Recipe for El Presidente~ El Nino

I was born in 1965 on the second day of March in Peck Memorial Hospital, in Crown Heights Brooklyn , New York , the Borough of Churches, the Epicenter of the United States if not the World. ( exactly three years to the day that the greatest basketball player in the history of the NBA tallied 100 pts against the Knickerbockers in a game played in Hershey Park PA ) I dare any candidate to match that innaugaration into the universe. I was raised on a quiet , tree lined street in Bayridge, just a pebbles kick from Byrnes Keg, aka the Bean Post. Lodi Levy lived next door, she was the token Hebrew as far we can remember, I cant remember the name of the people that lived on the other side of us, but they had a dog named Teddy and the Father always had a deck of cards with him....nice guy..always loaded.

I attended P.S. 170 kindergarten , but dropped out after fuel week, I was already bored with my contemporaries and was eager for new challenges. The best I can say for my time at 170 was an introduction to Steve Mcevoy , a classmate for life, and a heck of a drinker. Mac stayed until graduation and even took part in the May Pole celebration....I refused because it reminded of the Parades The Soviet Red Army used to hold in Moscow celebrating the birth of Communism no doubt and Lennin and Trotsky.

I attended OLA in September of 1970 and immediately astounded Sister Rose Aninna by developing my own brand of short hand. I was sent to the Pricipals office and my mother was called to the School…..they were determined to prove me wrong…..they opened up my notebook to a page from a prior month and insisted that I would not be able to make sense of what I had written…..I read back to them , verbatem, the announcements for that day……Sister Rose even read along with the sheet from the day in question……….although they conceeded that I could in fact read my own short hand , they requested that I refrain from using it…….if only I had been encouraged, instead of disouraged…..who knows what could have been….....I had my first major fistfight with Tommy Mcnicholls in the 2nd grade schoolyard because he welched on a 5 cent bet on a Ranger game.....I am not sure if ever got my money , but I know I landed some punches and Steve Mc and Jimmy Mitchell were in my corner if I needed backup...I had the proud distinction as serving as one of Miss Leons hall monitors, but quit in disgust….I was already listening to Bob Dylan and wanted no part of being a pawn for Authority.......yes it was the fifth grade, the world around us was changing, the end of Vietnam , Watergate, ....moving into the Upper Division and a royal Blue OLA tie as opposed to the dark Navy of the lower Division....My world would never be the same.......

TO BE CONTINUED.