Chutzpah!: Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, an Actor's Life for Me

By Allen Swift

Chutzpah! Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, An Actors Life for Me is a portrait of the most fascinating individual you are likely to meet. You will be swept up in his incredible lives actor, comedian, magician, painter and writer. Allen Swift is all of them and The Man of A Thousand Voices.

A nation of baby boomers grew up on his cartoon characters from Howdy Doody and his friends, Mr. Bluster, Dilly Dally and the Flub-a-Dub, to the voices of Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Tom & Jerry, and hundreds more. For forty years there was never an hour of the day or night that his voices were not heard on over fifty thousand commercials.

Chutzpah! Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, An Actors Life for Me takes the reader from the streetwise childhood of a dreamer through the hilarious ride of making that dream come true. No one ever made it in show business that way before. No one but he could have pulled it off. This is an amazing adventure, replete with con games, the police and the Mafia, and a master storyteller tells it.

The above was written in all humility by the author of this memoir.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491769201

Allen Swift

Actor, comedian, magician, playwright Allen Swift is best known for the 50 voices and live characters he played on television’s “Howdy Doody”; as Captain Allen Swift, host of “The Popeye Show”; and as “The Man of A Thousand Voices” on television and radio commercials and animated films. He wrote and starred in “Checking Out” on Broadway and played many other roles on and off-Broadway, in regional theatres, TV and films.

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Chutzpah! Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, An Actor’s Life for Me

Copyright © 2015 Allen Swift.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover art © AL HIRSCHFELD.

Reproduced by arrangement with Hirschfeld’s exclusive representative, the

MARGO FEIDEN GALLERIES LTD., NEW YORK. www.ALHIRSCHFELD.COM

Published in The New York Times 9/24/76 titled "Allen Swift in his play

Checking Out, accompanying John Corry’s Broadway article.

HI-DIDDLE-DEE-DEE

Words By Ned Washington Music By Leigh Harline

© Copyright 1940 by Bourne Co.

Copyright Renewed

All Rights Reserved International Copyright Secured

ASCAP

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6919-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6920-1 (e)

iUniverse rev. date:  10/27/2015

Contents

Preface   If you hear voices, it’s me.

Chapter 1   The Great Depression: Street Smarts in Brooklyn

Chapter 2   The Castle on the Hill

Chapter 3   This Is the Army, Stay-ud-lin

Chapter 4   Wising Up and Beating the Odds

Chapter 5   How Do You Break into Show Business?!!

Chapter 6   This is the training ground, Kid.

Chapter 7   Finesse

Chapter 8   Howdy Doody: A Kid in a Candy Shop

Chapter 9   Captain Allen Swift Sets Sail

Chapter 10   Lew’s Laces, Economics 101 in a Communist State, and Affordable Housing in Park Slope

Chapter 11   Cal and Syndividual Commercials A Close Shave

Chapter 12   Producing and Reproducing

Chapter 13   Inside Tracks and Soul Food

More Photos

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

Also by Allen Swift

Checking Out

A Comedy in Two Acts

© 1975 by Allen Swift (aka) Ira Stadlen

Samuel French Inc., Publisher

Preface

If you hear voices, it’s me.

How do you like that son of a bitch? He talks like a pencil. The producer jumped into the air and clicked his heels. The search was over. He and the copywriter were beside themselves with joy and relief. They had auditioned over a hundred actors the day before, to no avail. Allen Swift had not been available then. Today he was, and they knew this was probably their last chance. If Swift couldn’t do it, they might have to scrap the whole concept.

I’m the son of a bitch they were talking about. I am an actor who has developed a reputation for being able to sound like anyone—or anything. When I got off the elevator at the BBD&O Advertising Agency, both men were waiting to greet me. They were in their shirtsleeves, looking as if they were carrying the cares of the world on their shoulders.

Swifty! Boy, are we glad to see you. We have one hell of a goddamned problem. We auditioned everyone in New York. I mean, who knows what the hell a pencil sounds like?

