the "pooch"

Yesterday I told you of another of my time travels—one of the journeys I have taken into the past.  Okay, it was a journey I took in the present and didn’t cross any time/space continua.  It was another trip to 44^th Street.  While I was driving up and down 44^th Street, I remember seeing the garage door of a neighborhood house partially open and partly ajar.  It was obvious the door was broken and didn’t work.  I would not open or close because the lower two panels were broken loose from the rest of the door and just hanging there.  I could see into the garage and there was no car there.

But, once upon a time, there was.  And, that is where my story about the pooch begins.

We had a couple of neighbors within a block of our house on 44^th Street who worked at the same place my father did.  One of them was in the large, fancy house at the end of the block, next to the school yard.  He was one of the “big wheels” as my father would say.  The other guy lived almost across the street from the bosses house, but his house was more modest, and, just coincidentally, it was the one whose garage door was both a door and ajar.

If my memory is good (and that is currently at question) the guy who lived in that house was named John, and he was just a few years older than me, but he and my father knew each other really well.  Dad told me that there was a “Pooch” in John’s garage.  I made a quip that I didn’t know John was a dog fancier and why would he keep a dog in his garage?

That kind of angered the old man and he raised his voice a bit and said something like:

“It’s not a dog you dumb ass.  It’s a car!”

Even back then, in addition to being a bit of a smart aleck, I was pretty sophisticated and had already reasoned that there was a Porsche behind that properly-functioning-at-the-time garage door.  Dad and I walked up to see it and it was an un-restored Porsche 356A in somewhat rough condition.  I believe John said he had plans to fix it up when he had the money.

When I drove past that broken garage door the day before yesterday, I probably would not have thought anything about it, had it not been for something I saw on CNBC last week.  They were at an automobile auction, which was to be one of the largest in the United States this year and they showed a Ferrari or some exotic sports car in mint condition that was to bring a price in the multi-millions of dollars.  Next to it was a 1950s vintage Porsche 356A, un-restored and in rough condition.  Robert Frank, who was the guy doing the report said that it was expected—despite its rust and deteriorated seat cushions—to bring $300,000 at auction.

Like Aesop, I need to end this story with some sort of moral, so here it goes.  On the way back down 44^th Street the night Dad and I looked at the 356A, my father made a comment about how John would sink money into the rust bucket and not have anything to show for it.  And, maybe that would be true.  However, if he had the foresight to keep it un-restored for 45 years, it may have been worth something. 

My dad was a wise man, but it is not always easy to predict what the future will bring.  As a matter of fact, I think I may have agreed with him that night.  I am going to be offering some advice tonight and I think I may keep this story in mind when I do it.  When I am asked to predict the future tonight, I will be able to say one thing with certainty:  you just never know.

escape from the old neighborhood

Yesterday I drove back into a neighborhood where I used to live to look at a house I saw for sale and the neighborhood where it is located.  It was more of an experience than I planned on.

First, the house was pretty solid and well built, but it is 75 years old and shows some wear.  I liked the house because it was dirt cheap and the pictures of the house shows it has two marble bathrooms and the interior walls are all covered with hardwood planks and not drywall.  The exterior is stone and it was, at one time, probably something special.  I am guessing someone with money lived there.

The house was two blocks from where my maternal grandmother and step-grandfather lived when I was a teenager, so I had some familiarity with the area.  I am guessing, though, by the events that occurred, I will not be calling the realtor for a showing.

Just before I got there, I saw a half-dozen police cars with sirens blaring and at high speed pass by a block from the house.  I later learned that there had been a double homicide about six blocks away from the house five minutes before I got there.  I continued to hear sirens as I circumnavigated the neighborhood and got a look at the exterior of the house and yard.  When I left the neighborhood, I saw half a dozen more police cars-- sirens on and speeding toward north and east.

I was only a couple of miles from where the North Forty-Fourth Street Sidewalk Surfing Association used to ply their craft.  Since I was a former member and a resident of 44th Street, I figured I would drive by the old homestead.

Forty-forth street has fallen into disrepair, but the trees along the side of the street have matured creating a park-like atmosphere, but some of the houses show signs of being anything but park-like. Our old house is there but it is forty years distant from me.

When I left the area, I had to wait for a light at 47th and Parallel and a couple of gentlemen who were also waiting for the light decided to call each other out and got out of their cars and started fighting. Some young man, who apparently knew one of them jumped into the melee and started swinging and knocked one of the guys to the ground.  Then the kid jumped into his car and left.  It was other-worldly.

As I drove home, I saw a car beside the road that had obviously went off the road and been demolished with a fire truck attending to it.  Another mile down the road, two more cars had collided and there was a tow truck gathering them up.

Two deaths; one melee and two wrecks later I was heading west and back home, away from the old neighborhood and toward the current one.  I guess the current neighborhood is where I will choose to stay.

But tomorrow I will tell you more about 44th street and the "Pooch."