New Jersey Writer

Nutley, New Jersey, author Anthony Buccino's stories of the 1960s, transit coverage and other writings earned four Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism awards. 

He published several collections of essays, photography, military history, and verse. The Pushcart Prize-nominated writer is currently juggling several book projects.

These titles are available on Amazon!

For some free peeks at much of his writing visit: 

Anthony's World.

Anthony’s World Updates

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We’ll be short and only when there’s news to share.

1.    Belleville Sons Honor Roll
The project that began more than 15 years ago, to identify and remember the fallen soldiers from Belleville, N.J., is having long-term effects.

In the past 13 months, Belleville has dedicated thirteen street signs to fallen soldiers from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam War and the Cold War.

If we look back at 1999, the Belleville Memorial had a partial list of the lost soldiers, sailors and Marines lost in service. In 2005, using the names of the fallen discovered in my research, the town added more than 150 names, where there had been none, to its Belleville Veterans Memorial on Union Avenue.

The research continues as we learn more information about these Belleville Sons from their families as we prepare to dedicate street signs in their memory.

SATURDAY, NOV. 12, 2016
Street naming for Capt. William A. Branch of Belleville, KIA in the Vietnam War. Washington Avenue and Overlook Avenue, Belleville, N.J. 11 a.m.


2.    Nutley Sons Honor Roll
Don’t tell anyone yet, but we are continuing in our effort to work with the powers-that-be in Nutley to dedicate streets signs for the 140 fallen Nutley Sons.

3.    Book Projects
You may be aware Anthony is juggling three book projects. One project is Nutley Notables Volume 2.
Another project involves research into murder, mayhem and major crime in a typical north Jersey town.
And the third book is that Mosquito Man book simmering on a back burner.

4.    Other Stuff
Anthony continues to shoot photographs around town during his walks. There’s a Facebook page for that.

He also created a Facebook group for Nutleyphotos, old and new. He also moderates Belleville and Nutley groups.

Anthony also maintains the websites and Facebook groups for Kingsland Manor and the Nutley Historical Society.

Don’t forget, books make great holiday gifts. Anthony’s books are all available on Amazon.

Well, that’s it for this issue of Anthony’s World Update

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Independence Day

Go Ahead, Eat a Pretzel at the Football Game

It was a terrific job. They sent me out from under the concrete bleachers into the crowds and I yelled, “Pretzels! Pretzels!” and people would call me up the rows and rows of bleachers to buy a pretzel or two.

 

... On autumn Saturdays through those treacherous teen years the different age groups would appear at the high school game for sundry reasons. Most pre-teens actually went to watch the game and root, root, root for the home team. 

 The pubescents sought out their own, and like strange dogs meeting for the first time, they spied, sniffed and checked each other pubescent and gathered under the Saturday sun.

My best friend, Teen Angel, worked at a local bakery-deli for a few years. His uncle Harry pushed and pulled and got him in with Ed Strat at Belle Maid on Joralemon Street near the Rec House in Belleville... That's how I ended up selling pretzels at the high school games...

Continue reading

Read: Greetings From Belleville, New Jersey by Anthony Buccino

Jersey Shore Envy

This whole beach thing, changing, badges, outside shower,

was alien to me. I might as well have been from Wisconsin

for all the time this Jersey boy had spent down the shore.

When my childhood friend regaled me with tempting tales of sun, sand and surf at the Jersey Shore, and all the good times I missed, he planted the seed for a chronic case of Jersey Shore envy.

Joey, another childhood buddy, had told me of his family taking bus trips to Seaside Heights, and all the grown-ups from his old Montclair home were singing, "Hail, hail, the gang's all here, what the hell do we care now!"

So, there we were, two very white guys about to fry on the beach, or die of windburn from the sand showers that washed over us. The water was way too cold to go in. The penguins were tussling with polar bears for the last blocks of ice. Lou and I could take a hint. 