Fellows, please, I said in a manner calculated to allay their fears. It’s no problem. Is it a mechanical pencil or wood?

It’s wood—a regular pencil, the copywriter answered.

Is it round or hexagonal shaped? I asked.

They looked at the storyboard, a series of panel drawings of the commercial in question. It was hexagonal.

I said, In that case, it’s not a problem. Is there an eraser on top?

Both men said yes with notes of excitement and hope in their voices.

That’s it? I asked. That’s the big problem? Give me the script.

The producer handed it to me. I headed toward the mike stand but paused to ask one more question: I take it the softness or hardness of the lead is not in question?

No, no, the copywriter said, but the producer equivocated. "Well, I don’t think it should be too hard; I mean, the pencil should be likable."

Gotcha, I said. Let’s go for a number two.

This story might sound crazy, but this type of scenario has been part of my daily life for the past half century. During that time, I have racked up over fifty thousand voice-over commercials and become something of a legend in the industry. How much of this was due to my talent and how much to my chutzpah is something I, myself, have questioned.

Chutzpah is a Yiddish word that has worked its way into the English vernacular. Its meaning, according to the Free Online Dictionary is utter nerve. That definition, however, can be misleading. A person with utter nerve might crash a party to which he was not invited. The person with chutzpah would, at the same time, convince the host he was invited. (As you can see, I have the chutzpah to improve on the dictionary’s definition.)

As a child of the Great Depression, I had two goals. The first was to make a living; the second was to make that living as an actor. As a stand-up comedian, I ridiculed commercials in my act. So how did I become an actor who hawked soapsuds and foodstuffs for a living? It was a total accident.

Somehow I managed to get one voice-over commercial. It was for AT&T. Scale for actors at the time was thirty-five dollars per session. That was what I expected to receive, but a check arrived in the mail for $1,700. I was sure the check-printing machine had gone crazy, and I wrestled with the moral question of whether to cash the check or report the mistake. I reported it and was told the payment was not a mistake; it was for the session fee plus the residuals for the first thirteen weeks.

Well, if voice-over commercials were that lucrative, I decided I’d make myself the king of voice-overs. The result was that while I’ve earned close to a star’s salary for forty years, I’m probably the least-recognizable actor in show business. A small cadre of cartoon buffs know my name from the credits for hundreds of character voices I’ve created on records, animated films, and television shows, such as Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Tom and Jerry, Diver Dan, and many others. Or they know me from the thirty-five live and puppet characters I played on the legendary Howdy Doody Show, including Howdy, or from my run as the bearded Captain Allen Swift on The Popeye Show. But my face is unknown to the general public.

Now, obviously, there’s more to the pencil story than my allegedly uncanny ability to sound like an inanimate object. I was using my reputation as The Man of a Thousand Voices to sell those admen security. The other actors auditioning could not compete with that. With all deference to them, the advertising business breeds insecurity. This might have been the first commercial they’d done that required a voice for an inanimate object, while I did them every day. I have talked for lamps, mailboxes, beer cans, sinks, and even a toilet bowl. I simply put a voice to the object that seemed right for it. If the object could talk, that was how it might sound.

And in the case of people, when sports figures, such as Mickey Mantle, appeared in commercials, it was often my voice emanating from their mouths. The sponsors wanted celebrities but were often unhappy with the way these icons delivered their messages. I duplicated their voices but gave them the kind of inflection and pizzazz the sponsor needed.

I can’t say I’m proud of everything I did in order to survive and reach my goal as an actor, nor am I apologizing for any of it. I admit I’m a tricky guy. I used my magic—my cunning, talents, drive, and chutzpah—to make it. Together, it all worked, and I had many laughs along the way.

I came into this world as Ira Stadlen. How I became Allen Swift will be revealed later.

