Old Brooklynites Understand

© Lionel Martinez

If you ain't from Brooklyn, just forget this; you wouldn't understand.

You're truly from Brooklyn if you can relate to any of the following:

1.Alternate side of the street parking.

2.Ate at Chock Full O' Nuts Shops (date nut bread and powdered
donuts that were crunchy).

3.Ate dinner every Sunday night at Fong Fongs on Church Avenue.

4.Ate Italian food at Collaro's on Coney Island Ave.

5.Bought bobka at the original Ebingers on Flatbush Avenue. Or
Butterbun on Nostrand Ave.

6.Bought Ebinger's Black-Out Cake (and didn't count the calories)

7.Bought knishes from Mrs. Stahls in Brighton, or Ruby the Kinish
Man.

8.Bought knishes on the beach and didn't mind the sand.

9.Bought pickles out of a barrel. The salt made you pucker.

10.Can name all the Brooklyn High Schools. Just try and do that today


11.Don't speak with an accent - everybody else does.

12.Drove over the Marine Park Bridge for a 10-cent toll, and Brooklyn
Battery Tunnel for 35 cents.

13.Everybody knows somebody from the neighborhood, even if it is
your mother's cousin's son-in-law's sister's boyfriend.

14.Got a "Kitchen Sink" at Jahn's.

15.Got a J.D. card and feeling like Al Capone.

16.Had a prom date at the Club Elegante.

17.Had roller skates with keys.

18.Hand ball in the park.

19.Hit two sewers in punch ball.

20.It's not the "shore", its the "beach" idiot.

21.Kings Plaza.... how come we get the crappy mall?

22.Knew who the neighborhood wise guy was, but you'd never tell the
cops.

23.Know that NBC's main production studio is on Avenue M.

24.Know what E.J. Korvettes stands for (Eight Jewish Korean
Veterans).

25.Know what the F.W.I.L. on the Lundy's Restaurant in "The Bay"
stands for (It's the brothers, Frederick, William, Irving and
Louis).

26.Know, or at least your hips do, what a Charlotte Russe is.

27.Owned a pair of pumps from Miles or National's.

28.Played at ( Eddy) Faber's Fascination and Skeeball - saved tickets
for junk.

29.Played hide and go seek at dusk.

30.Played Hit The Penny, Stoop Ball, Skelly, and Potsy.

31.Private beach? What's that?

32.Remember a time when the Greeks didn't own ALL the diners and
the Koreans didn't own ALL fruit stands. Except the Greeks on
Utica and Church, where you just said going to the Greeks for
lunch.

33.Remember Bohack's, Packer's, and Smilen Brothers fruit stand.

34.Remember Coney Island fireworks every Tuesday night in the
summer. Watching from your roof.

35.Remember submarine race watching at Plumb Beach. Heck, if you
even know where Plumb Beach is.

36.Sheepshead Bay is for fishing and seafood.

37.Shopped on Fulton Street and Pitkin Ave. before the mall and all
the dreck.

38.Swear that Grabstein's Deli had the l-e-a-n-e-s-t pastrami.

39.The first bar that you hung out in when you were 15 is "so young
now".

40.There is a bagel bakery a few blocks away.

41.There is at least one pizzeria within 1 block of your house and a
candy store on the corner.

42.Thought "Buddy's Fairyland Kiddie Park" on Utica Ave. was a major
amusement park.

43.Thought going "away to college" means NYU, Pace, or Pratt.

44.Waited for the Good Humor or Bungalow Bar guy to come around
your block.

45.Walked along the Coney Island Boardwalk, with a Shatzkins knish.

46.Washed it down with a Sunny Boy orange drink.

47.Went to a Bar Mitzvah at the Colonial Mansion, sometimes two on a
weekend.

48.Went to Big Daddy's on Coney lsand Avenue as a change from
Nathan's.

49.Went to Brennan and Carr for a double dip roast beef that dripped
all over you.

50.Went to Murray the K rock concerts at the Brooklyn Fox or the
Brooklyn Paramount. Went the night before for good seats.

51.Went to Saturday matinees at the Oriental, Canarsie, Kingsway,
Avalon, Rugby, Sheepshead, Mayfair or Marlboro theaters.

52.You ate at the Horn and Hardart Automat.

53.You can correctly pronounce places like Long I-land, but aren't
exactly sure where it begins.

54.You curse. A lot. Or can at least out curse anyone from anywhere
else.

55.You don't go to Manhattan, you go to "The City."

56.You have no reason to go to Queens, except for Met games.

57.You know and go to the REAL Nathan's - Coney Island.

58.You know someone with mob ties.

59.You know the difference between going with, seeing, fooling around
with and going out with someone.

60.You know what a "johnny pump" is.

61.You love "Welcome Back Kotter" (and not because of the crisp
writing or great acting).

62.You made a scooter from orange crates and an old skate.

63.You made carpet guns that shot old linoleum projectiles.

64.You never realize you have an accent until you leave.

65.You waited for the rides on a truck to come to your neighborhood
for 10 cents a ride.

66.You walk down "The Avenue" and see at least a handful of the
people you knew growing up.

67.Your friends came over to hang out on the stoop.

68.You've had a pigeon crap on your car and/or your head.

AND the most important reason that you are a Brooklynite, or at least
have the soul of one, is You're still angry that the Dodgers left.