Back in the day my Mom used to take me to Nathan’s twice a week in Coney Island. It was “our time” and a close getaway, two blocks from our apartment complex. And an escape it was, to the well known amusement park, both dingy and beautiful at the same time. We’d knock around on the bumper cars, and enjoy a scary ride on the Cyclone before heading home.
When my grandparents came to the country, they would bring my Mom, Aunt, and Uncle to this special place… when the beaches were filled with people, towel to towel on the hot sand, and a half million visitors was a common weekend occurrence. The freaks have always been there, both in and out of the Sideshow which always made the day that much more interesting. The drunks on the outside, on the boardwalk… the crazy lady sitting on the bench that would yell at me to stop taking her photo, the crack addict stumbling into us in route to his next fix, to the great characters indoors — the human blockhead, the sword swallower, and of course the bearded lady.
Coney Island saw some of it’s worst times in the 80’s when one wouldn’t dare to walk around the neighborhood at night, alone… there was a constant smell of portions of the boardwalk burning from the bums lighting fires underneath to keep them warm, and rats the size of cats, and that folks, is no exaggeration.
So we’d spend more time in Brighton Beach, a little safer, and instead of hot dogs we ate the best calzones, sitting in the back of the pizza shop while my Mom put her disco music on the jukebox. I can almost hear the music, “first I was afraid, I was petrified, kept thinking I could never live without you by my side….” and it was a real jukebox with records, so while Gloria sang, you couldn’t miss the sound of the needle on the vinyl… and I can’t imagine how many times I asked for “We are family” and in between bites of the sicilian slices we shared, I would belt out “We are family!!” and my Mom would sing the parts I didn’t know — “Living life is fun and we’ve just begun, To get our share of the world’s delights, High hopes we have for the future, And our goal’s in sight, No we don’t get depressed, Here’s what we call our golden rule, Have faith in you and the things you do, You won’t go wrong, oh no, This is our family Jewel, yeah”
Ah, the good old days… and fortunately we still get to enjoy together as a family… even the simple moments — recently on Christmas day when my Mom, Dad, and two little brothers came over my place for the typical Jewish Christmas, with a ton of Chinese food, and some good HD programming for entertainment. We probably should have sang the song again that day, if my younger brothers even know that song they’d probably think we were nuts, but I can just assume my Mom would get up to boogy around the living room… “…we are family!!”