On the opposite side of Ford Street and several doors down lived the Weilgus family. Mr. and Mrs. and their two sons, Stanley and Lenny. Stanley was my best friend as a pre-teen and, almost sixty years later, we remain friends still. He liked what I liked: stickball. And, like me, was hopelessly hooked on the fortunes or, more commonly, the misfortunes, of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I spent lots of time at the Weilgus home, where I was always warmly welcomed. Mostly we played stickball. We had drawn a semi-permanent rectangular, strike-zone box on the west -side outer wall of their house, which is what we pitched to. We lost many a "Spaldeen" when one of us would smack a homerun that would land on the adjacent Belt Parkway, only to be smacked again and again by northbound Hudsons and Studebakers, and knocked clear to Canarsie. But there was way more to my friendship with Stanley and Lenny than stickball. Sometimes on sticky summer evenings, their parents would decide to take a cooling ride out to the Rockaways, and I was often invited to come along. Stanley, Lenny and I would hop into the backseat of the family's '55 Plymouth, and off we'd go. Somewhere along the way, a stop would be made at a Carvel stand, and we three would be rewarded with ice-cream cones (my favorite was chocolate). Though I was a baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic, who at one point in my childhood was strongly considering the priesthood (that is until I discovered girls and beer...I'm not certain in what order), I was sometimes invited to attend Seder, a ritual feast that begins Passover. During those years when I considered myself a surrogate son of Mr. and Mrs. Weilgus, and surrogate brother to Stan and Lenny, I learned much about their Jewish faith. I remember well the candle lighting, dreidels, and fried food at Hanukah. I know the importance of Yom Kippur, the Jews Day of Atonement, and their joyous holiday of Purim. Yes, as a young Christian kid, I was there. Hell, I even had my own yarmulke. Only in Brooklyn!
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