The two of us North Jersey kids just stretched out on a towel in the late spring sun and enjoyed the privacy of having the entire Seaside Heights beach to ourselves.

Continue reading Jersey Shore Envy

Chasing the mosquito man

For all the DDT -- Drop Dead Twice -- sprayed

on hot summer evenings, the killer fog never seemed

to eradicate mosquitoes (or lightning bugs). One always managed

to squirm through a tiny hole in the metal screen

and spend most of the night buzzing your ear.

I saw the greatest minds of my dead end street running into the blue mist of the sweet-smelling cloud behind the Essex County Mosquito Man's Jeep.

Summer in the 1960s, and the living was good.

Sticky fly paper hung over the Maytag wringer washing machine next to the kitchen sink. Melmac cups were neatly stored on the yellow contact paper on the shelves behind the glass doors. Sometimes, you'd bug Ma while she was cooking and get to eat a raw hot dog. It was just like rolled baloney from Prosperi's around the corner store.

Continue reading Chasing the mosquito man

The fountain of youth under the pipeline

The fountain of youth under the pipeline

Four decades later, I return to the pipeline. The dragon's

tail is less pronounced, and full-grown trees

hide the view of homes on Sycamore.

“Hey, Ant! You got a third eye!” Gary yells but it doesn’t help me see much better.

Fumbling, I pick up my twenty-six-inch Schwinn, but I drop it just as quickly. Then pick it up again. Holding it up, it’s holding me up.

Gary is staring at me. I sense this more than I see it. Can’t see much of anything really. Gary looks like a tree, the bike in my hand, a tangled red bush. The world isn’t spinning but it’s coming in cloudy.  I sense something tremendous has transformed my eight-year-old body.

“That’s what happens when your bike hits a rock on the pipeline,” Gary explains.

Continue reading: The fountain of youth under the pipeline

Waiting for Jerry the Ice Cream Man

Hot summer nights on our dead end street 

were full of mosquitoes, fireflies, kids playing Sputnik, 

and an interminable wait for Jerry the ice cream man.

Back in the day, our refrigerator's freezer was the size that fit two ice trays and a pound of chop meat. Then that small cool space froze over and there was never room for ice cream except at your birthday!

Back in the day, our refrigerator's freezer was the size that fit two ice trays and a pound of chop meat. Then that small cool space froze over and there was never room for ice cream except at your birthday!

It was the same way up and down the block on Gless Avenue in Belleville, N.J. Anybody who got rid of their ice box and got an electric refrigerator had about the same amount of freezer space.

Unlike an actual ice box, think: the kitchen on The Honeymooners, where you put in a block of ice and it melted water into a pail underneath, these new-fangled refrigerators used electricity to take heat and make cold.

Continue reading Waiting for Jerry the Ice Cream Man

Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life

Did you know that the screenplay for this film was written by Frances Goodrich and her husband Albert Hackett. She was born in Belleville, N.J. and moved at an early age to Nutley, N.J. The two were top screenwriters from the 1930s to the 1950s when they won the Pulitzer Prize for their play The Diary of Anne Frank.

And the pair worked on Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" but it wasn't a pleasant experience for even the seasoned Hollywood screenwriters.

Check out The Real Nick and Nora

Time to Change the Air Conditioner

Every year here in New Jersey when we change our clocks to save time, there's another chore around our house. About the last week of April when we spring ahead, it's time to break out the window air conditioners from their closet hibernation.

In late October, it's time to rip off the sealing tape and bring in the units without dropping them on an innocent foot or to the pavement below.

The two bedroom air conditioners need only cross from the closet to the window. It's the monster dining room air conditioner that has been stored in the basement that elicits the most grunts and groans as it travels up a flight of stairs, through the kitchen to rest and catch its breath in front of the window.

A Cool ClockAnthony Buccino

It wasn't always like this. When I grew up in the second floor cold water flat upstairs from grandma, we didn't even have screens outside our windows. We had these sliding screens that adjusted to the width of the window and let in a hot summer breeze through about ten inches of metal panels. 

