Louie the Greek

There was a knocking at the front door of my grandmother's Long Beach house.   When my mother answered it, it sprung open and a body flew through it,  did a paratrooper combat roll and a man sprung to his feet, threw open arms and with a big smile and an exaggerated wink shouted:
"Hi!  I'm Louie!"

Louis Sarantopolis, or as my father called him, in the tradition of gritty, street wise New Yorkers:
"Louie the Greek."

One summer long ago, my dad met Louie at Long Beach.   Louie got sent down from Connecticut to live with his uncle, play and help out a little, enjoy the summer, and stay out of trouble.  Louie's uncle ran a little snack bar down by the beach on the board walk.  The trouble part mostly didn't work.

My father's family spent the summers at Long Beach, then a destination for New York's privileged, which his mother was with her three story beach house.   She was married to a man who some called "The Priest", but not to his face, a street wise, gritty Irish kid.   He and grandma were an unlikely couple,  united by a nearly fanatical devotion to the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the public school children of the city of New York.  

"Father Joe down at St. Mary's of the Isle taught your dad how to box, Marques of Queensberry rules", Louie like do say, with a smile and a wink.  
"Jimmy,  your dad and I fought like cats and dogs all summer long."
"I was Orthodox Greek and never knew who the hell the Marques of Queensberry was and cared less."
The smile bigger and the wink harder, as he leaned his head closer to mine for emphasis.

Louie joined the Nassau County police force and my dad became a lawyer and with my mother started a small travel agency.   The travel business was a struggle, but after years of fighting the airlines for the privilege of making them richer,  mom and dad were finally making money.   Then one night catastrophe stuck.  The big office building on Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown burned down where they had the travel agency.  My father was frantic.   He raced over to the the building and forced his way pasted the police and climbed into the burned out hulk.   The safe where they stored hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of airlines tickets and the ticket validator were gone.   This meant total bankruptcy and maybe worse.

My father's frantic attempts to locate the safe went for naught.   At his wits end he called up the Nassau County police chief,  an acquaintance from his Long Beach days.  
"Sorry, Jim, there's nothing we can do.  That safe's at the bottom of the Great South Bay by now."

My father turned to Louie, who was now a detective.
"Please, Louie, I'm really desperate.   Find the janitor."
"Ok, Jimmy, I'll do what I can."

A day later Louie called.
"Meet me down at this bar in Hempstead [the Long Island ghetto].
When my father arrive Louie was outside.
"Wait here, Jimmy.   I'll be back in a second."
And it wasn't long before he was.
"Ok, come with me tomorrow.   I have an address where we can pick up the safe at 10 am."

The next day there was the safe exactly where it was promised, unopened, tickets intact,  just a little bit worse for wear.

Native American Healing Conference

Interesting times.   Because of a health care connection my wife and I got invited to the Native American Healing Conference in Tucson some years ago.  Except for a few people from the federal Indian Health Services, we were the only non-native ... and it was a big gathering of people from all over the country.   There were some speeches and then one of the local elders said a few words:

This is our earth we are sprung from it.

We love our black, yellow and white brothers.

But they need go back to the earth they came from.

The blacks need to go back to Africa.

The whites need to go back to Europe.

And the yellow men need to go back to Asia.

Not a particularly comfortable moment as my wife and I looked around, but everyone remained cordial before and after the speech.

Billy Boy

Will you go to the war, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Will you go to the war, charmin' Billy?
It's a long ways away, they are dying every day.
He's a young boy and cannot leave his mother.
Can you use a bayonet, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Can you use a bayonet, charming Billy?
No, I haven't got the skill to murder and to kill...
Don't you want a silver medal, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Don't you want a silver medal, charlin' [sic] Billy?
No desire do I feel to defend Republic Steel...
Don't you want to see the world, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Don't you want to see the world, charmin' Billy?
No, it wouldn't be much thrill to die for Dupont in Brazil...
Girls would like your uniform, Billy boy, Billy boy.
Girls would like your uniform, charlin' [sic] Billy.
They wouldn't get much chance to love me with six feet of earth above me...
Are you afraid to fight, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Are you afraid to fight, charling [sic] Billy?
You can come around to me when England's a democracy...
Will they take you from my side, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Will they take you from my side, charming Billy?
Don't you worry, mother dear, I'm a-stayin' over here...
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A left wing anti-war song composed by Millard Lampell for Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers in 1941 during the period when the Soviet Union was allied with Hitler to invade and divide Poland between them.