Tag Archives: Islip

Wing (Winganhauppauge) School Playground, Islip NY

Winganhauppauge School Playground – Islip, NY

The subject of playgrounds came up the other day. It started with news of a child falling off a rollercoaster in Kissimmee Florida. We were surprised because people are usually “yoked” into modern rollercoasters. (From what I’ve since seen, I don’t believe yokes were used on this ride).

This led to my reminiscing over how inadequately I was held into Coney Island’s Tornado rollercoaster back when my mother took me on it when I was about five (around 1957 or so). The restraint was an approximately 3/8ths inch metal bar that was pressed and locked across both rider’s laps, which could be pretty far away from a child’s body if riding with an adult. The coaster terrified me, but that didn’t keep mom from laughing like crazy as the two of us were tossed about in the rickety wooden cab.

The Tornado and the larger Cyclone were part of what is generally called Coney Island, which offered all kinds of entertainment, including “fun houses,” bumper cars, risqué burlesque shows, games of skill and chance, photographers (where my grandmother told me poor people went for family portraits, of which we have a couple), and a variety of places to eat (Nathan’s hotdogs are still sold there). Its boardwalk abuts a three-mile-long public beach.

It was also once home to a place called Steeplechase, which opened in 1897, had a couple of fires and as many rebuilds, and closed for good in 1964. Steeplechase was a very large building with mostly indoor rides, many quite dangerous.

After we moved from Brooklyn to Islip, Long Island, New York, I became a paperboy for Newsday, who arranged a visit back to Coney Island and Steeplechase as a reward for signing up new subscribers.

Inside Steeplechase there was what was considered at the time a giant slide, whose surface was like a “gym floor.” At the top riders were given pieces of burlap, and an attendant helped you arrange it into sort of a cloth toboggan. You were cautioned not to put your bare shoe against the slick floor as it might launch you into a painful tumble to the bottom.

If you made it safely down, you went sliding into large bowl, made of the same slick “gym floor” material.

This was supposed to be part of the fun, which rumor had it might include dresses flying up in the air. But it wasn’t all fun and games. There weren’t any pads or mats on the edges of the bowl, and you could easily conk your head against them. As more bodies came flinging into the bowl, it was smart to scamper out of their way as quickly as you could.

Another ride was “The Steeplechase,” which were these wooden or ceramic horses that you got on and raced around the outside of the building.

The only safety gear was a leather strap they put around your waist, and it was obvious that you could easily slide out of the saddle. At its best, the strap might tether your dangling body to the horse until it stopped. Let’s face it, It was a different time.

Recollections of these dangerous amusements reminded of the merry-go-round that was on the playground of the Winganhauppauge School in Islip. I don’t think anyone has a picture of the actual ride, but I found one that I think is close.

Me and several other male class members of the class would run and get it spinning as fast as we could, and then leap onto the wooden seats. When it slowed down, we’d jump off and get it going again. This was fun, but there was another reason we did this: it was to terrify the girls and impress them with our immature antics. I don’t think this worked very well.

If a rider somehow found themselves in the center of the spinning contraption, it could easily break their arm or leg, cut them or seriously injure their head. I don’t remember this ever happening, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t.

Other versions of these things were made in an attempt to make them a bit safer, like the one below where the spokes slope upward from the center, whereby they might pass harmlessly above your prone body. If you landed closer to the axel however, you were still in for a pretty thorough body of head thumping.

Some “safety fanatic” engineer, came up with the idea of covering the center of the whirling horizontal windmill, making it impossible to fall into its center. However, sitting on it looks like it would’ve been awkward and uncomfortable.

Nor did it address the issue of the centrifugal force flinging you off the spinning discus as prepubescent boys mocked you for your inability to hold on.

The halfway design change below strived to preserve a child’s ability to sit facing inward while protecting them from the treacherous spokes.

The problem is that the gap for legs is wide enough for a lot of kids to slide all the way through and get mauled by passing little feet or sections of the rotating iron beams.

Another “safety nanny” thought up a solution where the whole thing was brought closer to the ground, so at least you couldn’t fall in or under it (I hope!).

With this change, you had to stand as you spun, which I guess is okay. You could still get flung from the spinning platter, but you wouldn’t fall as far. If you stood at its side and leaned in, the iron handrails could whack you in the head—but you’re not supposed to do that!

