My Bronx Tale - Episode 3

PENNY CANDY, ETHER AND MR. ADLER

Episode 3 continues with a memory I previously wrote about on February 24, 2010 in a post called Dance With My Father. I believe it deserves repeating here. 

It is one of my earliest memories of me and my Dad. I was probably around seven years old.

We didn’t own a car so Dad had to take the bus to work. I was playing outside when I saw him come out of our apartment building. I asked if I could go to work with him. He told me no. I persisted and even started crying saying that I wanted to go with him. I followed him all the way to the end of the street all the while asking, “Can I go, please, please, can I go with you?” He continued to tell me he couldn’t take me with him. He worked in a plastics factory on the night shift—no place for a child. Finally, with me standing there crying, and him having to go or he would miss his bus, he handed me a dime and told me to go buy myself some penny candy. I reluctantly accepted his “bribe” and watched him as he crossed the street and walked out of sight to the bus stop. 

Me and Mike on the first day of school 1958. 

In the background is the corner by the drug store

where I begged my dad to take me to work with him.   

Penny candies abounded in that store!

The same corner today. They painted the 

brick and did away with the window in the store. 

Times have indeed changed.

The next story I want to tell is not a pleasant memory for me and was probably the cause of my love/hate relationship with dentists.  My mother could not tell me exactly how old I was or any of the circumstances surrounding this memory.

I had a problem with a tooth.  It hurt—bad.  I was crying because it hurt so much.  There was a dentist just down the block. I remember being carried by my mother as she walked from our building to the dentist’s office.

When we entered the office, I knew this was not a place I wanted to be. Smell? Sound? Something spooked me. I tried squirming out of my mother’s arms while screaming that I wanted to go home. I made such a big commotion that the dentist came out and escorted my mother and me to one of the empty rooms. I was put in the dental chair and screamed as the dentist came at me with a wad of gauze filled with ether. I fought a good fight but he eventually overpowered me. When he was done fixing whatever was wrong with my tooth, he told my mother to never bring me back there again. Ha ha, I was too much for him!

After that fiasco, Mom started taking us to a dentist several blocks away.  We had to take a bus to get there.  That dentist was so nice.  He had something he called “sweet air” that made me calm. He also had the best tasting sugar free gum that he gave us before we left. I didn’t mind going. Fortunately for me, I had good teeth and never had many cavities, which stayed true for most my adult life.

The evil dentist’s office was located on the stick part 

of the lollipop up these stairs somewhere in this building.   

Who knows what horrors take place in there today?

Before we end today’s episode, I must tell you about a sweet and gentle man I knew by the name of Mr. Adler [pronounced Ahdler].  He lived in our building on the third floor. He was friendly to everyone who passed him by.  You see, Mr. Adler was in a wheelchair and Mrs. Adler would bring him downstairs and park his wheelchair just outside the door at the back stoop [porch for those who don't know what a stoop is] of our building. 

Mr. Adler was the first person I’d ever met who was in a wheelchair.

He would be on the back stoop in the mornings and in the afternoons talking

with people who went in and out of the building. He would also watch the

children playing in the lollipop. He was a very friendly man.

My family came to know Mr. Adler from walking past him each day and saying hello. As soon as he discovered both he and my mother were from Vienna, Austria, they became instant friends. He came to visit us a few times in our apartment and I knew my mother loved talking German when he was around. She didn’t get much opportunity for that. He liked me too—who could resist a little girl with curly blond hair?  He taught me how to count in German and also taught me a cute little song to surprise my mother. 

I have no pictures of Mr. Adler, only the ones in my mind. I can’t see his face very clearly, but I can see his smile. It was a nice smile.  In the future, I plan on doing an entire post on Mr. Adler.  There is so much more to his story that I want to tell you about.

Tomorrow’s episode is called Harold and Kumar Go To Orchard Beach.  It will be a fun read!

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Love,

~ P