001_a_abc.jpg

The Man of 1000 Voices, photo by Cal Stadlen, Time Magazine, Aug. 31, 1962

Chapter 1

The Great Depression: Street Smarts in Brooklyn

I grew up during The Great Depression. The experience contributed to my success. There’s nothing like a childhood in poverty for developing drive – the drive to get out of it! If I came home from school and found our furniture out on the street, I knew we had been dispossessed again. That was the way things were. You rented an apartment and received three months free rent. They called it concession. Maybe your family scraped together enough money to cover one or two more months, and then you were dispossessed again. They put your furniture out on the street and the cycle started all over.

It made sense. Why should my parents have to pay the moving men to bring down our furniture?

My mother was a great philosopher. She made us believe that anything that cost money was no good. In restaurants, you get poison, she’d say. She would point to a man in the street and say, See that poor man? Look how he looks. He eats all his meals in restaurants.

My brother, Cal, was nine years older than I and my childhood hero. He was wiry and muscular and strong. He was a short man but, of course, I didn’t recognize that then. He was, after all, my big brother. He moved quickly and had a way of walking on his toes with the grace of a dancer, and in manner and looks he resembled James Cagney. He was pugnacious, too, like the characters Cagney often played, and he got himself into many fights, always with bigger men. The fact that he won those fights was not lost on me. I spread his fame around the neighborhood and charged my friends a marble or a trading card to come up and feel my brother’s biceps. No one had more influence on me or filled me with greater love. These feelings were to last a lifetime.

The Walt Disney cartoon film Pinocchio came out during my youth, and I was taken with the song Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, An Actor’s Life for Me. Who knew those words would become my mantra? As the years passed, my mother would refer to me as her Playboy of the Western World. This was in sharp contrast to my brother and sister, who were a great deal older and bore the responsibility of working to help support the family.

We lived in many places, but our longest stay was in a four-story apartment house in Brooklyn, the basement of which was a maze of nooks and crannies, with hiding places that were both sinister and exciting. I was five years old before I had the courage to explore it thoroughly, but from then on, it was my secret world. One day, I tried to run down there to escape a group of older boys (probably no more than six months older) who were tormenting me. They caught me on the steps and held me captive. I was frightened, but suddenly a voice came out of me that sounded tough and angry. I said, You guys are in a lot of trouble. I know where you live, and my father is a lawyer—he’s going to put all your fathers in jail, and you’ll never see them again!

To my astonishment, they all started crying and begging me not to tell my father. Wow! This was some power I’d discovered—make up a scary story, act like those tough guys on radio, and they’d believe me. Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee!

My mother was not a coddler. I’ve always joked that when I was born my mother threw me out in the backyard and said, Grow! Not quite, but she expected her children to do for themselves. I started to walk to school by myself long before the other kids my age. In fact, I picked up a few nickels by walking other kids to school. This was something I could not understand. Mrs. Lerner, Burton is three months older than me. Why do you want me to walk him? I couldn’t convince her, so why look a gift nickel in the mouth?

Actually, my mother’s tough facade paid off for me repeatedly. The first day she let me off the leash, she packed me a sandwich and gave me a penny to buy a piece of candy from the pushcart outside the school. This was a big moment. It was not only the first time I was walking to school by myself but also the first money I’d ever had, and I was determined to spend it wisely.

After lunch, I made off to the candy cart and stood for a while, watching the owner dipping apples into a hot red sauce. They cost two cents and were over my budget. I perused his wares for quite a while, my fortune held tightly in my fist. A strange kid wearing a newsboy cap and knickers down to his ankles came up to me and asked what I was going to buy. I don’t know. I’m looking, I answered.

Why don’t you get Indian gum?

I don’t like gum.

It’s bubblegum, he replied.

I don’t like gum.

But you get a ticket.

What’s a ticket?

A card with a picture of an Indian on it. Then you can play toss with it. It’s fun.

I was confused. The idea of getting something that I could play a game with was appealing. But before I could make up my mind, the kid told the candy man to give me an Indian gum, took my penny out of my hand, and paid the man. I opened the packet.

