Miss Logan Street

MISS LOGAN STREET by Val Sivilli Crankie Perfomance acted by Chris Mundy, Banner by Val & Chris, Val playing the piano.

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Sometime in the early summer of 1964.

It seems as if the awareness of the memory resides in the mid-section of my abdomen, toward the left.

I was four.  It was Brooklyn. We had a very vital neighborhood. Filled with all kinds of kids and families and races. We did a lot of things on our block. We played stickball and ringalevio, we had concerts… we all would pretend to be the Beatles – well the boys pretended to be the Beatles and the girls, we stood up on milk-crates wearing miniskirts and danced like GOGO dancers.

This one particular block-created event was a beauty contest. It seemed that all the boys on the block had little sisters. All the little sisters paraded up and down the block and all the little boys, the big brothers, were the judges. The brothers voted. Every brother voted for their little sister, except for my brother. He voted for Anna Gina. So Anna Gina won.

Anna Gina was pretty  … but I I I IIII was prettier!

So I cried and screamed and carried on that I should have won and I was the real winner and I wanted to wear the sash. So, to shut me up, they put the sash on me – and the crown… THE CROWN!!!!  And I paraded up and down the block wearing the sash and the crown.

No one came out.  No one looked at me. No one else was on the street. It was just me. And I did not have any memory of caring that no one else was there. I was ‘Miss Logan Street’!  and I was the winner,  the princess , the queen !

To this day, I still do not know if my brother voted for Anna Gina because he thought she was prettier than me or if he thought that it was wrong to vote for your own sister. I think, still, that it was the latter, I think still, that I was prettier than Anna Gina. I think still that I deserved that Crown.

I had no audience, and did not seem to care.