By Steve Sears

Sam Pagano remembers the good ole days, growing up in East Newark, toeing the line of Harrison, Kearny, and Newark itself. In fact, he’s so fond of it he wrote a book about it.

12 Blocks: Neighborhood Stories of the 60’s is a 265-page rapid page turner, the reader traveling along with Pagano and his childhood buddies, Frankie, Charlie, Pete and a few others, as they cause mayhem but also learn about life as they grow.

And jump from roof to roof in their neighborhood. Pagano laughs at the recall. “Actually, back in the day we never really fell off the big roofs, but we kind of fell off the side roof when we got to the end of the block. It was only like 12’ or whatever.” He pauses, then sums it up. “You know, at the time you just think it’s normal stuff; you’re just living your life as a kid. I realized years later on, it’s like, ‘Oh my God – we had so much fun.”

Pagano, who lives in Morris Township, started to put his childhood stories together when the pandemic hit. “The process might have been three or four months. I put the stories together, and I self edited them, and then I basically sent the stories to a bunch of friends of mine who are college educated teachers, and they helped me with the editing. Then I just went through this company and submitted it to Amazon.”

In addition to the memories, another inspiration for Pagano to write the book came from his best childhood friend, Pete, whose name appears in the book more than any other. “We both kind of retired from the AT&T universe,” Pagano says, “and he then went and became a teacher in Jersey City with autistic kids and special needs kids. So about three years ago, he published a book called, Am I a Teacher?” Pagano then felt if Pete’s words were now between covers, maybe his could be as well. 

Pagano served as an altar boy at the neighborhood Catholic church. “And then I got un-altar boyed,” he says with a laugh. “I would always like twiddle my thumbs (while) sitting in the pew. And I just remember ‘Holy Joe’ as we called him – Father Joe – gave me such a hard time. And there was something else going on. I was doing some kind of sportsy thing – and it wasn’t just me, it was me and one or two other kids who stopped being altar boys. We really weren’t enjoying it.”

One of the many places Pagano hung out as a kid was in his dad’s establishment, The Arrow Bar & Pizzeria. He worked there…sort of. “Basically, we hung out there and made pizza boxes and shined shoes and stuff like that.”

Reading Pagano’s book is a fun trip to yesteryear, and it conjures up memories for the reader of his of her own childhood.

Pagano is still in touch with some of his old friends, but there are some he hasn’t seen in over 40 years. This being said, he keeps all the “neighborhood” – trying to dodge Mike the Cop, sneaking into the Warner Theater, playing centerfield in his one and only Little League baseball game, when he left the bench in all his excitement minus his glove! – alive in his book. “Most of them are still around,” he says of his buddies, “and we chat once in a while. When we graduated from St. Anthony’s in 1966, there were 13 of us. About four years ago, we had our 50-year reunion, and one member of the class had died, and one other member didn’t make it, but everybody else was there.”

“11 out of 13. That’s not a bad number.”

Pagano, 69, has started writing another book. “I do want to try to put together a couple of more stories and, if I get there, I’ll try to publish it again.”

12 Blocks: Neighborhood Stories of the ‘60s, is available at www.amazon.com.