You don’t like gum, right? Before I could answer, he popped the gum into his mouth and handed me the Indian card. I stood there looking at it dumbly. Then he produced a thick packet of cards and flipped one of them into the air. It turned over and over and landed on the sidewalk with the picture facedown. There—you see how it’s done? Now you toss yours.

I tossed the card. It didn’t turn over and over like his. It just dropped flat down with the picture faceup.

There. You lose. Mine was tails; yours was heads. He picked up both cards, his and mine, added them to his pile, pocketed them, and walked off.

My God, my fortune was gone. I hadn’t gotten anything for my penny. I wanted to cry. Maybe I did, or maybe I held it in until I was home and reported the theft to my mother. If I was looking for pity, I didn’t get it.

So if that’s the game they play, learn to flip cards, my mother said.

How? I don’t have any.

Look in my sewing-machine drawer. There’s a deck of playing cards. Practice on them.

And that was that. I did practice, day in and day out. I kept it up until I could flip fifty-two cards, either heads or tails, at will. Ha-ha, another power! I thought. I became the scourge of the neighborhood, the richest kid on the block. Sure, my fortune was all in trading cards, but that was the coin of the realm. I traded them for roller skates, baseball bats, comic books, and anything else that was up for barter. So I learned another lesson: practice makes perfect.

∞∞∞∞∞∞         ∞∞∞∞∞∞

My earliest memory has to do with a dog. I was lying on the floor over a heating vent in my aunt Ida’s house, curled up with her little white poodle, Tootsie. I couldn’t have been more than two or three, and the dog was as big as I was. I woke up hugging her to me. She didn’t move, nor did I. The hot air was rising, warming us both, and the feeling was one of comfort. Dogs have brought me comfort all my life. I’ve been told that when my mom and aunt put me outside in my carriage, Tootsie would sit by me and growl at any stranger who came near. I can’t remember that, but I have no reason not to believe it.

My mother wouldn’t let me have a dog of my own. She maintained that dogs were dirty and messed up the house. My sister’s friend Edith had a dog, and my mother would say things like "Can you believe it? She lets that dog sleep with her!"

Well, one afternoon when I came home from school, as I walked through the empty apartment to the kitchen, I passed the French doors of the living room and sensed something was wrong. The doors were closed, and as I reached the kitchen, it occurred to me that I’d seen, out of the corner of my eye, a great many things strewn around the living room. I quickly backed up and opened the doors. The room was in shambles. There were torn stockings and pillows on the floor, and ticking covered the chairs like snow. This was unbelievable. My mother was rigidly neat. Then, from behind the wing chair, a little white puppy’s head poked out. I walked over and looked at it cowering there. He knew he’d done wrong, but how had he gotten there? Who’d brought him? My mother would have a fit. I set about cleaning up the room, and when my mother came home, I explained that there was a puppy in the living room.

Yeah, isn’t it cute? she said.

You know about it?

He followed me home.

She cut a piece of clothesline and tied it around the pup’s neck. Here—take it out for a walk, and here’s a dime. Stop in the grocery and buy a can of dog food. It was a beautiful pup, but I knew my mother wouldn’t keep it.

When I got outside, a kid told me the dog belonged to a lady in the redbrick house on the corner, so I decided not to buy the dog food. I rang the lady’s doorbell. When she saw the dog, she said, Oh gee, you brought him home? He’s such a pain. Okay, thanks.

At home, my mother asked where the dog was, and when I told her I’d found the owner, she said, Oh, too bad. I sensed her disappointment and asked if she’d like to have kept him.

Sure, she said.

But you saw what he did to the living room.

So we’ll train it.

Wait right here. I think I can get him back! I ran as if I were doing a hundred-yard dash straight to that lady’s house. I rang the bell, and when she opened the door, I asked breathlessly, Do you want to get rid of that pup?

