Angelo Archives - Chris Carosa

The Never-Ending Apple Wars of Summer

By Chris Carosa on August 8, 2023

The dynamics between the kids on Abbott Parkway were complex. There was always this “boys against girls” thing.

It started in school. By fourth grade, it got to where boys intercepted notes girls tried to pass to one another. Sometimes the boys would read them. Sometimes the boys would pass them to our teacher, Miss Powell. Miss Powell didn’t take too kindly to note passing.

This tension spilled over to the neighborhood. Several girls from our grade played on the Continue Reading “The Never-Ending Apple Wars of Summer”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, Angelo, Apple Wars, Babsie, Cindy, Dad, Debbie, fourth grade, grandpa, Johnny, Karen, Kenny, Markie, Miss Powell, peach tree, Shari

Simple Summer Mornings In The Years B.C. (‘Before Chili’)

By Chris Carosa on August 1, 2023

If the summers of Dortmund Circle were filled with sports of all sorts, flingable fruit filled the summers of Abbott Parkway. That wasn’t the only difference.

While nearly all the kids my age on Dortmund Circle were boys, girls dominated the peerage on Abbott Parkway. There were a lot more kids on Abbott Parkway, in part because the street was twice as long. That length also changed our venues of play.

On Dortmund Circle, all us guys lived within a few houses of each other. Our playing fields (mostly the street and our driveways) lay right outside our doors. Given its substantial length and the location of most of the kids, Abbott Parkway presented a different avenue to fun.Continue Reading “Simple Summer Mornings In The Years B.C. (‘Before Chili’)”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 3-d Football Card, Abbott Parkway, Angelo, bikes, Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Dave Thomas, Dick Butkus, Dortmund Circle, grandpa's house, Highland Parkway, Kellogg's, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Kenny, Kirk, Life cereal, Markie, Mary Lee, McCoy, mom, Quake, Quisp, Raisin Bran, Rocketship 7, Spock, Star Trek, Trix

Ground Control To Commander Tom

By Chris Carosa on June 13, 2023

Source: http://megomuseum.com/community/showthread.php?69360-Mego-Museum-Podcast-Growing-up-Parkdale-Tomland-Famous-Monsters

You hear stories from older generations about having to “walk a mile back and forth to school each day… in a snowstorm… and it was uphill both ways!”

Well, truth be told, for my brother and me, it was just under a half mile each way. Four-tenths of a mile from our house at the end of the street (187 Abbott Parkway) all the way up to the school bus stop at the corner of South Park Ave, then a narrow two lanes.

Living in Blasdell meant we were in the crosshairs of the lake effect snow machine south of Buffalo, so you could bet your bottom dollar we often walked during snowstorms. And rainstorms. And thunderstorms. And thundersnow. And even hot (almost) summer days towards the end of the school year. Yeah, mom made sure we always dressed for the Continue Reading “Ground Control To Commander Tom”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, Acquaviva, Angelo, Betsy, Big Tree Elementary, Buffalo, Canada, Channel 7, Commander Tom, Dancing Notes, Dave Thomas, Dustmop, Erie, Eyewitness News, Flash Gordon, Irv Weinstein, Jamestown, Kenny, Kingergarten, Markie, Rick Azar, Rochester, Rocketship 7, School Bus Stop, sewer rat, South Park Ave, The Adventures of Superman, Three Stooges, Tom Jolls, Toronto, WKBW, Woodlawn Elementary, Woodlawn Intermediate

Childhood’s End: A Review of Ford vs. Ferrari

By Chris Carosa on February 18, 2020

Does this make sense to you?

There was a time when you met your best friend forever in Kindergarten. You went to school together. You graduated together. You were part of each other’s wedding parties. You raised your families together. You went on vacations together. Ultimately, you retired to the same communities together.

At least that’s what we were raised to believe.

My best friend was Angelo. From that day we met as five-year-olds to board that first school bus, we were best friends. Although the only class we ever shared was Kindergarten, from that point on we did everything together. Each day we would walk up Abbott Parkway to the school bus stop together. Every summer day we’d play together.

We talked of our past, present, and future.

We talked about our families, especially my uncle who wanted to design sports cars and his cousin, who frequently laid rubber in the middle of our street with his red hot 1968 Mustang.

We talked about school friends and who liked Ford and who liked Chevy.

We talked about our future wives, how we’d be each other’s best man. Oddly, Angelo Continue Reading “Childhood’s End: A Review of Ford vs. Ferrari”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, Movie Reviews, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, Angelo, Camaro, Carroll Shelby, Chevy, Fio, Ford, Ken Miles, Magnum, muscle car, Mustang, P.I., T-Top, The Blue Max, The Godfather II, The Right Stuff, Uncle Pauley, Wild World of Sports, Z-28

A Memory of Frank Ricci

By Chris Carosa on November 5, 2019

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You probably never heard of Frank Ricci.

