The Pogey Kings of Kenmore.

(Disclaimer stuff for you parent types, lawyers, people who think they are lawyers, police where it snows as much as it does in Kenmore, NY, teachers, substitute teachers, politicians of any kind, adults who have managed to live through doing crazy stuff, my dead parents, clergy of any religion, and anyone else who tells you kids what to do and to whom you sometimes actually listen to…DON’T DO THE FOLLOWING AT HOME YOU COULD KILL YERSELF…do it a couple blocks over where your kin can’t see and where if you get hurt it won’t be in front of anyone who loves you or gives a crap about you. FAIR WARNING, JUST SAYING)

um, so back to

The Pogey Kings of Kenmore… (now lawyered up)… story

The Pogey Kings of Kenmore are…me…and my friend “Stach”, and my friend “Glass”.

My friend, “Stach”, and my friend, “Glass” are brothers. “Stach” is 9, and, “Glass” is 7-ish.

Here’s the real issue, their you know, real-legal-like names: Vinnie. Both of them…Vinnie.

You may be sitting in your home reading this, or in your car in traffic reading it and wondering why brothers would have the same name, I mean, what the hell was up with their parents, my friend Sammy Liabelli would always ask, “So Bones (me) why didn’t their mother and father call one Vinnie and the other one Vince, that would have made sense.”

I thought so too but when I asked their Mother that exact question she says to me, “Donnie Barone, my oldest son Vinnie, was named after his grandfather, Vinnie, and my youngest son, Vinnie, was named after his father, Vinnie, who was named after his father, so’s I had no choice you know.”

I gave the typical 10 year old head shake that we all gave to adults who said something possibly stupid but nothing that you could bank on at that age as actually being stupid.

Now though, on the block here in Kenmore we couldn’t call them Vinnie #1, and Vinnie #2 because Vinnie-after-his-father didn’t hear so well and would answer to anything that sounded like a “V” or even somedays, like an “E", or “D,” or “B.” Damn near would have to go through the whole alphabet to get his attention.

So.

This is what we did to end the “which Vinnie” issue when we called them, Vinnie named after his grandfather was called “Vinnie ‘Stach” because even at 9 years of age Vinnie was sprouting a little ‘stach under his nose so it’s logical to call him Vinnie ‘Stach.

We’d just yell out ‘Stach, skip the whole Vinnie problem, and the right Vinnie would yell back, “What.” Problem Solved.

Now for Vinnie after his father, he was just 7 years old and a little young yet to be shaving BUT he did have trouble seeing, mainly homework, so he always had to wear glasses, so naturally, we called that Vinnie, “Vinnie Glass,” we’d yell out “Hey Glass,” and the 7 year old not shaving Vinnie would yell back, “What.” Problem solved there too.

Now me, seems I was also named after my father, Don, so my parents named me that anyway, must be a neighborhood thing, but they solved it by calling me, Donnie, no one ever called my father, Donnie, for sure, my relatives solved the issue by calling my father, “Big Don,” and me “Little Don,” which worked until he got old and shrunk some and I grew some, and I didn’t have to worry that none of my brothers would be named after my father, or me, as well since my brothers were actually sisters who in fact weren’t born during the time period of this story.

Winter In Kenmore

So me and ‘Stach & Glass we grew up in Kenmore, NY (a 2 wood from the Buffalo line) and during the winter the weatherman would say this, “It’s going to snow.” And it did. Wasn’t any mention of “Lake Effect,” or “Climate this or that,” the weatherman stood outside of the TV station, WKBW, in the snow, looked around, sometimes shoveled where he was standing and said, “It’s going to snow,” and we believed him because at the exact moment he said that it was snowing it was snowing on us too.

Now growing up and laying in bed on a school night and listening to my clock radio and hearing the radio guy say, “It’s going to snow,” and then getting all excited about maybe no school in the morning only to hear him say, “only about a foot of snow overnight,” and then being all not excited because I knew a foot of snow wasn’t enough to close schools back then, and me and most of the other kids in the school walked to it.

Take it from me and my memory, I Trick-or-Treated in snow and went to Easter Mass in snow.

Snow to all of us kids in the neighborhood back then, snow to us was just like summer ‘cept we had to put on boots and several layers of clothes to go out and play.

Wasn’t an event back then, it was just like, you know, life.

