tommy’s house, three doors up 194th Street.
“Hey, Tommy!”

Now we were three.

We had a Spaldeen, that small, pink, high-bounce rubber ball I talked about before, and a broomstick left over from last week. What else did three kids need on a Saturday morning in New Yawk?

A wall.

Five blocks away at the local park, we found one. We drew a big chalk rectangle for a strike zone and discussed the rules for the upcoming showdown.

Then we played stickball.

Kenny batted first. He stood by the wall.
I pitched from 50-ish feet away.
Tommy fielded behind me near the fence.

Three strikes, or a clean catch, and you were done (out).
A ball off the lower fence was a single.
Mid-fence was a double.
High fence, a triple.
Over the fence? Home run, baby!

There was always lots of discussion.

We could play like that for hours.

But by lunchtime, we had other plans.

Each of us went home and wolfed down a quick bologna sandwich or some other cold cut. Then we headed back out, each with about a dollar’s worth of change we’d saved or mooched from Mom or Dad.

A great movie was playing at Loew’s Prospect Theater in downtown Flushing:
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

For 15 cents out of our dollar, we took the bus to Main Street.

Four blocks to the bus stop.
15 cents for the ride.

25 cents for a ticket.

And suddenly we were in air-conditioned Valhalla.

Air conditioning was truly a luxury back then. We were cool (literally) for a couple of hours.

When the movie ended, it was back on the bus and home by 5 p.m.

Three boys, ages 11 to 13, roaming the big, bad city on their own.

Nobody got robbed.
Nobody got abducted.
Nobody got beaten up.

Just another typical summer Saturday in the big, dirty, fantastic city of New York.

Enuf.

I was a strongly practicing Catholic from about age 12 to 20, while living in New York. Slightly unique, since there was no family encouragement whatsoever. My mom tolerated my Catholicism. She was sort of anti-Catholic due to some bad teacher memories she had from attending convent school as a young girl.

One thing I observed being raised in Queens, New York City: our population consisted overwhelmingly of Catholics and Jews. Protestants were only about 10 percent. I knew a couple. Most of my neighborhood friends were Catholic and went to St Luke’s Catholic School. I was one of few that went to Public School (PS) 32.

Probably, due partly to peer pressure, I checked on what it would take to join the Catholic church. Luckily, my mom christened me as a Catholic at birth. But, I needed to attend Religious instruction at the Catholic school and receive my first holy communion and my confirmation.

That was a significant challenge. Typically, Catholic children, at the direction of their parents, attend religious instruction for their first holy communion, at about 7 years old. I was 12. Sooooo I attended Catholic instruction every Wednesday afternoon from 2-3pm, at St Lukes, with several 7-year olds. PS 32 supported that decision and even provided bus transportation. Oh yeah, that was fun.

The good news was that I was able to attend the religious instruction for my Confirmation the following year with 12-13 year olds. Archbishop Molloy confirmed me with my chosen confirmation name, Joseph, in 1952. So, I was then, Donald Roy Joseph Scooler.

As a confirmed Catholic, I attended mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation. I went to confession at least once a month. I also took Lent, holy week and Easter very seriously.

I thought a bunch about my typical Good Friday two days ago, Good Friday, 2025. It has been about 65 years since I practiced the following event. I would go to my church at about noon. From noon to three, the hours Jesus suffered on the cross, I would stay at church and walk through the 14 stations of the cross displayed there. I would pray and meditate at each station, and repeat the cycle for three hours. If you wanna know more about the Stations of the Cross, just Google it.

Catholicism played a major role in my young life for about 8 years. I still remember how good I felt after Saturday afternoon Confession. And, how scared I was before. Also, how I finagled to get Father Martin in the Confessional rather than Father Dillon, so I wouldn’t get yelled at.

I now look upon that time of my life with fond memories. It encompasses the most educational and life affecting time of my life. Wow, that’s a little scary. Enuf.

One of the true signs you’re an adult is when you observe a personal problem and look in the mirror at the person who must solve that problem. Believe me. It’s a good feeling. Here’s a small example.

