The First Arthur Fonzerelli
I met the first Fonzie in 1965, nine years before the show; Happy Days started playing on TV. It was somewhere on the East side of Cleveland, Ohio, maybe Denison Blvd or Harvard Ave. We’re talking 41 years ago, and my memory for details isn’t that good, but my memory for hair raising experiences like the night I met the Fonze and his follow dogs of East Cleveland are pretty good.
I’m not sure why I had wanderlust so early in my life; perhaps it was a genetic predisposition, you know, like what caused the human race to scatter throughout the globe. I mean, maybe one of my ancestors fell out of the Tower of Babel, hit his/her head too hard, then started some sort of journey, a non navigational path to, well, right here and now. But my trip to Cleveland was my third trip to some place else other than home and I was barely 17 years old. I won’t go into the my fundraising efforts of getting my dad to pay for the airfare for me to be able to make this trip to Cleveland, while unbeknownst to him, I packed two of his favorite music albums into my luggage. One of our common threads was this particular music, of which I stole from him, maybe for some familial retainer, or just because I was being a thief. Let me not forget about Arthur Fonzarelli.
The first question you might ask is what is a hoe-dunk, naïve sand rat border town boy doing in a place like one of the Big Lake Big towns, Cleveland in the first place. Hell, I don’t even know the answer to that myself, but maybe we can talk about it someday on one of those long rides. I just got off work one night, the 4:00PM to midnight shift, and was hungry. There was an all night diner fairly close by, so I decided to get something to eat there. I was working in a shop that tapped the threads for your oil filter for your car. You know, the disposable filter that screws on and off y our engine block? Did you ever wonder how those threads got on there? Well wonder no more; it’s one of the first things that happen to that filter. This was fairly new technology in the middle 60’s.
I was sitting at the counter on a tall stool drinking a cup of coffee waiting for my burger when I noticed that someone standing close to me. This guy says something about white sox, and I was wearing white sox. This guy belonged to a group of about 5 or six, all the rest of whom I thought were in their early twenties were gathered around a table at the other end of the diner. I noticed them when I first walked, but didn’t give them any thought. But now I am paying attention because the comments and general body language seemed to be rising in pitch. The dude closest to me at the time was clearly a Fonzie wannabe, in fact one of the sycophants belonging to the real Fonzie, who was at the table. But Fonzie didn’t waste much time in getting up and coming over to me along with all his other pups. “What are you doing on this side?” Fonzie demanded.
“Nothing, just getting something to eat”. My cool you don’t bother me answer.
One of the guys tweaked my left ear, I used my left hand to bat it away, and look in his direction. As soon as my head turned I received a tiny hair pull on the right side, of which I made the same reaction but using my right hand and looking to the right. This sort of thing continued, getting touched on the opposite side I was looking, me using a hand to stop it and looking in that direction, and each time I was “touched” the gentle tweaking was becoming more like little flicks and easy taps. All the while Fonzie is asking me questions like if I was from the west side where the Polacks lived. They weren’t really questions at all; they were accusations, negative connotations. I was starting to get worried now because even a dumb ass from the desert understands turf wars. The picking and guffawing was growing in intensity and I was getting worried, because things were getting close to changing from slaps and taps to slugs and thugs.
Suddenly, the only guy working the place, the guy who waits on you and then goes back into the kitchen appears and stops us all. “There will be no fighting in here”. He orders with his supreme 50 something year old authority. Whew, my life has been spared. Now we can all go back to what we were doing and peace shall reign.
“If you are going to fight, then take it outside” he orders again with the same authoritative bark. Gulp….. And then like a queue from the director, the Fonzie group of 6 ushers me outside into the midnight parking lot where the slapping tugging, and verbal assault resume, nothing too serious yet, but seems to be heading that way. In between moves of fending off from one direction to the other, Fonzie is accusing me of being a Polack from the west side because I have on white sox.
“But Polacks don’t have that kind of accent, where are you from”.
