Right now we are in the middle of a Carolina. Stuke thinks it is still the North one but Mel Ott thinks it is the South. So they bet on it. (At dinner there was a round thing under Stuke’s gravy. He thought it was a Lima Bean and Ott thought it was a dime. They bet on that too. Whatever it was, it had legs.) I will be glad when we get out of this part of the South due to Gone With The Wind and etc. They still do not like us down here, though you would think after 80 years they would grow the fuck up.
Stuke finally stopped wearing black from Lucille Ball marrying that Cuban guy in November. Instead he paid a bookie $30 for Veronica Lake’s address and sent her a telegram when we stopped at Richmond. But she didn’t send one back yet, even though he told her what train we were on. He says he will give her two more days and then he will ask Rita Hayworth. But first he needs to find another bookie.
Hazel will be keeping a glim on you until I get back. So don’t try to get away with anything.
Charlie
P.S. Tell your mother thanks for the pointy coconut things, even though nobody here knows what they are.
P.S.2. We heard on Murrow that there’s this new gang in D.C. called America First. Their saying is “Keep Our Ass Out of Wars That Do Not Belong To Us” or such words that you can say on the radio. What do you think? Maybe I should join up huh? You can bet they did not send an invite to Mustard Mouth in the White House. By the way, Stuke started calling Goring and Mussolini The Two Little Pigs. We are taking a vote on who the third one should be. So far Tojo has 8, Stalin has 6, and FDR has 2 (I got to vote twice due to coming up with the idea in the first place).
P.S.3. Your wrong. If Bogey would of wound up with Ida Lupino instead, he wouldn’t of got his ass shot off on the mountain. Go back and see it again if you want proof. And stop calling yourself Mad Dog Earle. Your principle will think it was my idea.
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Gangland Killing in Brooklyn
BROOKLYN, Monday. An unidentified man was shot and killed on Sunday night as he was exiting a reputed house of prostitution in Sheepshead Bay. The assailant was believed to have been driving a silver 1938 Dusenberg touring car, which reportedly reduced its speed as it approached the victim. Eyewitnesses then heard two shots ring out before the auto sped off. Police believe that the murder bears the all-too-familiar markings of mob-related retaliation as a result of the recent
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Dear Charlie,
This was in today’s Eagle. It happened practically around the corner. The longer we stay here the scarier it gets, with innocent children getting pumped full of hot lead and buildings burning down with children in them (maybe even from sabotage), and children who walk to school in the morning but disappear before they get there and nobody ever sees them alive again.
Me and Craig are almost the only two of us on our block who aren’t allowed to go to camp this summer—him because of tilty eyes and me because of not being Gentile. The only other kids who will be here are the ones with police blotters who knock off juke joints and trip old ladies for money and once in awhile shoot a cop. So I guess we will hang around with them and learn a few things. Like how to open a fire hydrant and make it look like we are just trying to cool down from the 112° heat when what we’re really doing is pointing it at the jewelry store so the water can blow out the window and we can loot. Come to think of it, if I go on a road trip with you this summer I will probably be a lot safer than I am here.
The lady from the Giants sent the tickets for Opening Day. Craig and my Mom are going, but Aunt Carrie says if she lets you invite her places, the next thing you know she’ll be eating ham on Yom Kippur. I don’t know what she’s going to do, but you shouldn’t have told her that Pete Reiser was a chowder-mouth. I think it only made her like him, especially since she knows he will be playing against you on Opening Day. This is all I need. An Aunt who reads box scores.
I figured out a way to make bathtub hooch, which I’m going to sell to the speakeasies if I don’t get my lamps put out first.
Mad Dog Earle
P.S. I hope you have a good time at America First. When we get in the war and I am in a fox hole in Germany shooting Rommel, I will write you letters. By the time you get them I’ll probably be dead, but at least you won’t have to pick up a gun yourself. Traitor.
P.S.2. I even gave my old radio and some bubblegum and sweaters without holes in them to Bundles for Britain. I’ll bet that you didn’t give them anything except maybe smelly socks. Double traitor.
P.S.3. What if your bat boy gets sick or something and can’t go on the road? Won’t you need to get somebody else instead?
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Dear Mad Dog,
“If” is a funny word. Sometimes it is a tough one like “If I work really hard” and sometimes it is an easy one like “If I sit on my butt and wish for it” and sometimes it is a word you can blow out your ass like “If I go on a road trip with you.” Guess what. If you had tits you could float. That doesn’t mean your going to do that either.
First of all Sheepshead Bay is not practically around the corner, it is half way to New Jersey. Second of all you do not own a whorehouse (yet). Third of all the only scary thing about your block is that you live on it. And by the way, don’t get any funny ideas about our bat-boy. He is a good kid. And if he one day falls on the ground with bubbles coming out of his mouth due to arsenic or etc., your going to be in big trouble.
They are making us play Sarasoda for 5 days in a row and the hotel they gave us only has 3 walls. There use to be 4 but one of them blew off in the Hurricane of ’38 and they keep forgetting to put it back. Me and Stuke are sharing our room with two tree snakes and a cotton rat but only until Rita Hayworth gets here.