My Grandmother, God bless her soul, would be the one assigned to getting me dressed in winter, I’d first put on the long underwear that my Aunt Irma got me for Christmas instead of the of the Hop-A-Long Cassidy 6 shooter cap gun and holster that I actually asked for, then I’d, by myself, put on my pants and the shirt that didn’t smell the most from the pile by my bed then put on my first pair of socks, then walk down to the living room where my Grandmother, God Bless Her Soul, was waiting with a sweater, jacket, 2 bread loaf bags from Giambra’s, my “arctics” (boots) and the SNOWSUIT.

This is what we would do, I’d put the sweater on BY Myself, then the jacket, would then lay down on the floor and my Grandmother, GOD BLESS HER SOUL, would take the 2 bread loaf bags and put them over my socks, when the wind blowed low you could sometimes smell Italian Bread down around my boots which was a much better smell than my normal toes stink, then she would take my “heavy” socks and put them overtop the paper bags so my feet stayed, “toasty” then while laying on the floor I’d roll over into the unzipped snowsuit, get my arms in the arms part, my legs in the legs part, she’d zip me up, but not before asking if I had to “pee,” If I did the suit would be zipped and I would waddle out through the kitchen, down a short flight of stairs, which I really couldn’t bend over to see but everyone thought that even if I fell here it would be “impossible for him to bang anything up to bad as long as he misses the open door to the basement and rolls down those stairs as well, that would be problematic.”

Once I walked, or rolled outside I was always met with much enthusiasm by “stach” and “glass” and several other neighborhood “friends…”

…with several million snowballs tossed in my direction.

It’s a Buffalo kid tradition to say hello with snow.

We’d run around through the backyards, over a couple fences always waiting for the one kid to get stuck-on-the-fence in his snowsuit then it would be all in on that kid until he started crying or the fence owning adult would come out and yell at us to stop killing the kid even though we had an unwritten rule of “no snowballs to the face,” which everyone held to the same as our summer unwritten rule of “no kicking me in the balls,” so we all stopped and looked at the yelling adult, then started throwing snowballs at them which always made the adult run away like a little baby.

And so we would run around beaning each other with snowballs, until Bobby came out, now you know Bobby was kind of small even for a small kid so sometimes even when you honest-to-God tried to throw a snowball sidearm so it would hit him at least 1 or 2 or 8 times it would hit him in the face to which he would cry and then yell, “no hitting in the face, or balls,” but in winter everyone got a snowball to the balls and no one ever felt it or complained, and then Bobby would go run away and hide…

…for a few minutes but then he’d come waddling back in his snowsuit armed with this…

…the dreaded YELLOW snow made into YELLOW snowballs.

Somehow he would always end up finding yellow snow in Mrs. Lizangucci’s backyard, and we all were told to “Never eat yellow snow,” much less pick it up and pack it into a snowball, much less get a yellow snowball in the face, or balls, or anywhere on your body, so we would always run away screaming “Bobby got yellow balls,” or he’s “throwing frozen dog-pee,” and suddenly you’d get hit in the back of your legs with a Bobby Yellow Snowball because he was small and couldn’t hit your head with it, and it would slide down your snowsuit and slide right into your “arctics” and then you’d have to go home and get completely undressed because you had yellow snow melting in your sock’s paper bags.

One summer I asked Mrs. Lizangucci what kind of dog she had and “whatever it is it certainly pee’s alot.”

“Well “little Don”I don’t know what you mean, me and Nick, we ain’t got no dog.”

It was the same summer Bobby moved out of the neighborhood with his parents.

Good thing.

The weatherman on WKBW-radio just said what, 36 inches of snow overnight, I jump out of bed run downstairs to where my Mother and Father are watching “77 Sunset Strip” on Channel-7 and yell, “What does 36 inches of snow mean.”

My father sitting on the couch butts out his cigarette, looks at my Mother who rolls her eyes and says, “It means MAYBE no school tomorrow, go back to bed.”

“yes…YES!!!” I say and not so quietly and run upstairs into my room, go over to my window and open it at almost the same time as “Stach” does his window which is directly across from my window.

Our homes are mirror images of each other, that’s what my father says but “Stach” has blue carpets in his and we have green but his bedroom window is separated from mine by our driveway which will barely fit, width wise, my father’s 1960-something Corvair which wasn’t exactly a go to snow car.

We don’t even have to yell to hear each other but as soon as we both open our each own windows we yell, “MAYBE NO SCHOOL!!!!!!!” To which I hear from the living room, “I said to go to bed.”

So in a kid whisper we both say… “Pogey!!!…maybe…”

Tomorrow would be a Perfect Pogey day…snowy streets and high snowbanks from the plows.

Oh Yeah.

