Scratch On The Stoop

In fact all of the events of the summer just unveiled were paled in comparison to the first Sunday in August. Indeed, the significant, the most significant event that still remains somewhat shrouded, and has mystically guided my life ever since took place during an hour, which was occupied by only me and Mother Nature. Although Bruce was assigned the task of babysitting every night, he often waited for my mother and father to leave in the band’s bus to go to the hotel. He would then run over to see his friend Artie. There, they would smoke and drink beer and talk. And even when my father was off, my folks did not have the ability to sit' at home like most of families. They were musicians, entertainers and they enjoyed the right of passage, that is, to do what they will. They deviated their schedule every single night throughout my childhood. Needless to say my brother Bruce had been hurt on both ends in that they abandoned him to our grandparents and then abandoned both of us in ...

My Father, Herm Scratchenton, took a job with the band at DelMonicos upstate in Saratoga in the summer of 1948. DelMonicos was located in a very large structure almost in the middle of Saratoga’s downtown. But we lived out of town in a cabin in a camp on Lonely Lake. Before World War Two, Saratoga had the makeup of a midsized metropolis in the country. A number of large Victorian hotels gave the town a cultivated presence; local residents were given to flaunt their own homes as well as the town’s great public spaces with their internationally famous racecourse. There’s the famous Saratoga Springs, which brought many of the populace to the area in the first place. The residential area around the downtown hub was designed to a density of about six homes per acre, on a grid of tree-lined streets. Beyond the residential neighborhoods were the farms. Beyond the farms was the wooded forest. The band had about twenty musicians and four or five show girls. The only showgirl I remember was H...

Everybody in NYC, and I guess everybody in every city all over the world, understands that the stoop is the home base in many different ways. It is the beginning and end of the day. It is where people talk about things. It is where girlfriend and boyfriend sit with each other in silence watching a stick ball game across the street. The stoop is a second home for most young people in the cities all over the world. Over the years that I’ve sat on my stoop many people have come by to sit with me and share stories. My friends have been here; my wives and my lovers have all sat on the stoop with me. And we’d share stories. For some reason, I decided to tell you about all the things that have happened to me.  The possibility of remembering these things with any exactitude is remote so what I tell you likely has little relevance to what actually happened; it’s chancy at best and likely a series of exaggerations. That doesn't stop me however. I’m from Queens. It’s what we do on the stoop,...