Charlie
P.S. Britain got enough bundles from us already, such as bailing their ass out of France in 1918 and picking up the tab for it. We do not need to give them anything else. Maybe if they paid their bills once in a while.
P.S.2. Your too easy to piss off. You should watch that.
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Mrs. J. Hicks
Alexander Hamilton Jr. High
2236 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn NY
Dear Mrs. Hicks,
Please excuse Joseph Margolis and Craig Nakamura from school tomorrow due to watching me and the team kick the crap out of Brooklyn.
Very truly yours,
Chas. Banks
3d Base
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Alexander Hamilton Junior High School
To: Charles Banks
From: Herbert Demarest, Principal
Re: Joseph Margolis/Craig Nakamura
Your absence excuse has been duly received and accepted. In the future, please telephone me directly about such matters. I can’t put a note like this in the boys’ files—only a handful would understand. Mrs. Hicks is not one of them.
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Temple Chizuk Amuno
1243 Parkside Avenue • Brooklyn, New York
Mr. David Margolis
900 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Margolis:
Congratulations on your son’s upcoming thirteenth birthday. In accordance with the traditions of our faith, as well as the calendar of our synagogue, we have scheduled his Bar Mitzvah for Saturday, October 25, at 10:00 a.m.
Joseph’s Bar Mitzvah instruction will commence in early May, and will continue once a week thereafter. As the father’s participation is of singular significance, we are able to offer evening lessons Monday through Thursday in order to accommodate your workday schedule.
Please let me know of your availability so that we may begin preparing Joseph for his passage into manhood.
Respectfully,
Rabbi Morris Lieberman
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Rabbi Morris Lieberman
Temple Chizuk Amuno
1243 Parkside Avenue
Brooklyn, New York
Dear Rabbi Lieberman:
My wife and I expect to be out of the country from Labor Day through early November. However, we will be with you in spirit.
Our very best to you and Mrs. Lieberman.
Very truly yours,
David Margolis
DM:mm
[Dictated but not read]
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Giants Whip Brooklyn 7–1 in Home Opener at Polo Grounds
Runs batted in—Ott, Banks 3, Danning 2, Phelps.
Two-base hits—Medwick. Three-base hits—Witek, Demaree. Home runs—Danning, Phelps. Double plays—Lavagetto, Herman, Camilli; Whitehead, Witek, Stuker. Left on bases—Brooklyn 5, New York 5. Bases on balls—Off Casey 4, Off Hubbell 1. Struck out—By Casey 2, Hubbell 1. Hits—Off Casey 12 in 8 innings. Wild pitches—Casey. Winning pitcher—Hubbell. Losing pitcher—Casey. Umpires—Goetz, Reardon and Conlan. Time of game—2:11. Attendance—42,653.
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INTERVIEWER: Donald M. Weston, Ph.D.
SUBJECT: Joseph Charles Margolis
Q: Wow.
A: That’s not all. Every time he came to the plate he’d turn around and ask us what he should do. Everybody saw it. Even on the radio. They thought we were really short coaches.
Q: I heard. You even made the papers.
A: We did?
Q: The Telegram. I saved it for you. So what did you tell him?
A: I said he should look for the inside fastball since that’s what Hugh Casey likes to throw at him. Craig just told him to give the bat to Mel Ott so we could see some real hitting.
Q: That wasn’t very smart.
A: And that’s a fact. But the only reason Craig lives dangerously is because that’s what the Green Hornet would do.
Q: What about Aunt Carrie?
A: She watched the whole thing through teeny binoculars. When Pistol Pete Reiser came up, she called out a blessing on his head and said he was a mensch.
Q: Bet it pissed him off.
A: Bet it didn’t. He hit the first pitch to left field. But whenever Charlie batted she went to the ladies’ room.
Q: And your mom?
A: She made him noodle kugel but I think he saved it for later. If he ate it before the game he wouldn’t have been able to stand up. How come my father doesn’t like me?
Q: Hey, now. Nobody ever said that.
A: He won’t go to my Bar Mitzvah. Smokes, that’s about the worst thing you can do to anybody. Aunt Carrie says that Job had it easy with locusts. He could have known my father instead.
Q: Joey—
A: Well, somebody’s got to stand up for me. I’m not allowed to get Bar Mitzvahed by myself, for Pete’s sake. Am I?
Q: Don’t you have any uncles?
A: No. Only a cousin in San Diego. But he’s nine.
Q: Come on, Shadow. You’ve been in tougher spots than this before.
A: Well, I do have one idea.
Q: I figured you would. And I’ll bet I know what it is.
A: Then don’t tell anybody.
