Ten Golden Moments

By Gary Alexander Azerier

Ten Golden Moments chronicles the life of broadcast-journalist Gary Alexander Azerier through the unique perspective of a series of extraordinary and unforgettable "moments" in his life. Spanning the years from the 1940's to 2012, these formidable episodes are not only replete with an up-close view through a closed window of time but are recorded specifically to resonate with the reader, culminating in the discovery of his or her own Golden Moments and passion for life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481745819

Gary Alexander Azerier

Gary Alexander Azerier is a former broadcaster and journalist who also taught English and communications on the university level in Boston, Westchester County, and New York City. He served as radio correspondent for the Second Marine Division and lives with his wife, Rose Ann, in New York and Pennsylvania.

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© 2013 Gary Alexander Azerier. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 4/23/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4583-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4582-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4581-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907412

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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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.

The great literary genius Thomas Wolfe said if a man can remember but ten golden moments of joy and happiness out of all his years, ten moments unmarked by care, he has the power to lift himself with his expiring breath and say: I have lived upon this earth, and known glory.

Here are reflections on no fewer than a hundred golden moments. Recounting them in great detail might compose a substantial volume, but should just the bare bones of some serve to resonate with the reader and unearth a few buried moments of his or her own to savor, the stories herein will be worth the telling.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Great Bubble-Gum Discovery

The Car

Roy Rogers

The Five O’ Clock Radio Shows

The Great Premium Rings

The Woolworth Book

The Sledding Day

Dickie Dare And Oaky Doaks

Fog And American Adventures

The Cub Scout Uniform

Patrol

My Father And Captain Marvel

The Birthday Watch

Lenny’s Acme Gun

Captain Of Exit Five

Harmonica Lunch

Learning And Riding The English Racer

Sailing On The Peter Stuyvesant

Five Dollars In The New Wallet

The Indian Ring

The Thirteenth Birthday Walk Home

Train To Narrowsburg

The Camper King Knife

Gene’s Bookshop And Ella

Finding Super Comics #115

Rip Van Winkle, Three Musketeers, And Edgar Allan Poe

Home From Camp, Sixty-Five Cents To Spend

Crossing The George Washington Bridge

One Sunday Morning

Wild West

Jules Levine

Svengali Deck

Black And White Turtlenecks

Malagueña

The Coming Together Of

The Fantasy Impromptu

Brubeck, Benny, Bix, And Louis

Diane

Nora

The Great Pipe Purchase

Geometry Regents

Lunch At Zane Grey’s

Acceptance To Nyu

A Camel Back To The Bunk

The Fort Tryon Paper And Dr. Gatch’s A

Campus Theater’s Sheila

A Walk Through Loch Sheldrake With $10

Green And Gray Sweaters

Acceptance To Std

Rosenthal’s Existentialism A

Outside Journalism Lab

Ice Skating In Lakewood

College Avenue Pizza

Green Check Lumber Jacket

Hunter Morning Over Danish

Graduation From Hunter

Acceptance To Iowa

Waiting For Leopold In Paris

Vending Machine Marlboros In Lucerne

Music Store In Florence

Smoke

Date With Vikki

Marines This Way

Washington Dc In Uniform

Final Sunday At The Range

Parade At Lejeune; Eyes Right!