"Do I? You bet. He’s messed up my whole house."

My mother said we could keep him if you’re willing.

You’re welcome to him, and good riddance. Here—take his leash and dish, and I have a few cans of dog food, if you want.

Yeah, sure. Wow, thanks.

You’re welcome. Just don’t bring him back.

I won’t! Thanks a million.

I had a dog of my own! Speedy was a spitz mix. I don’t know what the other part was, but he was all white from head to toe and the cutest thing you ever saw. And he was mine. I fed him, I walked him, I trained him, and he slept with me every night. My mother never gave any indication that she felt it had been the wrong thing to do. From the day he followed her home, she was a dog lover.

∞∞∞∞∞∞         ∞∞∞∞∞∞

There was an art club in school that met every Wednesday afternoon after classes, and I was dying to get into it. The teacher, Mr. Santora, was a tall, good-looking man with a slim Edmund Lowe moustache. Everyone in his class loved him, but when I brought him a drawing as a sample of my work, he dismissed it, saying, Sorry! We don’t trace in this club. I was stunned and angry and adamantly denied that I’d traced it. He simply waved me away like an annoying fly. I felt a great sense of injustice. My drawing was of a horse, and I had not traced it. I didn’t realize until a few years later why he thought I had. I’d drawn it with an indelible pencil, which looks like something traced using carbon paper. He didn’t accept me into his club, but this was a minor injustice compared to some I would encounter later in life.

In the next grade, I had Mr. Santora as my official teacher, and true to his reputation, he was a good and likable one, even though he was hard on me. When Wednesday rolled around and the class came to an end, he asked those in his art club to remain behind. Deciding to stay, I scrunched down in my seat, hoping he wouldn’t notice me. He passed out drawing paper to everyone, including me. I felt like a criminal, but I wanted desperately to be in that club. He took no notice of me, so I thought, I’m home free.

From then on, I was in the club. We all worked on drawings and paintings for a competition held each year for schoolchildren by the John Wanamaker department store. I was home in bed with the flu, and it looked as if I wouldn’t be back in school in time for the submission. To my surprise, Mr. Santora sent a classmate to my home with a drawing board, a set of pastels, and a note saying that now I had no excuse not to do my assignment. Ha! I wasn’t supposed to be in his club anyway! I’d sure fooled him!

I came home for lunch some months later to find a postcard informing me that I’d won first prize in the contest. Forgetting to eat anything, I grabbed the card and ran all the way back to school and up the three flights to the teachers’ room. I burst in on him, out of breath, and with a so-much-for-you attitude, I shouted triumphantly, Guess what?

Without looking up he said, You won first prize in the Wanamaker contest. I expected you to. Now get out of here—I’m having my lunch. He waved his hand in dismissal the same way he had when I’d shown him my drawing of the horse. The rat never withdrew his description of my drawing as a tracing. In retrospect, I don’t think I ever put anything over on him. I’m sure he knew damn well I was not in his club. I certainly liked him, though. He challenged me and helped me put things in perspective.

∞∞∞∞∞∞         ∞∞∞∞∞∞

Responsible for the day-to-day survival of our family, Mom used her talents to create the appearance of a fine middle-class home. She did this on pennies. An excellent dressmaker, she made all our clothes, the curtains, and the drapes. She crocheted all the bedspreads on the beds and the doilies on the tables and living room chairs, and she knitted all our sweaters. We always had delicious, fresh-baked bread, cakes, and cookies, legendary among our extended family and friends. When visitors dropped in they never lacked either a meal or dessert. How she did this was magical.

She was an ingenious cook and an even more ingenious shopper. Shopping trips entailed walking to eight different stores to save a penny on an onion. I know because I was often pressed into shopping for her and walked miles from home to visit a store that had a special on some item she needed or to avoid a local merchant because we owed him too much money.

She also raised two additional young children, the orphaned daughters of her sister, my aunt Bella.

