We're serious about fun
Staten Island Advance
Saturday, November 29, 2003
CSI professor's book examines the role of
leisure time and activities in American life
 When
Ralph Giordano began work on "Fun and Games in Twentieth Century
America: A Historical Guide to Leisure," he had no idea how research
for his book would affect relationships with his family, real and
extended.
"It opened whole new avenues of communication with my mother, and
then with other family members and friends," he said.
"Family experiences beginning in the 1940s often filled in gaps and
sent me off to research an area," said the adjunct professor at the
College of Staten Island who's best known in this sports community
as the architect of the indoor track which was a casualty of the
city's budget crisis.
 "So
many stories I never heard before from different members of my
family."
His mother (Phyllis) being awakened at 5 a.m. by her father, so she
could join the throngs of teenage girls -- bobbysoxers -- who would
skip school and vie for seats at the Brooklyn Paramount for a Frank
Sinatra concert, the same way later generations would for Elvis
Presley and the Beatles.
Or, his Uncle Dom (Dattilio) talking about how he learned of the
deadly blaze inside the Coconut Grove club in Boston which took 492
lives in 1942. "His John Wayne -- Western movie star Buck Jones --
died rescuing people. He went back in four times," Giordano said.
Or, pictures found in family archives: Boating at Clove Lakes Park
and a Monsignor Farrell lacrosse match are just two found in the
book. Or, he and his Brooklyn cousins and friends comparing
stickball in their boroughs. "They played on narrow streets using
sewer caps," Ralph said. "Here, we played mostly in schoolyards.
"Those things made writing the book fun."
And fun/leisure time is what Giordano's about in this Greenwood
publication: How political, economic and cultural events influenced
leisure time, including sports.
And vice versa.
The mammoth Catholic Youth Organization program we know in New York
City today was a child of the Great Depression, a response to the
need for free recreation programs.
Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier in major league
baseball with the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers and then Larry
Doby's doing the same with the Cleveland Indians of the American
League took place in 1947. That was a full seven years before the
Supreme Court outlawed segregation in Brown vs. Topeka Board of
Education and sounded the charge for the civil rights movement.
Twenty years later, a year after the National Organization for Women
(NOW) was founded, when the Boston Marathon had a "for men only
rule," Kathrine Switzer evaded a race director who tried to pull her
off the course and became the first woman to run the fabled
26.2-mile course.
Robinson, Doby and Switzer were indications that the basic
foundations of segregation and inequality were being broken down.
A historical perspective of leisure time in the 20th century, from
Major League baseball to the introduction of the bikini to Woodstock
to video games.
Who says there's nothing new under the sun?
Giordano will sign copies of his book at Barnes & Noble in New
Springville Friday night beginning at 7:30.
by Jack Minogue
Reprinted here with permission from the
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