But it wasn’t just the merry-go-round that was dangerous. Seesaws were plenty treacherous.

I loved them, until the day a fellow classmate thought it would be “funny” to slide off his end when I was at maximum height. This sent me into a spine-compressing deadfall that was excruciating and probably actionable.

And then there was the steel slide, that as I recall was probably over ten feet tall.

At the top, there was a moment when you briefly stood as kids behind you moved and jostled their way for the next position. When you sat down, you might experience the 160–175 degree temperature (some say 200 degrees) that steel slides reach when exposed to direct sunlight. At least us boys had pants on.

The objective was to go down as fast as possible, so some of us lifted our legs and slid on our backs, launching us off the end of the slide into a hard back landing. It was wise to quickly move aside as there were other kids coming in hot from behind.

And then there were the monkey bars, which at Wing had four poles in the center down which we slid. I believe this set is a perfect match for the ones at Wing.

Some of the more athletic kids liked to climb and stand on the very top of the jungle gym. Other kids (boys again) opted to thrill us with their Superman impersonations by jumping off the top rungs. Why weren’t they stopped?

And then there were the swings, which I remember as being pretty high, but nothing like the ones down at Islip Beach, which were fantastic! The ones shown to the right are like the ones at the beach. Wing’s were lower but still pretty respectable.

I need to mention that the playground at Wing was enclosed by a gated, four-foot, chain-link fence, and the ground was covered with sand, which I’m sure stray cats loved to visit.

One night me and some friends were hanging out at the playground. We were probably in seventh or eighth grade, but still enjoyed riding the swings. One of my more daring friends displayed his acrobatic chops by swinging very high, and at the maximum of his backswing (that place where you’re neither rising or falling), he leaned forward and dropped onto the sand.

The first time he did it, he landed on hands and knees, but after a while, took it a step further. At that “still” section of the backswing, he somersaulted forward and landed this time on his feet.

I had done the relatively tame “drop” maneuver but left the flips to my more acrobatic chums. But another of them, however (and I will not repeat his name to save him from embarrassment), wanted to give it a go.

His attempt started reasonably well. At the maximum point in the backswing, he leaned forward and began his flip, but it stalled when he was completely upside down! My memory of this goes in slow motion.

As his body dropped closer to the sand, it was clear that he was going in for a full faceplant. If my friend was a female yoga teacher in a black leotard, the figure below shows about how he landed, except for the outstretched arms and the fancy watch.

There were a few silent moments after this, as most of us thought we had just watched someone die. Miraculously, soon after our chum’s inverted body toppled over, he was kneeling, appearing stunned, angry, in pain and mortified. With the tips of his fingers he gently wiped sand from his somewhat rearranged face, and it was plain that getting it out of his eyes was going to be a problem.

Somebody asked if he was okay, and he must have heard the small measure of mirth behind the question, which threw him into a rage. Who’s laughing, he loudly demanded, which for me and the rest of the lads was invitation enough to begin a round of merciless and derisive laughter. It went on for quite some time.

The fenced-in playground is long gone, but even in light of what would now be considered a total disregard for our safety, it still holds many fond memories for me.

Yes, it was a different time. ‘Till next time.

Go Another Documentary Film

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In 2006, my older brother Phil C. Nolan ran for the position of Islip Town Supervisor, which is akin to being Mayor. It would be his third try.

Beginning with my father, Phil J. Nolan, the Nolan family had waged many political campaigns in Islip N.Y., and as Democrats in a heavily Republican area, we were defeated more often than not.

As we geared up for the race, I feared that it might be the last time my father would campaign with us and decided to document my brother’s somewhat quixotic pursuit. It resulted in my movie: Go Another.

Unfortunately, the feeling I had turned out to be prescient, and Philip J. died shortly after his son was sworn in. As the race recedes further into the past, I see this movie as a pretty good object lesson in the benefits of never giving up. At the same time, the movie is a tribute to my father—and mother—who built a family that stuck together and won a few—quite a few—along the way.

Cheers,

Joe

Village Halloween Parade, Skeletons and Yogi Bear

Everything Reminds Me of Something Else

Hardly a Halloween passes anymore without my brother Matt regaling our family and his friends with the story of a hilariously absurd and stupendously incongruous Halloween costume donned long ago.