Escape From Base Under House Arrest

Wjnc & I’ll Take Manhattan

Wfas Saturday… Sal’s Hot Dogs

San Roc & Ginny

T-Mark Jazz On Wfas One

Late Night Drive Along 9A

Wfas Xmas At The Waterwheel

Listening To Shep… Driving To Peekskill

Durgan Park

Chrysler Newport To Boston; Music Till Dawn

First Supper At The Seidleburg

Dinner At The Pilot House, Bahamas

Mark Twain’s War Prayer

Duke Ellington At The Rainbow Grille

Neary’s

First Morning In Moscow

Stopping In At Manny Wolf’s

Walden’s Call

Riding Bikes From St. Georges To Hamilton

The Near Miss On A Snowy Pocono Mountain Road

Maxims Of Paris With Rose And Noah

Celebration Beer At Gleason’s

Gaithersburg Summer Night

Driving To The Poconos Following A Christmas Eve Dinner

Phillips Doulton Clowns Auction

Ring And Pin Auction,

And Lunch At Sotheby’s

George And Rube’s Pins

First New Year’s Eve At The New York Friar’s Club

Minnesota Escape

Realizing What The Kayo Pin Was

Brimfield, The Indians, And The Yellow Kid

The Lady Pins And Sarasota

Home To Mail And The Dick Tracy Pin

Finding Churchill In Nashua

Train To San Francisco

Writing Nosebleeds At

The Friars One Night

Wolfville

Skagway To Yukon

First Dawson, Yukon Dinner

End Of Alaska Trip

Reading And Finishing Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet

Sartre’s Roads To Freedom Trilogy

Ride To Roland

The Panama Rose On July Fourth

Docking, One Dark Night

Letter From James Kalafatis And His Heights Site

Reading Nosebleeds To The Friars

The Review Of 4313

Barry And The Sugar Daddy Stories

Contact From Macdougall 4313

Auld Acquaintance

Reading At Riverdale Terrace

Flying New Jersey

Eighty-Four On The Faa Flight Exam

First Drive To Dinner In The 325Ic

Surviving A Snowy Drive From The Mountains To New York

Sacred Heart Graduation

Arriving Home From Florida In 22.5 Hours

Driving Aia In The Z4

Bob Shepherd And The Little Man

Appendix

Afterword

THE GREAT BUBBLE-GUM DISCOVERY

I couldn’t have been very much more than three, possibly four, years old when my mother waltzed me into Stern Stationery and United Cigars, better known as Dave’s candy store (it also had a bookie joint in the back). I stood tentatively in front of the stooped, round-shouldered Dave, who always gave the impression that he was talking on a telephone clamped between his cheek and his shoulder. My mother, who seemed, mysteriously, to know things, said, Dave, give him a piece of bubble gum.

Dave was one of three brothers who ran the place. There only rarely appeared to be any customer communication with the other two, who typically seemed to be occupied with clandestine business not of the common candy-store variety.

The price of penny bubble gum had reached a high and lofty cost of seven cents apiece, if you could find the item. With the war going on (WWII) it was one of the scarce items, along with lump sugar, Jell-O, and the impossible-to-locate bacon. I remember watching Dave’s babushka-clad mother sitting outside, next to Pop, her toothless, derby-hat-wearing husband, as I waited. They seemed unaware of bubble gum and its scarcity. As if fixtures, Dave’s mom and pop, who were as much a part of the candy store as anyone or anything, sat outside the store despite world events every day until they died.

Back in 1942 and 1943, pennies, nickels, and dimes had some value. People bent in the street to retrieve a penny. Kids scoured curbs for two-cent-deposit soda bottles. Nickels served as carfare or bought candy bars and Sunday newspapers; quarters bought packs of cigarettes. And when a two-cent plain went up to three cents, a Coke or chocolate soda went up to seven cents, and that round, rough-cut, penny piece of Fleers Double Bubble rose steadily to the dizzying height of seven cents—well, that was something. All that is assuming, of course, that you could even find a candy store that stocked it and a man behind the counter who was willing to sell. But my mother had an engaging enough way.

Dave reached under the counter, and I had my first look at Fleers Double Bubble gum. It was a round, pink, sugar-powdered ball twist-wrapped in red, white, and blue. I had expected something else but was more than ready to sample this strange bonbon, and sample it I did. The taste and texture were something I could never forget. The bubble gum was a great surprise. I had never experienced anything like it: rubbery, overwhelmingly sweet, with a unique flavor. Pink! Apparently, I thought, my mother knew what she was talking about in arranging this introduction, even though the gumball was a bit large for my mouth.

It was some years before I had my second chew, at the end of the war. By then, Fleers was phasing out the crudely rounded balls of rough-cut gum and had begun evenly slicing the edges. This gave rise to little square packages neatly sealed over a crisply folded, waxed comic, unlike the casually twisted strip that had been wrapped in the past packages. The gum was good and was essentially the same stuff, but it never tasted quite the same. The shock and surprise were gone! My mouth was bigger. But every time I passed Dave’s, despite that golden moment’s having long passed, I could recall the old first taste. It may have been a steep price to pay for a piece of bubble gum back then, but it had been well worth the seven cents.

THE CAR

T his is somewhat of a vague memory, with a less-than-fortuitous origin and a (most probably) undignified and ignominious end, but I do retain the golden moment. It was during the early days of the war, when toys, particularly large and metal playthings with rubber tires, were suddenly unobtainable. There were, however, always castaways from yesterday lurking in some attic or cellar for the lucky little boy or girl.

We lived in an apartment building with no attic, of course, but there was a cellar with a variety of rooms for storage, working, and repair making up a dark and mysterious labyrinth. We had a variety of handymen and janitorial-type workers in the building who, I do remember, were very kindly disposed toward cute little boys and girls who lived in the building, as there were very few of us: two, as I recall.

As to the workers, a few of them particularly come to mind: there was the hump-backed and elderly Henry and the gimpy, short-legged Pete, who stood well over six feet tall (only one of his legs was short) and was a giant to me. But it was Al who discovered the red pedal car in the basement archives, escorted my mother and me down to the building’s bowels for an introductory showing, and offered to paint the thing if we wanted it.

I can only assume that one of my parents must have offered Al a gratuity, but I have absolutely no recollection of this and cannot imagine what, in those days, would constitute such an offering: a dollar? The car, however, certainly in terms of its memory’s longevity alone, was to be worth incalculably more.

The wait for its newly painted body seemed to take forever and was so relentlessly fraught with anticipation. But I imagine Al had other projects, and the paint, after all, needed to dry in that cool cellar. The day, happily, did arrive.