Tomorrow we once again we could become kings…KINGS! of the Pogey…right here in Kenmore, NY…by gawd, as Grandmother would say, God Rest Her soul.

Me.

Pogey is basically, skiing, without the mountains, ski poles, or skis.

To Pogey all you need is a snowy street, a big snowbank that can hide a kid, a STOP SIGN (possibly the most important part), and be out of sight of your parents (also a key factor in the amount of Pogies that day).

Detroit is seems has supplied all the rest…big cars with BIG chrome rear bumpers some of which even put Pogey Handles conveniently within reach.

This morning, school was indeed CLOSED, the snowbanks were huge and the streets had new fresh snow, packed powder with the all important TIRE RUTS.

Here’s the rules:

Me and “Stach” and “glass” were on the even number side of the street, “Limp” Tony (not from Pogey), “Freck” Dave (the freckled kid) and his SISTER “Cute” Maria were on the odd side of the street.

If a car came our way it was “our ride” and counted, if it came down the other side of the street it was “their ride” and also counted. Minimum Pogey was from one street light to the next street light, if you didn’t make it that far, your “ride” didn’t count, three missed “rides” and you loose and had to sit in the snow and wait until the end of the Pogey even if it was soaking through your bottom.

So, a car would stop for the Stop sign, either side it was a 4-way stop, if it’s on your side you sneak out from behind the snowbank, keeping real low to the ground so the driver doesn’t see you in the rear-view mirror, and with snow mitts snuggly on you grab ahold of the back bumper and hang on as the car starts up and heads down the street.

And boom you are “skiing” in your Arctics as you are dragged down the street all bent over and hanging on.

The home run was when an old person (anyone older than 20) came down the street in an old car with big bumpers with the things that stood up from the bumper itself.

That was an easy double lamppost to lamppost.

“Stach” was, of the 3 of us, the best, he was a kid Pogey legend when he actually held on and WENT AROUND THE CORNER WITH THE CAR.

Forever now in kid Pogey lore.

Now sometimes the driver of the car being Pogied would see you and either slam on the breaks, go faster, or start swerving to see if they could launch you into a snowbank. If you held on through all that you got extra Pogey Points.

Only one other time could you get Plus Pogey and that’s when the driver stopped the car and got out, if you could outrun the driver on foot it would be a double Pogey.

Things have been pretty even all morning, it was getting late, cold and snow started seeping through our snowsuits and the paper bags in between our socks, on the slower cars we could almost warm our hands by holding on with just one hand and warming the other by holding it near the car’s muffler pipe…it was a Plus Plus Pogey if you could prove you did that, we’d smell your knit glove to make sure you weren’t lying.

We were about to call it quits, Pogey Points all square up between us and the Pogiers from Victoria Ave a couple streets down.

But then we saw it, the big white station wagon driven by Mr. Muscanello and we could see him sitting behind the big steering wheel and he was smiling as he came up to the Stop sign.

He knew.

He was the original Pogey King of the other side of Kenmore Avenue, BUFFALO where most kids were Pogey Pros.

He was Pro-Pogey, told us in fact about his Legendary Buffalo Pro Pogey rides, especially the one and only Pogey down Delaware Avenue from Valenti’s Pizza Joint to the stop light in front of the Delaware “Animal Host” Restaurant.

Aint no one going to ever top that historic Pogey.

Nope.

I saw him look right to left as he started to slow down, he saw both sides were Pogied up.

He knew…it was a Pogey-off. Could see our bottoms turning dark from the snow sitting.

Slowly, he crept up to the stop sign, and just sat there, it was on the even side, “glass” was shaking he was so cold, “Stach” was having trouble getting his mittens back on, so as Mr. Muscanello tapped the gas pedal I knew it was up to me.

I stood up straight, pulled my knit hat down tight over my head and walked out to the back of his wagon, bent down and grabbed on. It took a second or two, I’m sure Mr. Muscanello was checking to make sure I was on ok…and then he took off…

…one back wheel spun shooting now sort of Grey snow all over an already cold “glass”, and we were off…

…one lamppost…

…2nd lamppost, the Pogey was official…

…Mr. Muscanello was keeping the car at a constant speed probably 60 miles per hour, in reality though maybe…5mph…

…3rd lamppost…

…4th lamppost…

…I am now at my bestest Pogey ever…

…5th lamppost….

…6th lamppost…and then suddenly a big bump as he ran over some pile of snow that some jerk shoveled out of his driveway and right into our Pogey Path…and I went flying on both my asses into a snowpile.

“You okay?”

Mr. Muscanello saw me fly by his car and into head first into the snowbank.