It happened when Matt was ten, which puts the year at 1965. We had moved to the Town of Islip, N.Y., which is on Long Island. Throughout the ’60s, Long Island and lots of other places underwent enormous development to accommodate the growing families of G.I.’s piecing their lives together after WWII.

This boom consisted of hundreds of single family housing developments, which were carved out of the Oak and Pine forests that covered much of the island. Ours was called Northwood Village, and was originally comprised of eight parallel streets that ended in cul-de-sacs. On each street were between 20 and 40 houses, with a choice of three floor plans built on lots of a little less than a fifth acre.

There were plenty of woods nearby to explore. There was a brook at the end of the street that had fish in it! Behind us was a swampy area that was habitat for frogs, turtles and other wildlife. You could ride your bike to the beach and swim in the Great South Bay. For kids from the five boroughs of New York—which most of us were—we felt like we were living in a gigantic wilderness playground .

One of the best things about being a kid back then was the presence of so many other kids. It was the height of the Baby Boom years and when we went out to play there were always other children around, usually enough to organize a game or join in some kind of adventure.

On Halloween all of us kids rushed home after school to put on our costumes and get to work collecting as much candy as possible. Kids back then did not go out Trick or Treating with their parents—they went with their friends! (If you were a baby you did not go Trick or Treating. You were a baby for Christ’s sake? What did you know from Trick or Treating?)

For the most part this unsupervised communion was great, but the downside was that far too many of those kids were judgmental little pugs who were always looking to find fault with someone and, once found, use it to ridicule them as viciously and unremittingly as they could.

Which brings us to Matt’s costume.

While Halloween was a huge holiday for kids back then, it was not one where great sums of money were spent. It was a holiday for kids to wear cheap costumes and eat cheap candy. This owed as much to the limited means of our parents and neighbors as it did to the more constrained mores of the era.

In those days Halloween costumes were sold primarily at Five and Ten’s, like Kresgee’s and Woolworth’s. They consisted of a rigid plastic mask of some character or another, along with a matching “suit” that was made of something like rayon, which was probably highly flammable and could be counted on to came apart at the seams after a single wearing—if you were lucky!

If me or my siblings made it known in advance to our parents that we really wanted to be some character for Halloween, we could count on them—usually Mom—to help us get something together. However, if a special request wasn’t made, you were going to find yourself at the mercy of what Mom could find around the house.

Around the house primarily meant what could be found in a single cardboard box that was kept in the storage room and filled with Halloween stuff left over from prior years (unless you were going to be a hobo, see below). As the contents of the box had not seen daylight for about a year, nobody except my mother had any notion of what might be inside, but it was known that much of it would prove worthless and unusable.

On Halloween ’65, Matt admits to not giving much pre-thought to what he wanted to be for that year, so it was left to Mom to make something happen, which she did. Unfortunately, in the box, Mom was able to piece together but a single costume whose wearing would give Matt an early traumatic experience and the basis for what has become a funny memory and matching story.

The costume started with a black jumpsuit-like garment that you stepped into and tied at the back of your neck so that its front presented a single canvas onto which was printed the decoration, in this case the bones of a human skeleton. So far, so good. Matt was going to be a skeleton, but then…where the heck was the mask? After some digging and double checking in the box, it was determined that it was not there.

I have a vague memory of a search of the house being called, which included looking “everywhere,” but I knew—everyone knew—that if it wasn’t in the box, it wasn’t going to be found. It was gone. What could be done?

Well, there was a mask in the box, it just wasn’t a skeleton mask. What was it? A monster of some kind, or a ghoul? Either of those might have been passably okay, something for which a defense could be mounted should the pairing be challenged by one of those little wiseasses. But it was not a monster. It was this:

Yogi Bear! That mischievous denizen of Jellystone Park, who with his sidekick Boo-Boo poached picnic baskets and antagonized Ranger Smith. (He was smarter than the average bear.)

Matt was terrified at the thought of putting on such a laughably illogical outfit, but he had to get going. He had friends to meet and Trick or Treating to do. A serious negotiation commenced. It was too late to get a new costume. He could opt for the old “bum” or “hobo” standby, which was executed by marking your face with burnt cork to make you look unshaven, and putting on one of Dad’s old suit jackets.