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Dear Charlie,
For some reason Jews think that you’re old enough to be a man when you turn 13, even though you’re still not allowed to drink Scotch or smoke cigars or play pool or pack a heater or kiss girls like Rachel (even on the side of her face). So what’s the point? But they still make a big shindy out of it. You get to go to Temple on the Sabbath and be up on the stage with your Dad in front of everybody and open the Torah (which is just a Bible on one really long piece of paper rolled up onto two sticks). Then you read out loud from it and run the whole service by yourself, just like you were the Rabbi or somebody. Remember the time Carl Hubbell got to be temporary manager when Mr. Terry had the squirts from anchovies? It’s the same thing.
Big deal anyway. At least I don’t have to ruin the whole summer by learning Hebrew. The only bad part is not getting presents because Jewish relatives know how to give presents better than anybody. Most of the time it’s handkerchiefs or books about birds or a subscription to Natural Wonders, but once in awhile a good one sneaks in like a typewriter or a wireless receiver or new marbles with mostly glassies or The Shadow’s Secret Code Book.
Craig wants to know if he can come with you the next time you have dinner with Leo Durocher. He’s not trying to be a pain in the ass so don’t get sore at him. Craig is one of those people who goes around singing about “Murgatroyd Darcy, a broad from Canarsie, who went ’round with a fellow named Rodgers, while doing a rumba or jitterbug numba” and all the rest of that crap. It’s a very popular song in Brooklyn. Everybody sings it except me. Know why? Well you don’t need an education to figure out what rhymes with “Rodgers,” do you? I hate them all. Craig doesn’t. I think he’d lick the sidewalk if Durocher or Babe Herman or Ducky Medwick walked on it. Me, I’d rather get my face bashed in first.
Joey
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Dear Joey,
There you go again. Your the kid who got that Pumpkin Mouth in the White House to write you back and thank you himself for getting him elected (though you will one day look back on this and think it was the worst mistake you ever made) and also got Chas. Banks 3d Base to call you a Chiseler before he even knew who you were. But just because your old man does not know a good thing when he’s got one means you cannot have a Bar Mitzvah???? I don’t think so.
I will show you how easy this is.
Charlie
P.S. Tell Craig I would not have dinner with Leo Durosher if he had the whole Hall of Fame stuck up his ass. Come to think of it, I would not have dinner with Craig either. Let him ask his buddy Mel Ott.
P.S.2. Aunt Carrie showed up at Ebbets Field for both of our Lady’s Day games with The Team You Hate And Would Rather Get Your Face Bashed In First Than Even Say Their Name. I do not mind her telling P. Reiser how to hold a bat or even calling him Darling for good luck, on account of knowing it is only to get my goat. But his average goes up 20 points every time she is here and some of the boys are starting to look at me like it is my fault. Also, how come she never has to go to the crapper until I am on deck?
P.S.3. Uh-oh. Who’s Rachel?
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Rabby Morris Lieberman
Temple Chizuk Amuno
1243 Parkside
Brooklyn NY
Dear Rabby Lieberman,
I am writing because I think you are giving Joseph Margolis a raw deal. Even though I am a Protestant and would not know a Tora from a rats ass, fair is fair. And just because the kid’s father does not even have the ABC’s of a 50¢ whore on New Years Eve does not mean you have to take it out on the kid by not letting him get a Bar Mitzvah or presents such as glassies that come with the deal. Okay maybe you’ve got Moses and we’ve got Jesus. So what. They are both dead. And all we have left of either one of them is the 10 commandments which are the same for all of us.
This is a kid who can pull off anything. Including not needing anybody to stand up for him on account of being able to do it all by himself. But if your church still thinks that a father or somebody like him should be put into the lineup, who says it has to be a relative???? There’s plenty of other guys who would do it for him PDQ without even asking how come.
Do not cross him, Rabby. He knows the President.
Charles Banks
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Temple Chizuk Amuno
1243 Parkside Avenue • Brooklyn, New York
Mrs. Ida Margolis
236 Montgomery Street
Brooklyn, New York
Dear Mrs. Margolis:
I received the attached, somewhat incomprehensible letter this morning. While no one was more dismayed at the father’s apparent lack of interest than I was. I am sure you can understand that I could not possibly permit a Gentile to participate in a Sabbath service, regardless of how deeply felt his intentions may be.
Please assure the boy that I am doing my best to locate a solution to this rather unfortunate turn of events.
Respectfully,
Rabbi Morris Lieberman
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Dear Rabbi Lieberman,
There is something you should know. Charlie Banks wants to convert. We have been talking about it for a long time, though it is still supposed to be a secret due to Hitler and others like him. And because it is not very safe to be Jewish these days, I think he is very brave. When I told him the story about Pharaoh and the Red Sea, he got a funny look on his face and all he could say was “That’s for me.” Then he bought a Star of David for his house, just like Hank Greenberg who is his idol. (In case you don’t know, Mr. Greenberg plays for Detroit and they call him Hammerin’ Hank and he hit 41 home runs last year and his Rabbi was in Time Magazine.)
Anyway, Charlie thought that my Bar Mitzvah would be good practice for him so that when he begins to study with you next year he will already have a head start. Besides, how many people in our temple are batting .367?
Joey Margolis
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