George Hew:  

Well folks its been a long time since running around the streets of Sleepy Hollow(formerly North Tarrytown) and Tarrytown. My parents owned the Chinese hand laundries in North Tarrytown and Tarrytown I used to walk the baby carriage from one laundry to the other and had to go past Patriots Park late at night and always had bad dreams of monsters chasing me through the park to the library and then the dream would end My parents couldn't speak English very good and I remember my Dad using sign language to order meat At Cavalieri,'s market on Cortland Street ordering meat in sign language and fresh vegetables. Those were the days when the fish truck would come on Wednesday or Friday up Cortland Street with fresh fish They worked hard and always left me in the store window on Cortland street to play. Maybe I saw you girls or guys walking by. I know years later an older woman who lived on Chestnut Street confirmed a sighting of me . I remember when I went to school in kindergarten in Ms.Amelia Pecx's class they put a little written tag with my name on it because I could only speak Chinese. She put me in the corner to play with the blocks but eventually I caught up to you guys I had a Jewish uncle Moe Levy,who was a kind and gentle man and owned a lot of property in town and I shoveled the snow from the sidewalks and cleaned up the alleys with the broken wine bottles and beer cans I went with Moe to Orchard and Delancy street in New York city to fill his haberdashery orders. What a different world in NYC!Times Square ,pizza,bagels,bialys, knishes,Chinese and Italian food! My Irish godfather,Al Ryan who died early of cancer was always fun loving and a jokester,a bar owner,a bookie and head of the Holy Name Society. He always like the Irish had this gift of gab in making different people fit in and to get them to laugh including me. German deli owner Red Mike Nicholas was a quiet more serious man and had the cold cuts and German potato and macaroni salads and some German specialties There was Stein's across from St Teresa's and Sol's five and dime and Mary Fishers and Rosenbloom's candy store anon Beekman Ave. That was always was a treat after coming from Alter's bakery to get some hot fresh cinnamon buns,banana cream pies,rye and pumpernickel bread from Mary. Not like the mass produced bakery garbage we get today in the supermarkets. Well all of this has led to some translation confusion with my last name on my birth certificate with all of these multi national and multi-ethnic influences.Irish,Italian Chinese and Jewish. You see it was actually supposed to be Wing,Eng,or Ng and not Hew as it is how on my birth certificate that got so messed up that the original was pasted over several times. Hew being a Scottish name where I always get correspondence to join the Scottish Society or to join the clan. We always forget good people in our fast paced lives and never give them enough credit in how they affected our lives and help shape our character. I remember Mr and Miss Payne from Irvington who took me and Artie Venier and his sisters every Saturday for Bible story, singing and crafts at their house. They did this at their own expense and helped get us get two weeks of Bible camp in the summer in Pine Bush ,swimming,fishing,hiking,and Bible study while living in these screened in bungalows We used to drink the fruit punch we called it bug juice and beginning our morning prayers with Heavenly sunshine. All of these people and of course and Sunday school at the Catholic charch at St Teresa's helped formulate my early values as a little kid running around on the streets I used to fool around with a lot of fireworks ,pellet guns and knives just phases of a mixed childhood God knows what I would have been if I did not have all these good influences. me.. I was young and impressionable and didn't know any better and it kept me from getting into a lot of deep trouble I used to raise prize show and racing pigeons in my backyard and had my Chinese vegetable garden across from Gabby Hayes' house off Bedford Road. Boy did I do crazy things like hanging off steel beams on the SAW Mill River Parkway at Eastview bridges to catch stray racing pigeons who have lost their way to breed with my own pigeons You know whenever I walk past a pigeon they look at me as though they know me. They say that animals past this recognition through generations. Not like some people we know. I had two paper routes my first one was Valley and Washington street and Beekman Ave and Broadway the other was one half of the Van Tassel Apts and delivered false teeth for Stone and Friere to all the dentists arouhd town I remember I had a childhood crush on a girl but she never new it. I think she went out with Pat Gabriel in High School and didn't know me because I was not in that circle. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. I was terrified when I delivered newspapers to the Coffey funeraL home and the guy popped up out of the casket he was sleeping in and tried to get his newspaper but I was out the door by then I was raised on white rice and stir fry and Malandrino's Italian combo and meatball wedges that they made for the GM plant I remember the boys behind the counter like it was yesterday Mally,his Dad ,Sal and his brother in law Vince. They are all gone now but they made the greatest wedges in town I used to see of a lot of you guys and girls at the playgrounds at Franklin courts,Beekman Ave and Barnhart when I used to used love to play ping pong and give a 11 point spot to strengthen my concentration I look back at on all of the days of a mispent childhood with fondness and all of the characters that I know that are no longer here or living and of course yours truly and all you guys and girls reading this. Although I went to Sleepy Hollow till 9th grade before I left for L.A. and then came back to N.Y. and went to Roosevelt High School in Yonkers and graduated from Lakeland High in Shrub Oak I became a ward of the state as a foster kid because my mother had my future laid out in the laundry and you did not want to cross an immigrant Chinese mother from the old county When I was young I used to read about Walter Mitty and his life and all the things he dreamed of doing. I used to daydream in school all of the time and not pay attention and dream of a new adventure,about being famous,about being rich,about the love of your life,and about what you would do in life and have a nice house to live in with a fence around it. and kids. So here is a story Walter Mitty will be proud of!. I remember Jerry Jocko the garbage man and Goo-Goo the barber on Teresa St. I went to the movies at the Strand for a quarter and getting a door prize that was a goldfish in a plastic bag. Boy was I happy! but to my dismay he didn't last too long he died when I got home and I had to bury" Goldie". I used to sit at the top of the stairs with my friend Frank Quinn at his Irish French Canadian grandmother's house. Whiie she read the tea leaves for the old African American ladies talking about life,cheating hearts and love and finances and her rare talking South American green and yellow parrot who chimed in on thetea readings"Gawk,he is no good!Gawk,He is cheating on you! Yo girls! sometimes things in life never change. I was lucky enough to be in the N.Y.Times Sports section as a boy from Lake Mohegan that won the Westchester Caddie Scholarship to go to Pace College when I caddied at Briar Hall Country Club now Trump National on TV. Although I wanted to go to Georgetown to go into the Foreign Service but things always change in life and get turned around when you are starting out in your life. I never realy had a Dad because he never had more than a second or third grade education in China to give me any guidance . I went after life as it came but he was a simple hard working man who loved to eat and shop in Chinatown in New York.. In those days it was only one block called Mott Street.There was a Chinese side and an Italian side where Crazy Joe Gallo hung out and ultimately. got it at Umberto's clam house. But I remember he used do caligraphy before it was fashionable But you never wanted to get him mad because he was a big man and wore a size 56 sweater.Noone you would want to mess with in a dark alley. You meet a girl fall in love and have a family in that order or something like that or that you learn that time can be short and you have to make the best of it no matter what the circumstances are. My Dad died and my seven year old brother died of a brain tumor after spending their life savings on cancer care since they had no health insurance I raised my two brothers and two sons and got my two brothers into IBM. I was determined to beat the odds since IBM employees upon retiring at 65 only lived to collect their retirement for less than two years of their retirement checks during my time. I retired at the age of 42 I started working when I was 4 so I thought I was entitled I worked for the P.O. in Ossining during the day and went to college at night with the added family responsibilities Some of the professors at night I had would give two weeks of homework over the weekend and started with C that not too many got down to D and F and flunked many students and I guess they got their kicks off it. I don't know how much pleasure these professors got doing things like that to their students but now they are dead and gone and forgotten and no longer anybody's concern. In short they were just crummy teachers making up for their shortcomings in a sick sort of way.. But I imagine the scores of good students that they discouraged and prevented from attaining their dreams because they ...Expand for more