MELLOW ROLLS & SUCH

Egg creams, mellow rolls, roasted chestnuts, dirty water franks, knishes, all the culture of a 10-year old in the heart of Brooklyn. There were bakeries that baked fresh Italian bread every morning calling you to a new morning. Then on Sundays, pastries shops, Mondays: pickle factories that fed the air with the distinctive smell of Kosher pickles fermenting in big wooden barrels, and of course, ice cream parlors, with their long counters and stools, small tables for two and shoemakers, when you enter you smell the fresh cut of leather and shoe shine polish.

You couldn't go through a neighborhood without the smell of pizza! Italian restaurants seeded with the cooking style from the old country, you could go through the streets and find a beer maker or two, all lending themselves that distinct beer hops odor that permeated both the streets and bars, life was an orgy of wonderful smells.

That was Brooklyn in the 1950's, almost a food festival from sunup until sundown.

Of course, it wasn't just food. No, there were the fig trees and the grape vines that carried over the pond from the homeland, be it Italy or Germany or anywhere in Europe. There was the pride of making your own wine and bottling it by the gallons.

You hopped on a subway and the odor of the steel rails squeaking against the steel wheels of the IND or BMT as they plowed into the station. You could jump on a bus and head into NYC, Queens and the Bronx, you could go anywhere you wanted.

There were at least three Catholic churches and two Catholic schools all within walking distance, as well as the public elementary schools, junior high and high schools.

Mom and pop were the foundations of the neighborhood, from the kitchen table to the local store. Delis, bakeries, vegetable and fish stores and shoemakers, as well as dress shops and jewelry stores, all owned by mom and pop.

And the parks, so many and so green amongst the concrete jungle and overhead rails, dot the country bringing relief and calm to an otherwise hectic and busy life.

If you never lived in Brooklyn I wish you had, it was a special place in a special time.