L&M Publications
Merrick Life • Bellmore Life • Freeport-Baldwin Leader • Wantagh-Seaford Citizen

STILL FRIENDS: North Merrick residents Richard Geniti and Joe Kiefer met recently at the Bellmore Applebee’s to discover the surprise of their lives.

by Joe Kiefer

I saw the advertisement on TV that Applebee’s [in Bellmore] was going to treat the veterans of the U.S. service to a free dinner on Veterans Day, November 11.

I would have gone with my wife Mary, but she was going out with her lady friends from Sacred Heart RC Church for dinner at a Garden City restaurant. So, I went to Applebee’s by myself.

After exercising for 1/2-hour and arriving at Applebee’s about 7:20 p.m., I noticed the line was long out the door, so I asked the group outside what to do. They told me to go inside and speak to the hostess and tell her the number of my party.

After finding my way through the crowd, I went to  the hostess to give her my name.  “Joe K’s the name,” I said. She  asked me how many were in my party. I showed her my veterans ID and told her: just me. The hostess then asked, “Do you want to eat now?” If so, she said,  “you can sit at the bar.”

I said yes to eating now...and yes to eating at the bar. Following the hostess around the bar I noticed there were no open seats! She then turned to me and said, “I’m sorry, there don’t appear to be seats available at the bar at present. However, would you like to share a table with someone and you can eat right now?”

Again, I said yes, as I was hungry. She took me over to a table where there was a man  sitting,  waiting for his veterans dinner menu. She asked the man if he would mind sitting with me, and he said it will be OK with him.

 sat down and introduced myself: “I’m Joe from North Merrick,” I said.  “I am Rich [Geniti] from North Merrick also,” he responded, as we both shook hands.

Where did you grow up? 

While we waited for the waiter, we began chatting. The waiter came over wearing a football jersey, number 10, and gave us the special veterans menu.

While waiting for the waiter to return to take our orders, we talked about our families, how many kids, grandchildren, and so on. I then asked Rich, “Where did you grow up?” Rich said Jamaica, Queens. I said, “So did I.”

I next asked, “Where did you go to school in Jamaica?” He said PS 170, on Parsons Boulevard and 87th Avenue, with the front of the building facing Hyland Avenue. I then answered that I had gone to  “Presentation of  the Blessed Virgin Mary on  89th Avenue, across from the Queensborough Library.”

Funny, but we both then blurted out together, “I went to Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary RC Church for Mass!”

I quickly asked Rich where he lived in Jamaica. He told me on 87th Road just off of Parsons Boulevard, near the Jamaica Jewish Center. Meanwhile, I said I lived one block west of Parsons Boulevard, 150-03 86th Avenue, a corner house.

“Where and when did you graduate?” I asked next. 

“From PS 170,”  he answered. “June 1951.” I graduated from Presentation in June 1950, I told him.

I fished for more, asking, “When did you move to Jamaica?” “1942,” Rick said.  I told him my mom, sister and I had moved to Jamaica after my father died suddenly in 1941, when I was six years old. We lived in Brooklyn until 1941.

I started Presentation Grammar school September 1942 and graduated from eighth grade in June 1950. He (Rick) said he started PS 170 September 1943 and graduated from there in June 1951. I asked Rick how old he was. He answered: 74. He was born in August 1936. I’m 74 and was born in June 1936!

Where did you used to play?” I was curious now to know. “I played stickball and punch ball in the PS 170 courtyard set aside for playing these two sports.” 

Hitting a home run

Whoa, I thought, that was the kicker! “I played these two games in the courtyard at PS 170, too!” I  exclaimed. It was at that moment we both came to realize that we knew one another from playing stick ball and punch ball at PS 170, around 1946. (We were both 9 or 10 years old at the time.)

We thought that maybe we knew one another from playing on the same team or opposite teams. (In those days you chose your team members.)

Suddenly, memories of those years came flooding back to both of us as quickly as lights turning on about the two sports, stickball and punchball, and we couldn’t help but conclude the only logical thing at that moment: We did play on the same team 64 years ago!

We then just opened up and talked freely about the old neighborhood  and anything that came to mind: about Cushman’s Bakery, Bickford’s Restaurant and the one-legged vet who sold newspapers in his corner newsstand at Parsons Boulevard and Hillside Avenue. “Do you remember Gertz Department store and Nedick’s Hot Dog store?” I asked. 

  

We remembered about how we used to go almost twice a month to the Ottlie Orphan Home on 148th Street, Jamaica, to visit and play with the orphan kids. We remembered it all very well.

“Do you remember the YMCA on Parsons Boulevard?” I laughed as I asked the question. It turned out we both had memberships there! What discoveries we were having!

We talked on just like kids again for two more hours, rediscovering all the places we had known when we were kids. 

Since that meeting, Rick and I have called one another several times to talk about those days when we were children growing up in Queens.

Editor’s note: Mr. Geniti told Merrick Life it has been a heartwarming experience for him meeting with Joe again, and reminiscing about their childhoods together. 

“You don’t meet people anymore you can speak to about your young days,” he said,  “and who lived in your neighborhood. They’re all gone now, or long since moved away.”

Mr. Kiefer, a teacher from 1958-96, also told Merrick Life that over 50 years ago he taught U.S. Congressman Pete King while Mr. King was in 10th grade at St. Pascal Baylon High School in St. Albans, Queens. “He was a born politician then, always looking to get out of class to go to a Student Service League meeting, or helping the nuns,” Mr. Kiefer remembers. The class was a coed honor class in Catholic history.