Author Description

TALES from the STOOP Growing up in the fifties and sixties was a time to remember. As I look back, I wonder where the time has gone. Although I would prefer to now be in my thirties instead of my sixties, I will make the sacrifice to have lived through those wonderful years. Tales from the Stoop, though a work of fiction, will bring back the memories of a time gone by when a twelveyear-old and his friends could take the train to Coney Island with a sandwich rolled in a towel and not have his parents arrested for child abuse. It was a time when five- and six-year-olds could come home from school, have a glass of milk, and go out and play without the fear of being abducted. Yes, the neighborhoods in Brooklyn were tough, and the fights in the school yard were there, but a mother knew that if she came to her child's aid, the perpetrator was polite and respectful even if he did later end up in jail. The groups back in the fifties stood on the corner by the candy store and sang. Some shot craps in the school yard while we played stickball. The fifties were the fifties, and it was the time to wear greasy hair slicked back and try to be tough. Tales from the Stoop will bring back the feeling and memories of the dances, the music, and growing up at a time when families all lived near each other and life was simple but problems complex. When whoever was outside reading while his or her child played was also watching you and you knew it. When the daily trips to the corner grocery where the proprietor candled the eggs and cut butter from a huge block in his refrigerator to order was a part of life. Tales from the Stoop also deals with the sixties, a time when affluence was beginning to take hold and the rockand-roll tough mentality was changing to a more civilized good-times-let's-go-out-to-eat way of thinking. A time when parents began trading their apartments for small houses and college was the place to go. Some of us went and some didn't, but the mind-se