There she stood in a pristine, image-altering white! True to his word, and I think before my next birthday, Al had done it. Come to think of it, he must have received something for his labors. As I think back, it must have been a tough, detailed, and time-consuming job. It was all done by paintbrush—no aerosol cans back then!

I don’t remember ever riding this pedal car. What I do recall was how she remained abandoned in a living room corner of our two-room apartment for years, papers and magazines and odds and ends piled atop her aging white body. I had simply grown a little too large to fit inside the kiddy car. My legs hit painfully against the underside of the dash, too long to pedal.

What I do remember was that golden, indelible moment in my early life when old, wizened Al rang our bell one afternoon, standing there smiling with the new white car, for me, by his side. No car has ever come close!

ROY ROGERS

I t was a first-time experience: the expanse of the old Madison Square Garden in New York, whose overwhelming interior was a complete and shocking surprise. Its tiers were vast and unending. My parents and I climbed up and interminably up as I believed I was in a new world. I wondered what could be taking place in this new sphere and how so many other hundreds, untold numbers, of people had known how to get there.

From our finally found seats very near the zenith of the trek, I recall turning and for the first time catching an astounding glimpse of the Garden’s arena, gaping and expectant. Suddenly the lights dimmed, and a blue spotlight shone on one entrance to the field, followed by the initially soft and clear melodic strains of Home on the Range.

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play … where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. As the sound was raised a chilling notch, carrying the uplifting chorus, spirits, and the rising awe of all, an unforgettable image appeared. Out from the entryway, glowing beneath the blue spotlight and majestically seated on Trigger, his white horse, was the handsome and heroic cowboy Roy Rogers. The orchestra had just launched into the chorus:

Da, da, da, da, da, da … Home, home on the range … where the deer and the antelope play …

At the time, Rogers was not yet the legend, the King of the Cowboys, he was destined to become, but having taken the place of Republic Pictures star Gene Autry, who was busy with WWII, he was well on his way. For me, however, as I’m sure was the case for all the fans that afternoon, the image was complete. And together with the lilting strains throughout the Garden, the blue spotlight, the cheering, and the vastness embracing the blanched-hatted Roy Rogers on his white steed, the spectacle was mesmerizing. When he removed his white Stetson and held it high up in salute to the crowd, it was as if the hero himself were acknowledging that crowd, as if he were taking a personal moment with … me. It was indelible. It was a golden moment.

Later, my father took me to Rogers’s dressing room. I met the cowboy, along with several others, in that crowded and confused room and was presented with a genuine, if somewhat sized down, Roy Rogers cowboy hat. A part of the afternoon, the Roy Rogers cowboy afternoon, was now mine to take home. I wonder what became of that hat.

THE FIVE O’ CLOCK RADIO SHOWS

O n rising each day, the wintery gloom was complemented somewhat by the early John Gambling, his little orchestra (the boys), and his thematic rendition of Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag … and smile, smile, smile! And following a brief newscast (war news) by a pleasant-sounding fellow named Prescott Robinson, the radio remained on station WOR for rest of the day, through the breakfast shows, the early soaps, Wendy Warren and more news, Aunt Jenny, Kate Smith’s God Bless America, and at five o’clock, Uncle Don (before the little bastards debacle). I don’t recollect the nonsense syllables mouthed by old Uncle Don, but at the end of the day it seemed that more people attended to the words broadcast by a fatigued and less-than-avuncular Don who, thinking the mike was off and the broadcast was over (it was for him), proclaimed: That ought to satisfy the little bastards!

I had been one of the little … fans of Uncle Don and don’t quite recall where I typically was off to and what I was doing when the program ended each day at 5:15, but for some reason, on this day I lingered on the floor in front of the floor-model radio console. My dawdling was just long enough to be snared and thoroughly tantalized by announcer Jackson Beck’s colorful and captivating introduction to the Superman program. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound: Look! Up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … Superman!

I don’t think that, as a four- or five-year-old child, I really understood who Superman was, but on that day, mesmerized and enchanted, somehow, I knew. Kids magically know! Now, can you imagine Superman flying into your living room via your radio?

Bud Collier was Superman (as well as Clark Kent), and he sounded just I would always imagine Superman to sound. Somehow Collier was also able to transform himself (as his voice made clear) from Kent to the Man of Steel; it was a vivid and startling, thoroughly convincing metamorphosis. Collier was, and for me would always be, Superman. In fact, when he some years later became the host of the new television’s silly quiz program Beat the Clock, I thought, What a great come down. How demeaning for Superman!

When the thrilling episode was over at 5:30 and I was digesting and savoring my great good fortune at having stumbled on this piece of kid radio, I was unable to comprehend the idea that yet another adventure program would be following. But it was unmistakable! Captainnnnnn Midniiiiight! What a find! Where had I been before this discovery? Could this good luck hold? I was captured, captivated, and committed and would be sure to take my place before the radio tomorrow afternoon at 5:15 and 5:30!

The captain, Chuck Ramsey, Joyce, Ichy, Ivan Shark, and his daughter, Fury, would prove to be, along with Ovaltine, a bottomless fount of happy nutrition. And decoders