It’s June,1961. I had just graduated from Brooklyn College and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the US Air Force. I’m 22 years old with a head full of mush, but I’m a New Yorker. I know everything, right? LOL
Many New Yorkers don’t drive. Don’t have a car and don’t need one. Buses and Subways work just fine for inner city commuting. Fine…if you stay in New York.
In mid June I look at at some important mail from USAF to me. No surprise, but still a shock. I’m hereby ordered to James Connolly AFB in Waco, Texas for ten months of navigator training. Report date-Aug 29. OMG. Let’s see how’s mass transportation in Waco? None. Uh oh. I need to learn how to drive and get a license in less than 3 months. Ok. Get your ass in gear.
First, I signed up for some driving lessons. Had no car, but they provided one. Had some money for that because I was working at the Post Office part time.
Took a few lessons. Then applied for a NY Drivers License and went to DMV for written and driving test. Aced written and scheduled driving test. Busted first test by bumping curb while parallel parking. Oops. Now what?
Took couple more lessons and rescheduled test one week before heading to Texas. Hooray, I passed.

They mailed my NY driver’s license to my Post Office box at James Connolly. Problem solved. But not by much.
Most Importantly, I solved it myself. A sure sign of adulthood. And maybe even officer material. Anyway, I was proud of myself. For a while at least. Enuf

Flushing, Queens, NYC. Circa 1950. I was 11 and couldn’t wait for the first real snowfall, usually about November 25th Snow meant sleigh riding. (Not one horse, but actually, one boy). You carried your sleigh, or maybe your big folded-over cardboard box, up a hill near your neighborhood. There was always at least one hill, even in the big city.
I had a sleigh. Can’t remember how I got it. Maybe a hand-me-down from my older brother. It wasn’t called Rosebud. I called it “sleigh.” You ran and rode your sleigh on your belly down the hill, only to have to carry it back up the hill to ride it down again.
If you had a big box, you’d tear it down and just sit on one end of it and fold it over your feet and up to your waste. You then rode it down the hill.
Somehow, we thought that was great fun. Lord help us, we didn’t have an iPhone to entertain us inside. We went outside, got cold and wet and laughed a helluva lot. Poor us.
Time marches on. It’s now January, 1956, I’m a junior at Bayside High School. It snowed last night and roads were impassable and a miracle happened. They closed the school. No freakin E-learning. We actually got a day off. So did the teachers. It’s sleigh ride, snow ball fight, or if you can get to Central Park, ice skating time. We again welcomed the snow.

Since I didn’t have a car. Lotsa New Yorkers didn’t have cars. Where the hell do you park it? Why do you need one? Mass transit worked well. We had buses, subways, and taxis ( for the rich). To get to college I just took two buses. I walked two blocks to catch the Q28 bus to Downtown Flushing. From there with a free transfer, I caught the Q44 bus to Queens College. Took close to an hour.
Reverse to come home. Worked great usually. Snow was a problem. They slowed a bunch and waiting on the corner for 30 minutes when it’s 20 degrees and snowing ain’t fun.
Snow was not so delightful then. It was just a delay maker. Not much time for sleigh riding.
It was also a pain when I needed to go to my orthodontist monthly, but doable.

Life goes on. I’m now an Air Force captain, married with three young’uns and my lovely wife from Charleston. She never saw snow until the Air Force, and I dragged her first to Ohio where she quickly fell on her behind in the icy snow. From then on she actually hated the sweet white flurries.
So the Air Force and I thought it would be a good idea to take this southern flower to Denver, Colorado in 1970. Smart move, Don. Whenever we awakened and it was snowing, Marjorie looked out the window and said “Sheeit”. Great start to a day. Snow had evolved from a “can’t wait” phenomenon to an “Oh Sheeit” phenom.

Time passes a bunch. After a 22 year absence, the Air Force finally got us back to Charleston in September, 1989. On Christmas Eve of that fateful year, while we were in full recovery mode from Hugo, Charleston experienced a record 6 inch snowfall in a blizzard. The base and city were shut down. We had to get snow removal equipment from Lockbourne AFB, Ohio, since we had none. It ain’t sposed to snow in Charleston.
The snow removal equipment arrived quickly and the base was fully operational in about 24 hours. Just another challenge. LOL. Snow kinda sucks.

We survived that challenge too. Two years later, 1991, I retired from the Air Force and we stayed in Charleston, of course.
We moved into a third story condo unit on the Charleston Battery. Thank God it’s got an elevator. We’ve now been there 33 years. Yesterday we had a bad snow and ice storm. Only about 3 inches, but very cold and lotsa black ice. My wife and I are in our eighties with serious mobility challenges. Snow and ice are treacherous to us. From shear delight, through minor inconvenience to major hindrance. We are almost prisoners of our condo unit until the freakin snow melts. Snow sucks. Enuf.