One of the greatest joys in growing up on Staten Island in the 50s and 60s was the Hot Dog Lady at Sears Roebuck on Forest Avenue. Before it moved to the Staten Island Mall, Sears was located on Forest Avenue just past the Green Stamps redemption center, a few blocks before Majors Department Store.
The Hot Dog Lady at Sears was transcendent, an angel in her white uniform and her hair done up in a beehive, the way she gracefully tended to the hot dogs on her heated roller when they were just perfectly ready and sweating with deliciousness and served on toasted buns with ice-cold Hires Root Beer in that giant wooden barrel-dispenser. The idea that one could get a hot dog at Sears still amazes me and was the only reason I would agree to accompany my mother when she had it in her mind and in her budget to buy me new clothes; she could have easily purchased them for me by simply walking through the “Husky” section of the boy’s department.
The Hot Dog Angel, I have since learned, was a middle-aged brunette named Gladys Topher. I know nothing about her other than I loved her because she always brought happiness. No sooner did I push open the glass doors from the parking lot than the intoxicating aroma wafted into my being, and anything that I was going through in my life, from being bullied to being told that I needed to work harder in physical education, disappeared in sensory bliss. The scents were so pronounced and effusive that you could close your eyes and taste the warmed buns, the sauerkraut, the mustard, and, of course, the tight-skinned, deliciously hot, and amazing franks. Those scents became synonymous with happy times; the aroma of those hot dogs was both soothing and intoxicating and made the world a safer and happier place to be.
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My friend, William Ovensen, lived two houses down from us on Dana Street in West Brighton; he was a First Class Scout when I was one of the Webelos (We’ll Be Loyal Scouts). William was big and round and knew things like how you can tell if a pocket knife is sharp: you run the blade across your fingernail, and if it leaves a mark, it’s sharp - and things like that. The Ovensens, like our family, had three kids, but all blonds, reflecting their Norwegian heritage. My family didn’t have a heritage; we came from Eastern Europe: somewhere along the line, a Russian peasant married a Polish tailor who married a Hungarian hunter, and the gene pool went to Hell; the Ovensens, comparatively, were thoroughbreds. William, the oldest, had a paper route and rode a big, beefy AMF Roadster with white wall tires and a speedometer. Next in line was Diane, with whom my younger brother, Hanky, was nearly betrothed. Diane had shoulder-length straight hair and was very quiet, except around Hanky. They did everything together. If Diane wasn’t over at our place, Hanky was at hers.
Last but not least was little Paulie Ovensen, everybody’s younger brother, who tagged along and always seemed to be crying. The Ovensens lived in a beautiful white colonial house on Dana Street with a big picket-fenced-in side yard. Their house, especially when it got close to the holidays, was a picture postcard of a quaint New England village. The Ovensens were perfect; they drove a Jeep Wagoneer with wooden side panels and went on camping trips. On weekends in the fall, Mr. Ovensen, whose first name was Kenneth, could be seen raking leaves into a metal trash can and burning them; the air suffused with the sweet, pungent scent of autumn. Mr. Ovensen, the only one in the family with dark hair, was handsome, wore trench coats, and sported a khaki porkpie hat when he went to work in the City. More often than not, he and my father sat together on the Staten Island Ferry and took the same 107 bus home from Saint George.
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