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1. Aunt Betty + Uncle Preston lived
in a world-famous
2. Theirs was the first apartment dwelling
I ever set foot in
3. Without this Aunt and Uncle,
I would be presently living
south of the poverty line
4. The CIRCLE Theatre is where
—in 1972—
I saw a movie entitled
5. Without THE GODFATHER,
there would never have been
The GodFather of Math
Trilogy
6. The concourse of the subway station
at Parkchester Circle
is below the "elevated subway"
and my commute to Harlem
with employment
as a substitute teacher
—sometimes after hitchhiking
across the Whitestone Bridge
7. Without Harlem,
I never would have become
a math teacher with
a heart full of soul
8. Circle Pizza and Restaurant
had a server who
—upon serving me—
shouted to an unseen man
in the kitchen
"It's Petey's boy"
and the unseen man said
"Give him two free slices"
9. Tangential to Parkchester Circle,
there was a pharmacy
featuring a pharmacist
also known as
my Uncle Pete
(married to my mother's other sister)
10. One night in 1973,
we walked home together:
three short blocks to
a house on White Plains Road
but it took twenty minutes
because there were
a dozen stops
where people enthusiastically greeted
"Mr. Pete"
11. Some of those people were
scary looking street gangsters
(non-Italian and very black)
12. Without Uncle Pete,
I would have been just another
dumb-ass Bronx-born
Italian boy
13. That house on White Plains Road,
is worthy of
at least fourteen more reasons
why I love the Bronx
and always will
14. White Plains Road memories
are in the underbelly
of every page of
The GodFather of Math
Trilogy
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