You probably never met Frank Ricci.

But I have and I did. He is among the thousand points of light that have illuminated my life. This is my salute to him. As you read this, I’m confident you may find some familiar tidbits that you didn’t expect to be there. I promise you, before you come to the end of this column, you’ll discover why.

Francesco “Frank” Ricci was born in the mountains south of Rome, Italy on February 10, 1935. He immigrated to America in 1959 after marrying his wife Teresa. Teresa DeAngelis grew up on Abbott Parkway in Blasdell, New York. I grew up on Abbott Parkway, only many years later.

I remember much about growing up on Abbott Parkway. On the other hand, I don’t Continue Reading “A Memory of Frank Ricci”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged Abbott Parkway, Angelo, Blasdell, Buffalo Bills, Jeanmarie, Kenny, Markie, Robert

If You’re Not Guilty, Don’t Act Like It

By Chris Carosa on November 7, 2017

Previous: A Bully Tactic: Give Them Something To Deny

In elementary school we walked a half mile each day to the bus stop at the top of the street. There were about twenty kids at that bus stop (this was during the peak baby boomer years, so it wasn’t unusual for one street to produce twenty elementary school kids). There were two sets of boys. The older boys and us (me, my brother Kenny, my best friend Angelo and his brother Markie). There was also this quite younger boy, Johnny, who desperately wanted to be like us (not the older boys, for even he realized that was too much a leap). We shunned him, as older kids are wont to do with younger kids, but we didn’t bully him like the older boys did to us (to see how I ultimately defeated these bullies – without any need for physical violence – see “Terror at the School Bus Stop – A True Life Story,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, January 11, 1990). As a result, Continue Reading “If You’re Not Guilty, Don’t Act Like It”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, Angelo, bully, Kenny, lessons learned, Markie, Nixon, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

Twins Never Part

By Chris Carosa on July 3, 2017

This is the second of four parts of an older brother’s eulogy to a beloved younger brother.

I was barely a year old when I first met Kenny. My parents brought this bundle home from the hospital. I saw a small foot poking through the blanket. Elated, I tugged the tiny toes. Still grasping the diminutive digits, I smiled broadly and looked up at my parents. “Goggie!” I said.

Yes, I had thought my parents got me a new puppy. Instead, I got something better – a baby brother. Had I been more eloquent then and as versed in classic cinema as I am today, I might have more aptly said, “Kenny, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

You may know him as “Ken,” “Kenny,” or even, as he signed every greeting card he ever signed beginning at age – I don’t know, 7? – Kenneth P. Carosa. To me, he’ll always be Continue Reading “Twins Never Part”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life Tagged Abbott Parkway, Angelo, Cubscouts, Dad, Daryll Lamonica, erie county fair, grandma, grandpa, Hamburg Fair, Kenneth P. Carosa, Kenneth Patrick Carosa, Kenny, L-Pattern, Pizza Stand, South Park Avenue, The Interception Kid, The Mad Bomber, Uncle Sammy

Strawberry Fields Forever – An Ode to Kenny

By Chris Carosa on June 27, 2017

Kenneth P. Carosa
11/2/1961 – 6/18/2017

This is the first of four parts of an older brother’s eulogy to a beloved younger brother.

I remember a bright summer day in late June. The sweet smell of acres upon acres of Queen Anne’s Lace, daisies, and the occasional black-eyed Susan surrounded us as we ventured into the bountiful fields of wild strawberries. The broad undeveloped lots just to the south of Highland Parkway rolled as far as the eye could see.

And with the weed trees then mere young saplings, the eye could see pretty far. We often tested our vision on clear August days. Me, Kenny, Angelo and Markie would hike deep into these virgin woods, being careful to remain within sight of civilization as we knew it. We walked just far enough so we could see the Hamburg Fair’s Double Ferris Wheel spin silently just on the edge of the horizon.

But while those late summer days were for friends, the first days of summer meant the strawberries were ripening. No one cared more about this abundant fruit except for my mother, me, and Kenny… and perhaps a few small animals. Each summer my mother would Continue Reading “Strawberry Fields Forever – An Ode to Kenny”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life Tagged Abbott Parkway, Angelo, Beatles, Buffalo Bills, Double Ferris Wheel, Elysian Fields, Hamburg Fair, Highland Parkway, Kenneth P. Carosa, Kenneth Patrick Carosa, Kenny, Markie, South Park Avenue, strawberry, Tupperware