“I’m from El Paso, Texas”, I declare with a shaky voice. And just like another queue from the director, Fonzie says leave the guy alone. “He’s from Texas, the Land of the Big Sky”. He says this while turning and walking away, strutting with true Fonze bravado. The pack follows, laughing, hooting and hollering. Even in my fear, I was tempted to let them know that even I, a dumb ass from El Paso, knew that The Land of the Big Sky was Montana you dummies, but my senses knew that this was too close a call to having a good old fashioned whipping and I escaped it, so I kept my mouth shut. I wouldn’t mind if I were a Polack, I’m just glad that on that night I wasn’t a Polack from West Cleveland
I’m not sure why I had wanderlust so early in my life; perhaps it was a genetic predisposition, you know, like what caused the human race to scatter throughout the globe. I mean, maybe one of my ancestors fell out of the Tower of Babel, hit his/her head too hard, then started some sort of journey, a non navigational path to, well, right here and now. But my trip to Cleveland was my third trip to some place else other than home and I was barely 17 years old. I won’t go into the my fundraising efforts of getting my dad to pay for the airfare for me to be able to make this trip to Cleveland, while unbeknownst to him, I packed two of his favorite music albums into my luggage. One of our common threads was this particular music, of which I stole from him, maybe for some familial retainer, or just because I was being a thief. Let me not forget about Arthur Fonzarelli.
The first question you might ask is what is a hoe-dunk, naïve sand rat border town boy doing in a place like one of the Big Lake Big towns, Cleveland in the first place. Hell, I don’t even know the answer to that myself, but maybe we can talk about it someday on one of those long rides. I just got off work one night, the 4:00PM to midnight shift, and was hungry. There was an all night diner fairly close by, so I decided to get something to eat there. I was working in a shop that tapped the threads for your oil filter for your car. You know, the disposable filter that screws on and off y our engine block? Did you ever wonder how those threads got on there? Well wonder no more; it’s one of the first things that happen to that filter. This was fairly new technology in the middle 60’s.
I was sitting at the counter on a tall stool drinking a cup of coffee waiting for my burger when I noticed that someone standing close to me. This guy says something about white sox, and I was wearing white sox. This guy belonged to a group of about 5 or six, all the rest of whom I thought were in their early twenties were gathered around a table at the other end of the diner. I noticed them when I first walked, but didn’t give them any thought. But now I am paying attention because the comments and general body language seemed to be rising in pitch. The dude closest to me at the time was clearly a Fonzie wannabe, in fact one of the sycophants belonging to the real Fonzie, who was at the table. But Fonzie didn’t waste much time in getting up and coming over to me along with all his other pups. “What are you doing on this side?” Fonzie demanded.
“Nothing, just getting something to eat”. My cool you don’t bother me answer.
One of the guys tweaked my left ear, I used my left hand to bat it away, and look in his direction. As soon as my head turned I received a tiny hair pull on the right side, of which I made the same reaction but using my right hand and looking to the right. This sort of thing continued, getting touched on the opposite side I was looking, me using a hand to stop it and looking in that direction, and each time I was “touched” the gentle tweaking was becoming more like little flicks and easy taps. All the while Fonzie is asking me questions like if I was from the west side where the Polacks lived. They weren’t really questions at all; they were accusations, negative connotations. I was starting to get worried now because even a dumb ass from the desert understands turf wars. The picking and guffawing was growing in intensity and I was getting worried, because things were getting close to changing from slaps and taps to slugs and thugs.
Suddenly, the only guy working the place, the guy who waits on you and then goes back into the kitchen appears and stops us all. “There will be no fighting in here”. He orders with his supreme 50 something year old authority. Whew, my life has been spared. Now we can all go back to what we were doing and peace shall reign.
“If you are going to fight, then take it outside” he orders again with the same authoritative bark. Gulp….. And then like a queue from the director, the Fonzie group of 6 ushers me outside into the midnight parking lot where the slapping tugging, and verbal assault resume, nothing too serious yet, but seems to be heading that way. In between moves of fending off from one direction to the other, Fonzie is accusing me of being a Polack from the west side because I have on white sox.
“But Polacks don’t have that kind of accent, where are you from”.
“I’m from El Paso, Texas”, I declare with a shaky voice. And just like another queue from the director, Fonzie says leave the guy alone. “He’s from Texas, the Land of the Big Sky”. He says this while turning and walking away, strutting with true Fonze bravado. The pack follows, laughing, hooting and hollering. Even in my fear, I was tempted to let them know that even I, a dumb ass from El Paso, knew that The Land of the Big Sky was Montana you dummies, but my senses knew that this was too close a call to having a good old fashioned whipping and I escaped it, so I kept my mouth shut. I wouldn’t mind if I were a Polack, I’m just glad that on that night I wasn’t a Polack from West Cleveland
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