This book is about a world that has vanished. A gritty, grubby, often grim world that I thought was the promised land. I lived there for my first 33 years and it was swiftly disintegrating even as I left more than a half-century ago. It is gone now except for a handful of diehards cherishing the past and cursing the present.
It was a working- class world of immigrants, their children and their grand-children, very American in its peculiar way, very patriotic, very Democratic, mostly Catholic albeit with a sizable separation of Lutherans, half- educated but well-informed, highly opinionated, very tough, parochial in every sense of the word, hostile to outsiders, indifferent to criticism, prejudiced, misogynic, cynical and compassionate in equal measure, fiercely loyal, ignorant as spit, and a wonderful place to grow up in.
In other words, Jersey City as it was, not as it is today. That vanished Jersey City will be the center of my story surrounded by a circle of other places whose radius was not much more than 35 miles. My family and friends lived within that circle mostly in Jersey City, Hoboken, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Union City, North Bergen and Secaucus. Mount Arlington on Lake Hopatcong was at its farthest reach.
My family is mostly Irish and Italian with some Scots, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Poles, Jews, Albanians, Germans, Greeks, Mexicans, other Latinos, Assiniboine-Sioux, and the odd WASP thrown in for blandness. You know, typically American.
I should tell you that much, perhaps most, of my family is not related to me by blood. But they are my family nonetheless and I love them all. . You're probably not going to figure out some of the relationships, but, then, I have trouble myself.
I am a card-carrying member of the Silent Generation. Uncomfortably wedged between the glorious Greatest Generation and the pain-in-the-ass Baby Boomers, we were born in the Great Depression and were children during World War II. These two cataclysmic events formed us. We are known for not making much of a fuss about our culture We only produced one president, Joe Biden, and as he was born in 1943, he had no memories of either of our seminal events. We provided the young activists, mostly Black, who manned the civil rights movement. I myself joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1959. Not all of us conformed to the prevailing culture, a sliver of the Silent Generation provided the leadership for the antiwar movement and other more radical causes during the 1960s but their followers were Baby Boomers. Having completed my eight- year military obligation, I re-enlisted in the Marine Reserves as a corporal at age 29 when Vietnam was heating up but the reserves weren't mobilized. We were also known as "Traditionalists" which is a more accurate description of our core values. Most of us are gone now, so I thought I'd try my hand in telling how some of us got the way we are.
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It was a working- class world of immigrants, their children and their grand-children, very American in its peculiar way, very patriotic, very Democratic, mostly Catholic albeit with a sizable separation of Lutherans, half- educated but well-informed, highly opinionated, very tough, parochial in every sense of the word, hostile to outsiders, indifferent to criticism, prejudiced, misogynic, cynical and compassionate in equal measure, fiercely loyal, ignorant as spit, and a wonderful place to grow up in.
In other words, Jersey City as it was, not as it is today. That vanished Jersey City will be the center of my story surrounded by a circle of other places whose radius was not much more than 35 miles. My family and friends lived within that circle mostly in Jersey City, Hoboken, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Union City, North Bergen and Secaucus. Mount Arlington on Lake Hopatcong was at its farthest reach.
My family is mostly Irish and Italian with some Scots, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Poles, Jews, Albanians, Germans, Greeks, Mexicans, other Latinos, Assiniboine-Sioux, and the odd WASP thrown in for blandness. You know, typically American.
I should tell you that much, perhaps most, of my family is not related to me by blood. But they are my family nonetheless and I love them all. . You're probably not going to figure out some of the relationships, but, then, I have trouble myself.
I am a card-carrying member of the Silent Generation. Uncomfortably wedged between the glorious Greatest Generation and the pain-in-the-ass Baby Boomers, we were born in the Great Depression and were children during World War II. These two cataclysmic events formed us. We are known for not making much of a fuss about our culture We only produced one president, Joe Biden, and as he was born in 1943, he had no memories of either of our seminal events. We provided the young activists, mostly Black, who manned the civil rights movement. I myself joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1959. Not all of us conformed to the prevailing culture, a sliver of the Silent Generation provided the leadership for the antiwar movement and other more radical causes during the 1960s but their followers were Baby Boomers. Having completed my eight- year military obligation, I re-enlisted in the Marine Reserves as a corporal at age 29 when Vietnam was heating up but the reserves weren't mobilized. We were also known as "Traditionalists" which is a more accurate description of our core values. Most of us are gone now, so I thought I'd try my hand in telling how some of us got the way we are.