When I was nine, Dad surprised us all with a Lasko electric oscillating window fan. On sweltering summer days I'd sway to the left and right to stay in the modest breeze.

When we moved to our house across town, Dad brought home fans that filled the windows. His concern was whether to face the fan to draw the inside air to the outside, or to face it in so that it stirred the room with a fresh breeze of outside hot air.

 Dad worked outside as a carpenter all year. He'd spent a few years in the Fijis, so he was just fine most of the time without air conditioning. After I got married and moved out, my folks put an air conditioner in the living room. By that time my new family was living in a second floor attic apartment. My new wife picked out a cooling unit that served our three rooms well.

Continue Reading

On the Civil War

Anthony Buccino to speak to Belleville Historical Society 

on three Belleville casualties in the Civil War

Who:    Local historian and author Anthony Buccino                    

What:   Will speak on the 150^th anniversary of the Civil war focusing on the three men from Belleville who died in that war.

Where: Belleville Public Library & Information Center, 221 Washington Avenue, Belleville, New Jersey

              (973) 450-3434

When:  6 P.M., Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012

Buccino is the author Belleville and Nutley in the Civil War – A Brief History.

http://anthonybuccino.com/BellevilleNutleyCivilWar.html

Buccino blog wins Journalism Award

Congratulations!
Your work has earned you a prize in the 2011 Society of Professional Journalists – New Jersey Excellence in Journalism Awards contest. Your entry ‘Don the TV Man’ won 2nd Place in the Media-Affiliated Blog category.

The entry by Anthony Buccino first appeared on Belleville Patch as Don the TV Man .... in Old Belleville on June 27, 2011.

The memory of growing up in the 1960s is in the newly published collection Greetings From Belleville, New Jersey, collected writings by Anthony Buccino.

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Profiles of the neighborhood poet

Here are two terrific profiles of Anthony Buccino

Nutley poet discusses Belleville-inspired writings
Thursday, April 21, 2011
BY MARIA KARIDIS
Belleville Times
STAFF WRITER
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Arts

Belleville in Verse
In Honor of National Poetry Month, We Speak with Anthony Buccino
By Erel Pilo
April 20, 2011
Belleville Patch

The Observer on Buccino's poetry

The Observer, Entertainment and Dining

Turning unemployement into an art form

by Karen Zautyk
Senior Correspondent

"Anthony Buccino of Nutley is not now unemployed. In fact, he has held his job as a business news editor in New York for the last 11 years. However, in the course of 25 years, he had held nine jobs: quitting four for something better, getting fired three times and laid off twice...."

May 19, 2010.
Pages 11 and 13

TheObserver.com

D-Day, 65th anniversary, Normandy invasion

The Allied invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, marked the beginning of the last ten months of World War II in Europe.

More than 110 Belleville sons died in World War II. Nutley sent 2,882 men and women into service during WWII, 92 never came home. Remember their sacrifice as you enjoy the freedom they died to preserve.



Belleville Sons Honor Roll - Normandy Invasion

Nutley Sons Honor Roll - Normandy Invasion



K.O. Pat Francisco POW at Cherbourg

Falduti parachutes into Ste. Mere Eglise

MEMORIAL GREENS
We remember our war dead
with their names raised
on bronze and etched in stone
We remember their lives
and families’ sacrifice:
The best and the brightest
and the bravest, too.
We forget the children
they left with lonely spouses,
we never saw the long tears,
And the proud sadness of those
who gave us their loved ones.
On these memorial greens
we gather to remember the sons,
the fathers the homes, the children
and stop to say thanks
for the price you paid
for our freedom to gather
on these memorial greens in peace.



National World War II Museum

American Battle Monument Commission

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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
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Check out Anthony Buccino's latest poetry and essay collections as ebooks and on Kindle.

Freedom Isn't Free

The small town of Nutley in northeast New Jersey lost 92 young men in WWII, 17 in WWI, nine in Korea, nine in Vietnam, and nine Nutley sons who died in service during peace time.