It is any wonder that she had high expectations of others and could be sharp and critical at times?

My father’s temperament was the opposite. He was easygoing. He seemed to exude affection for everyone. He approached any family problem in a calm, kind way. It’s important, though, to understand that he wasn’t dealing with the day-to-day problems my mother had to face. Of course, he had his own struggles—chasing around with various deals to make a buck, being frustrated in his profession, and trying to write. I saw my father angry so few times in my life that I could count them on the fingers of one hand. The worst cuss word he ever uttered was Sacramento! The first time my teacher mentioned that city in class, I put my hand over my mouth and giggled. I thought she’d used a dirty word.

My father came to the United States from Romania at the age of sixteen. According to my mother, who also came from Romania, he could speak English like a native even before he got off the boat. It’s possible. He had studied English in Europe and was able to go right into the University of Pennsylvania and come out with a law degree. He was not a happy lawyer. He should have become a professor or taken an MBA, because he spent most of his time as a businessman.

Dad was a soft touch. I must have heard my mother say that at least a hundred times as I was growing up. When he made money, he was Santa Claus—and not only to his own family. He made and lost money in cycles that did not necessarily have anything to do with the ups and downs of the economy. But since the Depression, it had all been downhill. My mother was constantly at him to collect the money he had loaned to others.

Why don’t you go see Dr. Sax and ask for your money?

Sallie, please—the man is not well.

So what are you—the picture of health? It’s your money. He wasn’t too sick to borrow.

He is not doing so well now financially either.

He’s rich enough to ride around in Cadillacs.

It’s an old car.

Yeah, and he lives in an old mansion, too. It’s your money. Why can’t you ask for it?

Because he’s an honorable man. When he has it, he’ll pay me back.

Yeah, in the grave. It’s been twelve years already. Do you ever hear from him?

Yes.

When?

I heard, Sallie, the man was in trouble. I helped him out.

Well, you’re in trouble now, Max. We need the money.

Something will turn up.

Yeah, a dispossess.

Sallie, the man is a doctor.

So what? You’re a doctor too, a doctor of laws. Why does he impress you?

It’s not that. The man was my friend.

Yeah, everyone is your friend when they need money.

Sallie, I will not beg!

Beg? Who’s asking you to beg? It’s your money. Demand it! God, you’re such a patsy!

One day, my father came home and announced that he was going to make dinner. My mother laughed, but he went right on by announcing the menu. Nothing he served us was possible to get at that time of year. The food consisted of fresh fruits and vegetables that were out of season, and it was all delicious. I especially remember the strawberries. My mother kept saying that it was impossible, but there she was, eating and enjoying the dinner cooked by her husband, who was unable to boil water.

After everyone in the family was satiated, he announced that we had been eating frozen food—something completely new that was bound to start a revolution in how people ate. He was going into business with his friend who had invented it. This, of course, meant my mother’s wedding ring was going back to the hock shop, so she had some questions to ask, such as How much will it cost for each of these items? When he told her, she laughed at him.

Oh Max, you are so impractical. No woman in her right mind is going to pay that kind of money for fruit and vegetables. They will wait until they’re in season.

It’s possible that my mother never bought frozen food, but she lived to see it in the market. When she had dinner at her children’s homes and was served frozen food, she never neglected to say, It was your father’s idea, and they stole it from him.

This is how I see my parents now: My father was educated; my mother was not. My mother was streetwise; my father was not. My mother was frugal; my father was a spendthrift (if he had money). My father was intelligent; my mother was smart. My mother was crafty; my father didn’t have a wily bone in his body. I know all this because I have genes from both of them, and I’m one hell of a confused man. I drive my wife and children crazy by giving them mixed messages. I refuse to take a cab because I don’t want to spend the five dollars so I’ll wait twenty minutes for a bus to take me to a dinner that costs $150. My mother’s genes have me checking the prices on the menu before the offerings, and then my father’s genes pick up the tab for everyone at the table.

