A new life story:
One thing I never realized was that my body was very agile and my mind was perfect because I thought I could do anything, or at least try everything! Sometimes mistakenly would get hurt. This is a time when I was just beginning to work with my father, in the meat market where we had trucks to deliver to the A&P warehouses and small local butchers.
So at 3:00am, we would be loading trucks at railroad yards with loads, like Hines and Forequarters of beef, we, the family did it all together, five brothers and their kids which at the time was just me and little Al call. I couldn’t lift any of the meat, because it weighed 250 to 300 pounds each and that was like four times my weight. What I could do was to stand on a box and hold a hook to then place it into the leg near the ankle of the cow, or into the rib in the fourth quarter of the cow. I became quite good at it. My cousins and uncles would go back-and-forth as we loaded usually two or three trucks, cause afterwards, we all went to the meat market on 14th St., and 11th Ave. We have an office, a small office but enough for us to keep our stuff. We would then fool around later. Usually in front of the open hundred gallon can with the top open and a blazing fire in it!!
It was now really the beginning of our day even though we’ve spent the last four hours loading the trucks to bring to the wholesalers. Now when we unloaded the trucks into the wholesaler we had a special rail that connected the truck to the rail of the wholesaler so that we just rolled the meat off the truck onto that rail that connected to the rail of the wholesaler. When the truck was empty, I would take an empty hook, put it on the rail and swing myself to fly down onto the street and continue past each wholesaler, going, flying, going as I flew. My two arms were holding the hook as I traveled and traveled! The good part was every so often some man who would change the rail from going straight, to turning instead, to the right and into another wholesaler as I will come to the wholesalers doors, I raise my feet and slam into the doors, and they would bang open and I would fly into the wholesaler, if anybody was in the way he got it hit! I did it daily, two or three times as we unloaded each truck. I know the workers of the wholesalers would come out and watch me fly, everybody would laugh, and as I got off, they would rub their hands in my hair saying you’re crazy!!! I loved it because I was just being me.
That was not the only thing that I did that was different. My uncle Joey, driving,and I know I’ll be going with him to make local butcher deliveries. His was a little truck for delivery to the local butchers and we made pickups at different wholesalers that took us about an hour or two. Then we were off going down local streets that we did every day. I got to know the streets well, and my job was to sit on the back of the truck with my legs dangling out, as we traveled with both back doors open and all of its contents inside ready to be delivered to each butcher. Now what I would do next was also crazy, because on the truck itself in order to get up onto its floor, a rope with knots every foot was hanging on each side of the back doors. You would grab the cord and climb onto the truck. As my uncle would travel down the streets, I would grab that rope at its end and then jump off at the end of the truck, and I flew out and then the rope stopped me. My feet would go straight out and I was level with the ground which was flying by. I would then come to the ground to hit it with my feet and then would bounce, and then bounce again, and then bounce again maybe three times, then bounce very high to land back onto the floor of the truck. I will do this continuously and as I did it many times I would be able to see my uncle Joey driving, and he would looking in the side view mirror and be laughing like crazy watching me bounce. It’s what I did while I was young. I never realized that I did things that no one else would even try!! I was only a 4 foot, 55 pound young boy. I was doing these things fully to show myself that I can and did try everything, whether it was easy, hard or wild!! I just would do it. Oh by the way, I’m left-handed and when I was young, there were very few left hands. Why? Because the nuns would hit your left hand with a ruler saying: No! no no, use the other hand, so while the nun was watching, I will try to use my right hand, but absolutely useless, then switch the pen back into my left hand when she left, and I was in heaven, there were many many things that I was able to do because I was left-handed. One of them was, I could beat up any boy who tries to fight with me. When I played a sport I always had the advantage. It turns out that most left-handers today in sports have that advantage, and are “stars”!! Well, that was my intention while I was young and it showed me that I could, and did try everything. I had a small but great body, but from the time I was two years old, my ears has been the only problem and I’ve had it throughout my life. I conquered my world and turned my sons into being the same!!! This is Sal,”The one and only”
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