For her part, Mom didn’t think the combination was nearly as heinous as Matt did. After all, with a mask on nobody would know who he was—and even if they did, why would they care?

As time ran out, Matt reluctantly gave way to Mom’s reasoning and donned the Yogi/Skeleton costume. I spoke to him today about what happened when he connected with his posse, and he reaffirmed prior accounts of the total and merciless attack and humiliation. Their reaction to the mismatch was immediate and brutal.

Everyone noticed it, he said. All his friends began laughing at him and making sure everyone around knew it was Matt Nolan in the ridiculous costume. Little kids were pointing and laughing at him, and he soon felt overwhelmed with panic. He said he knew he had “to get off the street,” and decided to make a run for it.

When he arrived home my mother saw that he was shaken and very upset. She set about burning a cork and blackening his face, and replacing the jumpsuit with one of Dad’s old suit jackets and sent him on his way.

As I was talking today about this story today with Matt I mentioned the Village Halloween Parade and how wonderful it is. After some discussion here’s what’s going to happen next year: We’re going to go and march in the parade. I’m not sure what I’ll be, maybe a Hobo, but guess what Matt will be wearing? You got it.

Until next time.

Joe

Hangouts, Fighting Old Guys and Schoolyard Games

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The Commack Road School

I grew up on Long Island in Islip Township. When my family arrived in the late fifties the town was still developing, which meant a great deal of building to support the influx of new residents.

One such project was the Commack Road Elementary School, which became a hangout for me and my friends during the mid-to-late-sixties. I recently took a walk through the old school and it touched off a few memories.

Everything Reminds me of Something Else

We used to play a lot of games at the school, all organized by us kids and without adult supervision. Aside from the pick-up baseball and handball, we played a few unique games that probably trace back to NY City. I really liked Johnny on the Pony. One team would form a line, with each member bending forward and grasping the person ahead of them around the waist. The guy at the head of the line would be pinned against a tree or a piece of playground equipment, usually the horizontal ladder, a.k.a. Monkey Bars.

Thusly arranged, each member of the opposing team would take a turn running as fast as they could toward the rear of the formation. As they drew closer, they’d leap as high as they could and slam down onto their opponents’ backs. The guy facing backwards was allowed to push the leapers off the pile. If they were rebuffed, they couldn’t get back on, so that element of the game could get pretty rough. As each player was added to the pile, the idea was to concentrate as much load as possible to the weakest section of the line and ultimately cause its collapse — which meant victory.

Don't believe any of our guys would stand for such inappropriate head placement

Don’t believe any of our guys would have allowed such inappropriate head placement

Then there was The Whip, which was more an activity than a game. Participants formed a line and held hands with the people on each side. The group would then start running across the field and through some dynamic I still don’t get, parts of the line would stop and reverse direction, which created a human whip with enough snap to send the kids at the end of it flying head over heels. Still not sure of its point, but it was a lot of fun, damn it — as long as you weren’t the guy at the end.

Another team sport was Ring-a-levio. One side would hide and the other team had to find them and escort them back to Home Base, which for us was a Jungle Gym that looked like the frame of a space capsule. The seekers would win by finding everyone, but if an uncaptured hider was able to run back to the base and tag it before any of the other team members tagged him, all the captives could escape and go back into hiding.

This game is particularly embedded in my memory because of what happened one night when I was making a move to free my captured teammates. I was able to get to Base unfettered and made the tag. With the other team coming from behind, I ran away as fast as I could but unwisely kept checking over my shoulder to see where my pursuers were coming from.

Just as I turned to see where I was going, my forehead struck a very sturdy steel pole that belonged to the aforementioned vertical ladder, a.k.a. Monkey Bars. I was momentarily knocked out, but for some reason didn’t fall. As the cobwebs cleared, I was aware of people standing around me. As soon as they saw that I was probably not going to die, I heard some laughter, which I wasn’t in the mood for.

“Who’s laughing,” I demanded angrily, which judging by their reaction was the funniest thing I ever said. Someone gleefully declared that my head striking the pole sounded like a church bell, which they found impressive and hilarious. Another observed that the bump on my forehead looked like a stack of about two dollars worth of quarters slipped just below the skin on my forehead. God, it hurt, and for years afterward, I could feel a little bump there. It’s finally gone — I think.

Tip for the day, friends: Watch where you’re going.

‘Till next time.

Joe