There was a time when my father was in the chips. I have a vague recollection of riding in a chauffeured limousine as a young child. He had a few hits occasionally, and those must have been when he made all those bad loans to his friends.

There’s a family story of my first birthday. My father was closing a sale at the Chanin Building on Forty-Second Street, near Lexington Avenue. He was the broker on the deal and expected to make a great deal of money. There was, at that moment, only twenty-five cents in the house, and my mother had spent it on the ingredients for a chocolate birthday cake. Everyone was sitting around the dining table, waiting for my father to enter with a huge check for the broker’s commission on a million-dollar sale. As they heard my father’s step on the stairs, they put a little birthday hat on my head and placed the birthday cake in front of me. My mother didn’t like the sound of his steps. They were too slow and heavy. My brother, Cal, as he retold the story to me years later, recalled that her hand shot up and pinched her cheek, a mannerism that always foretold despair. When my father entered, his face was white, and his body sagged.

What happened, Max? she asked.

We got up to the point of signing. The buyer had the check all ready.

So?

The buyer said, ‘Of course, you’ll fix the violation on that basement door.’ The seller said, ‘No, you fix the violation.’ The buyer said, ‘I’m paying good money for a building free from violations. You fix it.’ The seller said, ‘You’re getting a damn good buy—I will not fix it. You fix it!’ The buyer stood up and said to his lawyer, ‘Come.’ Sallie, I swear to you, it would cost twenty-five dollars tops to fix it, so I said, ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please—it’s no problem. I’ll take care of the violation.’

Good, so?

So he said, ‘You will not take care of the violation! He’ll take care of the violation.’ Fifty thousand down the drain because of two egomaniacs.

Cal told me, The room was so full of misery that you were forgotten until that moment. We looked over at you, and your face was buried in the chocolate cake. We all burst out laughing, even Mom and Dad.

∞∞∞∞∞∞         ∞∞∞∞∞∞

Summer was my time of year. We lived a short trolley ride from Coney Island. You could find me there every day. On weekends, when Cal and my sister, Esther, were off from work, our whole family was there. We stuck a flagpole in the sand so that all our friends could find us in this mass of humanity, and we sat around in a circle, singing and telling jokes. My brother and his friends would do gymnastic tricks. They built pyramids, standing on each other’s shoulders. Everyone tried to outdo the others. Someone had a ukulele, and we clapped hands to the rhythm and made up funny lyrics to popular songs.

My mother would bring sandwiches and an aluminum container of coffee that stayed hot all day in the sun. By the time I got home, I was exhausted from fighting the waves, digging for clay, and running and playing physical games, such as Johnny on the Pony. I guess when one hears of Coney Island today, it conjures up pictures of hot dogs and amusement rides. That’s not how it was then. Since money was not available for those things, we neither thought of them nor missed them.

I was ten years old when the magic bug bit me. I was walking along a street in Coney Island and came upon a crowd gathered before a sideshow. An Arabian magician named Gali Gali was standing on a platform before a tent, doing sleight-of-hand tricks with little live chicks and balls. This was a free show designed to entice you to part with ten cents to go into his tent and see the real stuff. I was enchanted by one trick in which good-sized balls kept coming out of his mouth. There seemed to be an endless supply of balls. No mouth could contain more than two balls at most, so how did he do it? I noticed that he always picked a boy in the audience to use as an assistant and then let the kid go inside for free. I hung around there all day, hoping he’d pick me, and after I’d watched about six shows, he chose me. To my great disappointment, he did exactly the same show inside that he’d done outside.

Nevertheless, that ball trick fascinated me. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and I told Cal about it. I said I thought he must have some sort of machine in his mouth that kept making balls. My brother, who was nineteen at the time, said, No, they do it with palming.

What’s that?

"It’s a way of concealing things in the hand. It just looks like they come out of his mouth."

If my brother told me that was the way the magician did the trick, it had to be so, because my brother knew