Veteran reads the names of those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom in World War II

The neighboring small town of Belleville lost 112 in WWII, 20 in WWI, four in Korea, 11 in Vietnam, and three Belleville sons in service during peace time.

Belleville War Memorial, Union Avenue

Click photo for enhanced view.
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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

An easy date to remember

Letter of introduction

... She was taller than me then. Her presence in my French class always made my day. Her hair was dark and very long, and sometimes it tangled in front of her face and she had to brush it away. She dressed conservatively with long skirts and baggy pants. Never glamorous, pretty much the way you’d want your sister to dress. She was bright, being a friend of mine for a time notwithstanding. Yes, and she wore braces when I knew her.

I took her to see the double feature at the Royal, or maybe it was the Center, in Bloomfield Center. Then, afterwards, we went to IHOP for a bite. We met another kid I knew (not too well, actually); he asked me if she was my sister. Fortunately, I don’t remember if I said anything witty, I doubt it.



I decided to make a habit about reading movie reviews before I took dates to them. One movie we saw that night had Marlo Thomas as an unwed mother. She talked about taking the pill, and never making love because no one might ever ask her, or not taking the pill and getting pregnant. At the end of the movie, she breast-fed the baby. It was some first date. I squirmed in my seat, and even now, I can remember how sweaty my palms were when that movie ended.

The other movie was about a cowboy named Zachariah, and it was biblically significant. All that went right over my Catholic head.

At IHOP, my date had a strawberry shake and told me there were real strawberries in it. I didn’t have anything witty to say. I called my mom to come pick us up. We brought her home. Every time I called to talk to her, her mom said she was out with Jeff.

I stopped bothering her April 14, that year. It was an easy date to remember. That was when Lincoln was shot and when the Titanic sank.

Talk about irony, didn’t know anything about her, really. I learned later her father was a minister, so she probably understood all that Bible stuff in the movie. And later, I learned that Jeff was her brother.

In my yearbook, the next year, she wrote, “It was nice.” I saw her once since then, at a funeral, but I couldn’t say to her what was racing around in my mind. But like I say, she wasn’t there, at the reunion. Her brother was. He was bald, and he sang a solo. She still adds music to my words but it’s a soft tune...

A Father's Place, an eclectic collection
by Anthony Buccino

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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY - School Bus Bullies

Flashback Friday:

Billy Newtner's Bus Rides

By Anthony Buccino

"... "BUS NINE RULES!" The older kids shouted. Other kids looked out windows. Girls studied and checked their homework papers. Tough guys with big hands, hard knuckles and big mouths to match, ruled bus nine. They yelled in our fresh faces, "N-O! FUTT NO!"

Many of us seventh graders were hopelessly intimidated by those rough ninth graders and their eighth grade sycophants who ruled our free bus.

At the bus stop in winter, they lit cigarettes and said they needed to smoke to keep warm. They ruled the back of the bus.

When we were lucky, we got to sit in front next to a friend, or near the window with a girl on the aisle.

The bullies ripped down advertisements from slots over the seats. When they got off the bus, as girls were climbing off, the boys ripped ad signs from the curb side of the bus.

"Where's your weak spot?" They shouted at the toughest of seventh grade boys.

"Where's your weak spot?" He bravely called back across a sea of seated girls.

Sneering in his face, "Be in the gym, seventh period, I'll show you my weak spot!"
And they laughed. ..."

Continue reading

Chop trees, build memorial park

The north Jersey town where I grew up has always aired its political laundry on a clothesline in the town square. Well, if they had a town square, that's where the clothesline would be.

People from miles around knew about my little town from its word-of-mouth reputation long before that TV-mob show was set there, or the Jersey Boys hit Broadway.

It won't be long before the rest of the world learns of Belleville, the little town in north Jersey that cut down trees on a public space to build a memorial garden.

Continue reading the entry...


Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.