When I married and had 2 children, a son, Steve and a daughter, Debra, we went every summer, from the end of June to Labor day, to the

I would work at my job of driving my cab Tuesday morning, to late Friday night, and spend the weeekends in the bungalow colony or hotel we stayed in.

I played cards, softball, and swam in the pool. At night, we had parties. All the men left Sunday night, leaving the wives and kids behind, to return to their jobs. I stayed untill tuesday morning.

The ride into New York took 1 1/2 hours. As soon as I hit the city limits, (the Bronx), I was working again at my job as a cab driver

The Granite hotel was more like a than a hotel, in a town called FALLSBURGH and across from Gilbert's Hotel, which was owned by my wife Lorraine's aunt and uncle

when my oldest son was about 3 years old, we were in the bungalow colony. we had a dog we called lucky. he looked like a miniature german shepherd, but was a terrier heinz, 57 varieties. this dog feared my son and would run and hide whenever my son was around. my son used to pull his ears and tail all the time.

one night, all the adults were in the casino watching a show and the little kids were in the rooms or bungalows sleeping. we kept the rooms dark. during the show we heard a woman scream and everyone ran out of the casino to see what happened and the woman was holding her leg and screaming my dog bit her, my dog bit her. when she finally cooled down and we asked what happened, she said, she walked into my room by mistake and went over to where my son was sleeping. she didn`t hear lucky make a sound until she went to my son`s bed. he was under the bed and watching my son for us. she did say that she realized it wasn`t our fault.

i never thought that lucky was such a good watch dog especially over a little boy he feared so much. CLICK HERE to see Steve and Lucky

A BUNGALOW COLONY IN THE CATSKILLS

another time i was playing softball with all the men in the colony. we played against other colony`s and hotels on sunday. i was an average ball player and always dreamed of being a hero in a game.

well, one sunday my dream came true. we were in the last inning and losing by one run and i was at bat with the bases loaded and 2 outs. well, i was a good fielder and pitcher but not too good of a hitter. the opposing pitcher was very fast and i could never get close to hitting his pitches.

this time at bat i stood as far back as i could in the batters box. i don`t know why i did that but even now as i remember it, i knew that`s where i was to stand. i swung at the first pitched and the ball went foul. i had a great feeling sweep over me. i hit the pitch that he thru.

the next pitch came at me and i think i closed my eyes and i felt the bat hit the ball. it flew right over the second baseman`s head and two runs scored and we won the game. they carried me off the field yelling and screaming, we beat Brown`s hotel, it was really a great feeling. i didn`t know then, but after the game i found out that my friend bet 50 dollars that we would win.

here`s another one. one night a group of us went into town for sandwiches and what not. we walked into a place and it was owned by Jake La motta the fighter. he sat with us for about an hour telling us about his fights. he didn`t leave until his wife came over and took him away.

every weekend we found things to do. we went to places like Brown`s hotel, Brickman`s, the Raleigh and a few more hotels to watch their shows. some of the hotels wouldn`t let us in and some charged.

we saw a lot of singers and comedians that became very famous. they worked there for the experience. i saw Kenny Rodgers and Martin and Lewis and Joey Bishop and a few others before they became big.