SUNDAY THE THIRTEENTH

BOO!

Scared you. It’s only Sunday, the thirteenth! Superstitions were part of my childhood, growing up in Brooklyn. I can recall the walk along Stone Avenue before I cut over to MacDougal Street on my way to school, avoiding all the cracks in the sidewalks, because my older sister Tessie (much older) told me: if I did step on a crack, it would brake my mother’s back!

I worked very hard to avoid the cracks, only to realize years later, the only thing cracked was my older sister Tessie! (Much older)

Of course every ballplayer knows that stepping on the first base line was bad luck, meant you would make an error entering the field, or if you stepped on the line leaving the field, you would strike out.

My grandmother had a long hallway that led to her kitchen. The problem was it was a long DARK hallway, with a right then left turn on the way. She had an abandoned bedroom in the back of the house, where no one slept, but where she kept a picture of a dead person in a coffin. The picture was sent from Italy, and she propped it up, with a red votive candle. There was no window in the room, so the shadow from the lit candle, flickered. It scared the living crapola out of me, being I was seven. If I looked at the picture, I was afraid that the dead person would come and get me! That came from the dream I had, I looked at the picture, and the dead person somehow chased me. It was only a dream, but it stayed with me all these years. That may explain a lot.

Then there was the superstition that if I didn’t do my homework and study, the teacher would ask me the following day the questions I had no answers to. Sometimes it did happen!

Today, it seems every time I pass a church or temple in my car, some idiot does something to make me swear at him. I then realize I swore in front of God’s house, and think: “I’m dead! This is it! God will get me, and if he doesn’t, Jesus will.