—
As a kid, any time I could put five cents together, I would run across the street to Feingold’s candy store and get an egg cream. What is an egg cream? It is a delicious chocolate drink that is made with neither eggs nor cream. Why was it called an egg cream? I don’t know. For generations, Talmudic scholars have never been able to answer this profound question. Let me describe this nectar of the gods for you: Into what you might know as the typical Coca-Cola glass with the big round bulge at the top, Mr. Feingold would pump about an inch and a half of U-Bet chocolate syrup (if it wasn’t U-Bet, it wasn’t honest-to-God chocolate syrup) and on top of that he would put about an inch of milk (in those days we only had whole milk), then he’d move it to the soda squirter which had two functions, one was a powerful thin burst of soda, which would mix the chocolate syrup and the milk together, followed by a soft stream of soda, which would bring the heavenly mixture to its frothy top. He stirred it with a long spoon once or twice and then put it on the marble counter with a slight thud. That thud told you everything. It was indeed an egg cream. The trick was to sip it slowly and make it last as long as possible. And at the end, we always pushed the glass back across the counter to Mr. Feingold and said, “There’s still a little chocolate syrup at the bottom, could you give it another spritz?” He’d shake his head and sigh, but he always gave us another spritz. Heaven, pure heaven.
I loved my childhood in Brooklyn. Oftentimes, when I’m interviewed, people ask, “What was the happiest time in your life? Was it making your first movie? Was it winning the Academy Award?”
My answer is always, “Being a little kid in Brooklyn. That is…until age nine.”
They’d say, “So what happened at nine?”
And I’d say, “Homework.” Couldn’t run to the playground right after school, couldn’t meet the guys right after supper for cards and talk, had to do homework. And I realized, uh-oh, the world wanted something back. Homework, what a blight.
One night, I was having a particularly difficult time with my homework. My teacher, Mrs. Khune, wanted us to name at least six signers of the Declaration of Independence. My brother Irving had just come back home after one of his night classes at Brooklyn College. Irving went to Brooklyn College for eight years to become a pharmacist. Simultaneously, he worked eight hours a day at Rosenthal and Slotnicks, in the Garment Center. He felt it was incumbent upon him to be a father figure, and so he helped raise me. He was my inspiration and my guide through life. There was no cursing in my family. If I even said, “bum,” Irving would hit me. That night he heard me moaning and groaning over my homework.
“What’s the matter?” Irving asked.
I said, “My teacher wants me to name at least six signers of the Declaration of Independence, and all I could think of is Washington!”
He laughed. “By the way,” he said, “Washington is not one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.”
Oh! I was crushed, that was my big one. “But there was Jefferson, right? And maybe Franklin?”
“Yes,” he said. “You’re right on those two. Any others?”
“No! Can’t think of another one.” I moaned.
Irving thought for a bit and then said, “Where do you play punchball?”
I said, “Right around the corner on Hooper Street.”
He said, “Hooper! He’s a signer. William Hooper. Now, what’s your favorite movie house?”
Without hesitation I answered, “The Commodore Theatre!”
“Which is on what street?”
“Rodney Street.”
“Rodney! That’s another signer. And where’s Greenwald’s deli?”
“On Hewes!…Wait a minute, are you telling me that all the streets in Williamsburg are signers of the Declaration of Independence?”
He smiled. “Well, most of them. Why do you think they call this place Williamsburg? Because the Declaration of Independence was signed in Colonial Williamsburg! So there’s a good chance that a street name in Williamsburg is a signer of the Declaration of Independence.”
Wow! I thought. My teacher only wanted six names, but I gave her over twenty by remembering every street in Williamsburg I had ever played on or walked on. It was the first time I got an A on my homework, all thanks to my genius brother Irving.
My elementary school, P.S. 19, was on 323 South Third Street, which was about a ten-minute walk from our building. I was a bright kid and I was bored, so I’d try to yuk it up in school.
When the teacher said, “Melvin, what do you know about Columbus?”
I’d immediately answer, “Columbus Cleaning and Pressing!”
Which happened to be a well-known neighborhood dry-cleaning shop on Fifth and Hooper. I’d get a bad mark, but I didn’t care because I got a big laugh. Why was that laugh important? Why was comedy so important to me? Well, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t very big. Most of the kids in my class were taller than me. I needed a weapon to protect myself. That weapon turned out to be comedy. I became accepted and was allowed to hang around with the bigger kids because I made them laugh. Comedy made me friends, big friends to protect me from bullies. I made them laugh, and you don’t hit the kid that makes you laugh.
At eight years old I could reduce my best friend, Eugene Cohen (who later in life became a theatrical publicist and changed his name to Gene Cogan), to uncontrollable hysterics by singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in the persona of Boris Karloff. We had folie à deux, a mental disorder that two people share at the same time. It got so bad that Eugene couldn’t hear that song near a window, because he might roll out and fall to his death. I could send Eugene crashing to the floor by uttering just one word in Boris Karloff’s voice. The word was “antipasto” but in Boris Karloff’s voice it came out sounding like “antipaTHto?” That would be the end of Eugene; he’d be on the floor, laughing his head off no matter how much the teacher punished him. He would have to be dragged to the principal’s office by his feet, with his head banging on the steps, still laughing!