On the Stoop: : Growing Up In a Vanished World
This book is about a world that has vanished. A gritty, grubby, often grim world that I thought was the promised land. I lived there for my first 33 years and it was swiftly disintegrating even as I left more than a half-century ago. It is gone now except for a handful of diehards cherishing the past and cursing the present.
It was a working- class world of immigrants, their children and their grand-children, very American in its peculiar way, very patriotic, very Democratic, mostly Catholic albeit with a sizable separation of Lutherans, half- educated but well-informed, highly opinionated, very tough, parochial in every sense of the word, hostile to outsiders, indifferent to criticism, prejudiced, misogynic, cynical and compassionate in equal measure, fiercely loyal, ignorant as spit, and a wonderful place to grow up in.
In other words, Jersey City as it was, not as it is today. That vanished Jersey City will be the center of my story surrounded by a circle of other places whose radius was not much more than 35 miles. My family and friends lived within that circle mostly in Jersey City, Hoboken, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Union City, North Bergen and Secaucus. Mount Arlington on Lake Hopatcong was at its farthest reach.
My family is mostly Irish and Italian with some Scots, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Poles, Jews, Albanians, Germans, Greeks, Mexicans, other Latinos, Assiniboine-Sioux, and the odd WASP thrown in for blandness. You know, typically American.
I should tell you that much, perhaps most, of my family is not related to me by blood. But they are my family nonetheless and I love them all. . You're probably not going to figure out some of the relationships, but, then, I have trouble myself.
I am a card-carrying member of the Silent Generation. Uncomfortably wedged between the glorious Greatest Generation and the pain-in-the-ass Baby Boomers, we were born in the Great Depression and were children during World War II. These two cataclysmic events formed us. We are known for not making much of a fuss about our culture We only produced one president, Joe Biden, and as he was born in 1943, he had no memories of either of our seminal events. We provided the young activists, mostly Black, who manned the civil rights movement. I myself joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1959. Not all of us conformed to the prevailing culture, a sliver of the Silent Generation provided the leadership for the antiwar movement and other more radical causes during the 1960s but their followers were Baby Boomers. Having completed my eight- year military obligation, I re-enlisted in the Marine Reserves as a corporal at age 29 when Vietnam was heating up but the reserves weren't mobilized. We were also known as "Traditionalists" which is a more accurate description of our core values. Most of us are gone now, so I thought I'd try my hand in telling how some of us got the way we are.
It was a working- class world of immigrants, their children and their grand-children, very American in its peculiar way, very patriotic, very Democratic, mostly Catholic albeit with a sizable separation of Lutherans, half- educated but well-informed, highly opinionated, very tough, parochial in every sense of the word, hostile to outsiders, indifferent to criticism, prejudiced, misogynic, cynical and compassionate in equal measure, fiercely loyal, ignorant as spit, and a wonderful place to grow up in.
In other words, Jersey City as it was, not as it is today. That vanished Jersey City will be the center of my story surrounded by a circle of other places whose radius was not much more than 35 miles. My family and friends lived within that circle mostly in Jersey City, Hoboken, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Union City, North Bergen and Secaucus. Mount Arlington on Lake Hopatcong was at its farthest reach.
My family is mostly Irish and Italian with some Scots, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Poles, Jews, Albanians, Germans, Greeks, Mexicans, other Latinos, Assiniboine-Sioux, and the odd WASP thrown in for blandness. You know, typically American.
I should tell you that much, perhaps most, of my family is not related to me by blood. But they are my family nonetheless and I love them all. . You're probably not going to figure out some of the relationships, but, then, I have trouble myself.
I am a card-carrying member of the Silent Generation. Uncomfortably wedged between the glorious Greatest Generation and the pain-in-the-ass Baby Boomers, we were born in the Great Depression and were children during World War II. These two cataclysmic events formed us. We are known for not making much of a fuss about our culture We only produced one president, Joe Biden, and as he was born in 1943, he had no memories of either of our seminal events. We provided the young activists, mostly Black, who manned the civil rights movement. I myself joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1959. Not all of us conformed to the prevailing culture, a sliver of the Silent Generation provided the leadership for the antiwar movement and other more radical causes during the 1960s but their followers were Baby Boomers. Having completed my eight- year military obligation, I re-enlisted in the Marine Reserves as a corporal at age 29 when Vietnam was heating up but the reserves weren't mobilized. We were also known as "Traditionalists" which is a more accurate description of our core values. Most of us are gone now, so I thought I'd try my hand in telling how some of us got the way we are.
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On the Stoop: : Growing Up In a Vanished World
On the Stoop: : Growing Up In a Vanished World
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940184399577 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Barnes & Noble Press |
| Publication date: | 09/16/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 679 KB |
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