Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Bio
AC Butch / The Early Years
Growing up in Brooklyn
It's may 12th 1949, I'm about to take my first gamble, my nick name is Butch, I'm sitting under the kitchen table with a girl named Carolyn, she was attending my 5th birthday party, the table cloth was hanging low and we couldn't be seen. I decided at that moment to gamble on asking her to show me hers if I would show her mine, I won the gamble.
I lived the first ten years of my life on 5th Avenue in Bay Ridge Brooklyn. We lived on the second floor above a carpet store. I don't remember much between the ages of one to five, but from five to ten is a different story.
In reflecting back, it kind of reminds me of the Bowery boys from a time way before mine. My fifth year on earth was a very important year to me, not only because of my birthday party, but because of something my mother made me do that changed my life. The streets were a tough place to be in those years, my neighborhood was mostly Irish, and the Irish loved to fight, they thought it was a sport. There was this 6 year old kid named Peter Thomas who also lived on 5th avenue, I had to pass his house in order to go to the candy store to get my mother her fix (Pall Mall cigarettes) for whatever the reason Peter didn't want me to pass his house, this kind of complicated my life to say the least. I was a fairly big guy for my age, but had a fear of fighting, as a matter of fact, I would just stand there and take a beating without fighting back. One day my mother saw what was going on, came over and grabbed me, she told me I better fight back and beat him or else I would be one sorry kid, I beat him up so badly that 2 people had to drag me off him, I never lost a fight after that, it became my sport, we'll go into that later.
Fifth Avenue in the early 1950s was a great place for a street kid to grow up, and I was certainly a street kid, so much so, my mother had to call the cops at least once a week to look for me. at the ages of 7 and 8, I was already walking down to the Staten Island ferry at Shore Road and 69th street, can you imagine at that age what it felt like to pay 5 cents and take the ferry to Staten Island, once I was in there I discovered the St. George swimming pool, which was about a 1/2 mile from the ferry, it cost 10 cents to get in and they had 3 different size swimming pools, a locker room and shower, I can't count the amount of times I snuck there while my mother was going nuts looking for me.
There was so much to do right where I lived you would think I never would have to leave the area. Within a block and a half of my house there was 3 ice cream parlors, the Loews Alpine movie theater, the Ovington bowling alley and pool room with a restaurant that made great cheeseburgers, French fries and a large coke, all for 50 cents. Within that same area we also had a pizza parlor, 2 bakeries, a grocery store, 2 candy stores, a dairy Queen and sports store, 4 neighborhood bars and my school, and that's not counting all the regular stores etc.
With all of these things to do I had to have an income to enjoy them. I decided to go into business for myself, even at that age I couldn't stand the thought of working for someone. I opened up a Kool Aid stand in front of the carpet store where I lived, I made some money but it was long hours and not to much fun, besides, my mother always new where I was, what fun was that.
One day when I was in the ice cream parlor having a lettuce and tomato sandwich (15 cents), it came to me while I was walking to the bathroom in the back of the store, I saw the tips on the tables, I stopped cold in my tracks and said to myself, that's mine. I went home and thought about it all night, even then I wasn't able to sleep, my mind never shut down, I would be up most of every night day dreaming, something that would turn out to be my favorite pass time through out my intire life.
For the next couple of years I learned how to live off of other peoples hard work, it didn't bother me then but looking back now it was a pretty miserable thing to do. My life of crime ended at the tender age of nine, I was in the local 5 & 10 cent store filling my pockets with pen knifes, an easy item to re sell. I felt like some one was watching me and took off like a banded, my father was outside and saw me come flying out of the store and throw some things under a car, after he turned my face into a bloody mess I decided there had to be a better way. .