The Cranberry Rumble
G. Murphy Donovan (November 2013)
Margaret Hickey lived on the edge. Hers was the last house, on the right, at the top of Rhinelander Avenue, the site of a horse racing tower in colonial days when the Bronx was Dutch. Her neighbors on three sides were the NY Central rail yards, Bronx Park, and a section of the borough called Van Nest. In those days, and surely today, the east Bronx made the south Bronx look like a destination resort.
The virtues of a stand-alone pigeon coop were not lost on Marge Hickey, but husband and lawman Jack thought a moratorium on all livestock at the top of his little Van Nest hill was a better idea.
All the while, big Jack would deftly twirl his nightstick in his right hand and punctuated the chat with a baton bounce. The nightstick bounce was a maneuver mastered by all uniforms back in a time when cops actually walked a beat.
The idea was to throw the stick to the pavement, have it strike on the blunt end, and bounce back to the hand. An accomplished flatfoot could bounce and catch the club without looking. And back then, all uniforms wore an intimidating shade of midnight blue.
There was a time in New York City when cops were the good guys.
If you pass through the unlit tunnel under the rail tracks behind the Hickey house you emerge into the west woods of Bronx Park. The little used dirt track there was a shortcut, by foot, over to Fordham Road. Long before Fordham Road and the Zoo entrance appear, a hiker would have to navigate a steep hill. This was a favorite sledding spot for Van Nest youngsters when there was snow.
Bronx Park was not without hazards either, mainly distance and trees. And many a hazard was cultivated, like snow moguls on the steepest parts of the hill. A natural jump was a bonus. On one occasion, a well-used mogul yielded a frozen hand which in turn was attached to a larger frozen body.
Many a summer evening, a gaggle of kids would parade up Rhinelander Avenue on their way to that shortcut through the woods to the Bronx Zoo. On those warm nights, the entrance to the zoo on Fordham Road was flanked by at least two Good Humor ice cream trucks.
The kids would disappear behind the Founds with a tailwind of nervous laughter and collective shudders.
The dining table had an infinite set of leaves and would extend well into the living room. This literal groaning board had to be braced with folding chairs in the middle.
Other Thanksgivings were more congenial.
The Hickey house and kitchen was cleared of cousins on most Thanksgiving mornings by high school football, the annual match between Cardinal Hayes and Mount Saint Michael, a kind of grit versus twit bowl. The Mount was located in a tony neighborhood and Hayes was located in, well, another part of the Bronx.
Saint Peter’s, the Catholic outpost in the financial district, near Wall Street.
The early football game would occupy the youngsters while Marge Hickey orchestrated her sisters as they prepared a feast for twenty or more. Priest and children would usually return before 3 PM, half frozen and totally famished.
As we get older we tend to live imaginatively in the past.
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