John Delach

March 2024: No. 502

This edited piece combines two pieces, Once Upon a Time in Middle Village  (No. 182) and Time and Again in Middle Village (No. 195) both written in 2017.

(All of these events happened between 1970 and 1977.)

 One hot, steamy Saturday morning found me vacuuming the orange shag-rug that covered our first-floor living room and dining room. Mary Ann had left me alone taking Beth and Michael with her. A fortuitous glance out of our front window revealed my cousin, Bob, exiting his car…a dream come true. At that time, Bob was a Seventies swinging single and it was within the bounds of reason to believe he’d fantasize knocking at a door answered by a bored housewife wearing only her panties and bra. Close but no cigar; In fact, I was the one smoking the cigar and dressed only in a tenement tee shirt and Jockey shorts. I didn’t even give him the chance to ring the bell … I threw open the front door, vacuum cleaner in hand, cigar in the other to exclaim: “What can I do for you good looking?”

We moved into 65-33 77 Place in February of 1970. Beth was born in 1969 and Mary Ann would soon become pregnant with Michael who would be born in April of 1971. The house was where my Aunt Helen had grown up. She had it renovated  with new appliances. She offered it to us a rental so low that the amount was almost a miracle.

A word about street addresses in Queens County. There is a code to them that is not readily apparent. 65-33 77 Pl. The 65 is the number of the closest cross-street. The 33 tells you that house is the thirty-third house on the block and 77 Place, Street, or Way is the actual location.     

My cousin Helen, her husband Don and their family lived four houses away from us in 65-25. In April 1972, they moved to Ramsey, NJ but first sold the place to her brother and his wife, Bill and Del, and their family.

Middle Village is a real community with its own character. We lived in pre-war attached houses,   18-feet wide, two-stories with a basement. The main floor, back to front began with a small foyer with a closet off the front door. An inner door opened into the living room that was the only room that took advantage of the full width of the house. On the extreme right of the living room was the staircase leading to the second floor. The dining room occupied about 2/3rds of the back of the house and the kitchen the other third. This made for a narrow kitchen only six-feet wide before being reduced by counters, sink, stove and refrigerator.

A second foyer in back of the kitchen led to a small back yard and a garage that opened to a common alley that ran the length of the block. The neighborhood children including our own kids loved to race their Big Wheels in this alley. The Big Wheel was a plastic tricycle built close to the ground with an enormous front wheel and two small trailing wheels. The kids could quickly get it up to speed, it was extremely stable and built for quick and rapid turns.  

Money was scarce in those days. One Sunday, I attended the 7:30 morning mass at St. Margaret’s, our local parish. A well-dressed couple sat in the pew behind me. They were both still dressed for last night’s activities in Manhattan and I had a distinct impression that these strangers were there because she insisted on attending morning mass. When the time came for the collection, he placed a $20 in the basket. Wow, I thought to myself, that’s more money than I can get my hands on until the banks re-open at nine tomorrow morning.

Fred and Huguette arrived from Viet Nam in 1975. They moved into 65-31, a heretofore vacant house right next to us. Fred first served in Viet Nam as an army electronics technician during the early days when the army was still advisers. After  completing his service he took a job with Decca and returned in country where he met and married Huguette. Fred was a pragmatist with a terrific sense of humor. One Saturday afternoon witnessed the two of us consciously deciding not to prevent an accident. It was one of those Saturdays between Thanksgiving and Christmas when the Long Island weather gods produce a mild day perfect for installing outdoor Christmas lights. We were both outside, each working on our own displays, when Bill came out lights, ladder and staple gun in hand. Bill erected his ladder, plugged his string in and climbed up to begin fixing it to the house.

“Should we tell him to unplug them first,” Fred asked?

“Naw”, I replied, “Let’s watch the show.”

Bill’s second or third staple hit the wire. Fred and I watched as the spark, shock and sound took him off the ladder and onto the grass. Unhurt but flustered, Bill didn’t appreciate our uncontrolled laugher and our now useless advice to unplug the lights first.           

One of our favorite Friday night activities was “stoop sitting” around the front walkway leading to the door. Bill and Del, Fred and Huguette and we Delaches lived within five attached houses of each other. We’d leave the widows fronting the street from our kids’ rooms open allowing these organic baby monitors to sound the alert by way of crying if one awoke.

The gals smoked cigarettes, guys cigars; we drank beer or wine and a few exotic drinks, mostly for the ladies like whiskey sours, sloe gin fizz or whatever else was trendy. Eventually, the need for pizza would strike our collective stomachs and a couple of the men would make a pizza run to Tudor Tavern Pizzeria on nearby Eliot Avenue and 80^th Street. The later it was, the better the pizza tasted.

Fred and Huguette lived right next door to my aunt’s house. That fist winter, Fred complained about the amount of his heating bills from The Brooklyn Union Gas Company. It cost him almost twice as much as we were paying. It seemed this disparity repeated itself every month. No matter where he set the thermostat, his bill was enormous. He even had the gas company check his system to no avail. One night I mentioned to Mary Ann how this was driving him crazy. “John’ it’s his wife’s doing. Huguette has no tolerance for the cold so as soon as Fred goes to work, she cranks up the heat to 90 degrees so she can wear summer day wear. She lowers it back to 65 about an hour before he comes home.”

“You’re kidding me! Oh boy, one of these days he’s going to explode once he figures that out. I don’t want to be around for that, but damned if I am going to tell him.

I can report that they are still married, so I have no idea how that was settled if at all.

By 1977 we were ready to buy the house, but Aunt Helen wouldn’t sell as she wished to keep her house in her immediate family. So we bought a house in Port Washington where we continue to live to this day.

Part of me still misses Middle Village.