“You know you did a 6 lamppost Pogey…”

“I know…” and as he helped me up we both smiled and laughed.

“You beat my best on this street. Come on get in I’ll drive you back.”

And so I did, and he drove me back to the two Vinnies, but then to my horror he told me to get out saying, “Odds turn.”

Oh no.

He was going to even up the Pogey.

Oh no…but then…then…instead of “Limp” or “Freck” stepping out from behind the snowbank, out stepped “Cute” Maria.

Both the Vinnies started laughing, they saw it to, a girl, a cute girl though, was going to try and out Pogey us, “Good luck girly, Bones just did a 6 lampposter, beat that,” yelled “glass”.

“Stach” just honked a kid louey(spit) into the snow. A man of few words, actually no words there.

“Cute” Maria just looks at us, looks through the rear passenger side window of Mr. Muscanello’s station wagon, adjusts her mittens, bends down and grabs onto the bumper with both hands.

Standing close to the car I can see him smile and then hit the gas pedal.

…1 lamppost…

…2 lamppost…

…3 lamppost..

I can hear “glass” swallow, “Stach” does a father kind of swears.

…4th lamppost..

…5th lamppost…

But they are running out of street, they are coming up to the next Stop sign…

…we all start shouting, no way they can break the 6 lamppost, they have to stop…we win…WE WIN…

But.

But then as they are two driveways away from the Stop sign, “Cute” Maria starts to stand up, the car is still moving, then with her right hand she lets go of the bumper, reaches up and grabs the right rear fin of the car…

…and stands straight up holding onto only the fin and the latch that opens the rear door of the station wagon…

…huh…and then instead of stopping for the Stop sign Mr. Muscanello just slows down and rolls through it…

All of our mouths are open, even “Limp’s” and “Freck’s”…

…and then instead of going straight Mr. Muscanello makes a wide turn onto the side street and “Cute” Maria is still standing straight up and now she has just made a Pogey turn…next to me “Stach” I think may have been crying, someone else made a Pogey turn, up to that point he was the only Pogey King to do that…and to make matters worse…IT WAS A GIRL.

Suddenly we heard a car horn beep, Mr. Muscanello was beeping his car horn and when we turned to see why, “Cute” Maria, still standing and Pogeying by holding onto the tail fin of the station wagon, looked our way, and as she Pogied out of sight, raised her left hand and…

…waved goodbye to us kids standing there in the street as she Pogied on home.

…that as soon as he got home he started crying like a little baby and when his mother asked what was wrong he actually TOLD her THE TRUTH about Pogeying.

‘Stach” was the first to get his mouth washed out with Ivory soap, “glass”, after his mother caught him on his 3rd lap of the dining room/living room circuit of trying to out run the Ivory, got an extra mouthful for “not cooperating.”

I was 3rd, once the phone rang and I heard, “They did WHAT!!!” I just got up off my bed and walked into the upstairs bathroom and sat down on the edge of the bathtub and waited.

It was a new bar, so I got to break it in, you could see my tooth marks in it for several days until my father accidentally showered with the “mean” soap and mother had to go buy a new one since my father “Lord knows used it in places I don’t even want to know.”

The following week while walking to school in only a foot of snow I saw “Cute” Maria, first time since I saw her exploits, she smiled at me, I smiled back and asked her to marry me, she said since we were both 9 that “maybe we should wait.”

We held hands once, coincidently it was the hand she used to wave at us as she managed a Standing Corner Pogey (to be honest I thought that was the coolest part to hold the Pogey Wave hand, holding hands otherwise was ick).

All through Junior High and High School “Stach” and “glass” and I asked around but as far as we could tell no one else ever accomplished a 6 Lamppost Pogey.

In my High School yearbook under my name I submitted exactly this: “Accomplished Only Known Even Block Side 6 Lamppost Pogey.”

They didn’t use it.

I know the guy who wrote he “Threw 6 TD’s In One Game.”

Whoopty do, I saw the dude Pogey once, couldn’t even make lamppost 1, jerkass.

If I ever have the chance to get back with “stach” and “glass” and know it before hand I’ll have a friend of mine, Dave, make 3 trophies, it’s what he does for a living, congratulate people on bass for winning tourneys

And being a friend and not a High School jerkass teacher he’ll write on 2 of the Pogey Trophies exactly what I want, and it will be simply this:

“To “Stach”/”Glass”: The Pogey Kings of Kenmore”

And on the 3rd trophy it will simply say:

“To “Cute” Maria: The Pogey Queen of Kenmore.”