Characters once abounded in America. A friend who grew up on Long Island's south shore during the second world war and the first decade immediately after it, is of this opinion as well, based on his first hand experiences. He is a natural storyteller and a character himself; his Hibernian heritage perhaps assured both. More than mischievous, he and his pals each were neither colorless nor cut from the same cloth as are so many automatons of our twenty first century collection of drab cyberspace addicts and tweeting twits. No, Danny and the gang that he gallivanted with had so much to stimulate them and the big, wild world of an America still largely rural, minimally regulated and still untamed by technology and the blandness of today's liberty loathing authorities, was a special place where youthful hijinx and rebellious derring-do could and did flower. With gasoline at mid century just a little over 20 cents per gallon, the roads not yet choked with motorists and the American spirit of innovation and grand schemes of unbridled fun and mayhem given the greenest of lights with the fledgling post war prosperity, the world for these pre-teens and teens was their oyster and they missed nary an opportunity. Drag racing, joy rides, midget car racing, dangerous rides of hanging from trains, the backs of buses, sanitation vehicles, amusement rides made dangerous by flouting safety rules, and elaborate pranks played on older citizens, police and plenty of other unsuspecting stuffy folks or those furtively attempting to conduct their own naughty business, all were fair game for these semi-harmless hooligans. This last group of victims were usually relatively older kids or any adults who, while canoodling, or preferably much more amorously occupied in a Lover's Lane, were assaulted in mid-passion by these miscreants who would pounce by suddenly opening the victim's car door, drag the male half of the horizontally indisposed couple out of the vehicle, further pulling down his already "half-staff" trousers in the process (we'll forego any other allusions communicated by the above compound word). "Gall" does not seem the appropriate or strong enough word to apply to such conduct, but "ballsy" does. Said victims, suitably outraged, would often attempt to throttle these characters, the zeal to accomplish such not infrequently causing them to fail since they typically forgot while in such a state to safely hitch up their pants first; the results were predictable and ego-crushing, if only rarely seriously injurious.
But less antagonistic demonstrations of character abounded in those bygone days as well. Poverty, isolation and again, minimal intrusions by do-gooders: each played a part in this, no doubt. A man could eke out a living gathering, pushing (and eventually selling) stacks of newspapers in an abandoned baby carriage, those big four wheeled jobs that seemed capacious enough for three toddlers to romp in. Such a man (am remembering one infirm, unshaven old guy in my neighborhood with ratty black woolen suit jacket and unmatching dun trousers, who limped on a clearly deformed limb, and with an Andy Capp styled hat upon his gray head), could walk (or shuffle) as long as he was willing or able with no social worker or authority from an agency for the homeless interfering with his enterprises. Beggars were once authorized in New York. Before the second world war, my grandfather would be regularly greeted in his fruit and produce store by a man in a rumpled suit displaying a mendicant's license who would remove his battered fedora and promptly receive a dime from Nonno. This happened each and every time he and his tin cup showed up at regularly spaced intervals.
Oddballs were often encountered in Automats, those exciting fast food restaurants in the Manhattan of yore that were almost militantly democratic with their great popularity, technological novelties and very affordable prices. A fellow, down on his luck, could linger of a mid-winter's evening at a table with yesterday's newspaper and a hot bowl of "tomato" soup. The soup was free since the water was simply hot tap from a spigot for tea and one of the table's standard condiments, catsup, was readily at hand. A few crackers completed the "luxury" meal. Once I spied a guy happily imagining the life of a gourmand as the "crackers" with his hot meal were the very dignified "Social Tea" cookies, perhaps a gift from some nearby swell that he slathered repeatedly with globs of brown mustard from the shiny white earthen little pot with the lid/stopper, another regular amenity on every Horn and Hardart dinner table. Maybe it was Gulden's brand or Bauer's, but the dark grainy texture calls to mind the very tasty latter day Kosciusko that was especially available by the mid-'80s when Plochman bought the famed Polish name. In any case, brown mustards of more than half century ago were associated with exciting, exotic repasts, i.e. very grown-up gastronomy and not at all pedestrian like the bright yellow condiments we dutifully ate and that Mom smeared on our bologna and white bread school day sandwiches.
But what made for a genuine character? Memorable, idiosyncratic folks, those who did things from the wellspring of their individuality: these persons might qualify for such a designation. A lack of formal education was a factor too. Societal "sanitizing" by the "use your fork in your left hand while cutting your meat with the knife in your right and then switch and use the fork with your right hand to bring the food to your mouth" crowd was not yet as successful and widespread in its missionary work to make uniform the behavior of their benighted and less fortunate (or so they were deemed) fellow pilgrims. Folks left to their own devices, either by again, geographic isolation, temperament or an intelligence bereft of sophistication or gadgetry, produced results, both interesting and unique. Folk art comes to mind. In the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn there was a fairly ornate concrete bench festooned with chunks of colored glass and bits of a wide variety of tiles that formed a kind of mosaic design embedded in this particular outdoor "furniture" on display in a front yard along Metropolitan avenue. The carefully gathered pieces installed across the bench's back formed the words "New York World's Fair 1939." Alongside the space was the artist's home and it too was partially covered, like a not so modest tattoo, going up a portion of one side of the building, with similar material and was equally arresting to the eye. Further south, in Sheepshead Bay, there once was an automobile parked publicly near where I used to work. The car was one of those late '60s American muscle cars, a Chrysler product: long, low and yet not very stylish, but it silently spoke of power and swagger. The owner clearly loved the vehicle, but it was also clear that he had limited means for restoring the then thirty or so year old car. He did what he could with elaborate homestyle paint jobs every year. To preserve the chassis as best as he was able, the paint was applied thickly with numerous oil based coats of a smokey orange that was dabbed all over to include the bumpers and chrome as well. It seemed to be wrapped in a cocoon of paint and it proclaimed the individuality of its owner with a certain intensity if not beauty.
Individualism lives. It has been battered by many forces in the current Dark Ages, but it trudges on. As long as the American, nay, the human spirit has corporeal beings to animate and bring to life its imaginings and yearnings, the "nuts", "kooks" and colorful characters will be with us. It's a comfort and an encouragement.
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