A candy store on Metropolitan Avenue called IZZY's had everything. Just imagine buying a pack of Topps baseball cards in 1955 for just a nickel, and you also got a slice of bubblegum in the pack! Izzy sold penny candies. He had a fountain service where you could get a small egg cream for 8 cents or a large one for 12 cents. A malted milk was 25 cents, and you did not get just one glass, you got the entire tin. Comic books were 10 cents. This guy had everything. Needless to say it was fun going to PS 71 in the 1950's. You also missed listening to the radio in the 50's. WINS(1010), was not always a news station. Alan Freed, who popularized ROCK'n'ROLL, was a DEEJAY on this station playing the greatest music of any decade. In those days we had portable radios, not boomboxes. Izzy’s was the place we hid for 2 hours on Ash Wednesday. Catholic students were allowed 2 hours to go to church and get sacred ashes thumbed onto our foreheads by a priest. I was the priest in my group and I thumbed someone’s cigarette butt on each head—never really knew the significance of this archaic ritual. “Candy Stores” were the meeting houses for kids in the ‘50’s and early ‘60’s. An egg-cream was a nutritional necessity. Like bars, they were everywhere, at least one on the four corners of a block. In the summer, we would hang out outside the store. In the winter, we stayed inside until we were thrown out—you can’t sip on an egg cream for an hour.