JASON CHAPTER 1

Today begins another Fictional Continued Story - Return every day!

Growing Up in Brooklyn
courtesy photobucket.com

I suppose I should introduce myself, that being said, “Hi, I'm Jason.”

Now just because my name is Jason doesn't mean people call me Jason; they call me Jay.  I don't know if they don't like Jason or they are too lazy to put forth the effort to say the whole word.

Things of this nature are never understood because I was born and somewhat raised in Brooklyn. As far as I know I'm the only one from Brooklyn that speaks English.  All my friends speak Brooklynese and I can understand them alright so we can converse.

I do admit that I use Yiddish slang occasionally and other ethnic expressions but on the whole I don't indulge.

My mother was an English teacher, and I blame her for not speaking my native tongue of Brooklynese.  She had ways to remind me that it wasn't allowed in my family for we were a descendant of none other than "Henry Ward Beecher," an orator and pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York.

She knew many stories about him and I think I heard them all.  Mother emphasized that we were Calvinists, and that meant we didn't have anything to do with Jews, or Catholics and especially the Irish.

This was a little hard for me because most of my friends and enemies were one of those. In order to keep peace in the family I pretended to go along with her rules.

I asked her one day how could she teach and associate with these kids and their parents feeling the way she does and she said; we send missionaries around the world to the heathen so we shouldn't neglect the heathen here at home.

I didn't get the logic in that but pretended to be satisfied.  

 

In fact I did a lot of pretending when she and I had conversations.

 
My mom was separated from my dad because when she met him he said he was Baptist, and while she wasn't too impressed with the Baptist at least they were Christians more or less.  

Dad wooed her and went to church with her at least until they were married. Some time after I was born she found out that he had been raised as a Catholic and even though he didn't practice his religion it was more than she could tolerate, and she ran him off.

When I got older I would go down town and visit him, and he would take me to the saloon where we would eat the free lunch.  Of course he would have to buy a couple of beers which he would drink but the lunch was good especially the dill pickles.

Beecher died in March 1887 and that was before my mother's time but her mother (my granny) went to his church, and she told my mother all about him; except she left out the part where he was accused of messing around with one of the member's wife.   He was exonerated but still it didn't look good.  

After I graduated I decided to join the navy.  I looked pretty good in my sailor suit although I missed not having pockets to put your hands in, and the thirteen button flap in front was difficult when one was in a hurry to open it.

courtesy Photobucket

All I knew about ships was being able to see one when I went to Coney Island for a day or go down to the Brooklyn ship yard.  

The Navy seemed to be having trouble finding a place for me, but I finally ended up on a WW1 destroyer which was totally “On the job training,” for I knew nothing about what I was suppose to be doing.

To be Continued