I have a brother, an older brother, who is two years my senior.

When we were growing up, my parents would send us to our cousin Dave's house in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,

for weeks on end during the summer.

Presumably, they wanted to get us out of the city.

We were Brooklyn boys growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, heady times, to say the

least. But now that I have children of my own, I realized that my parents were probably sending

us away to get us out of their hair. But regardless of why we went, our time in Jersey was always great fun.

We did things we would never allow to do in Brooklyn.

At home, we could only ride our bikes as far as the second lamp post, a lousy couple

of hundred feet from our front door.

But in Jersey, in Jersey, we were free. We rode our bikes for miles,

taking off for hours at a time, exploring new parts of Dave's suburban neighborhood. Each trip was an

adventure, often planned the night before, as if we were going on a great expedition to some far away, unexplored corner of the earth.

But the true highlight of each visit to Dave's house was the pilgrimage to Atlantic City.

When Dave's parents hit the casinos, they would turn us loose on the boardwalk.

Knowing we'd spend a couple days in Atlantic City, my mom would give my brother and I a few dollars for spending money.

And by a few, I mean a few.

$5 each if we were going to Jersey for a week, $10 each if we were staying for two or more weeks.

And she'd hand us the cash right before we left.

Always crisp new dollars in separate envelopes with our names on them.

And she did so with great ceremony,

always in the kitchen,

...