Memories of Hop Kee

I visited New Your City several times on family holidays before moving there in 1959 for a huge portion of my life...
On one such trip the whole family went to a restaurant in Manhattan's Chinatown,We walked the narrow twisting cobblestone streets with steam rising from the manhole covers in the of each street,several blocks downtown from where we found parking to where someone knew of this great restaurant:"Hop Kee". I Clearly recall running ahead almost tripping on the cobble stones with my then rather tiny feet (I was about 5 years old)in hard shoes,But regaining my balance before slamming into the warn smooth paving stones.
Finally after what seemed an eternity to me,as I walked passed the last curves of one long block I could see the last block on Mott street and there I waited (As I could not cross the street alone) I stood on the corner impatiently awaiting the other cousins & the grown ups to catch up. We were a large group,My father and his 2 brothers & their family's,My Uncles Milty,his wife Fritzy with their 2 children My cousin's Marsha and Louis,My Uncle Sam his wife Florence,My cousin's Ailene and Howard,My Mother Betty Joan and My sisters Gwenith and Rosylin.
It was Howard (The closest to My) who first caught up to me than my sister Roz,after all we were the only ones running.
We crossed the street like browns cows returning home to the barn,after a long day in the fields in small groups or one at a time,Again a walked ahead but stopped when I saw there were 2 restaurants with the same name one up a few stairs & one down a steep flight of stairs,Not knowing which was the right restaurant we were all soon to be be eating in? I recall the strong almost mystical smells of cooking seemingly coming from every direction,Little did I ever dream that one day in my future I would living right around the corner & being with 2 friends I'd yet to meet the supers of a building & running what was then the first American style deli/sandwich shop in Chinatown. and I walk past the open door on an impossible tilted street and look into the very kitchen where the meal I'd eat that night would be prepared.
To me the most amazing thing is that this restaurant was still open the till my last time there in New York city,When so many others had come and gone through the many decades.

How I Discovered What I Wanted To Be

This is the strange but true story of how I discovered what I wanted to Do in this Life...
I was born in Brooklyn in August 1953,But earliest memories are of Brisbane,Australia where we lived in a large white Victorian house,On Stilts with a wrap around porch,Built by my grandfather Norman Sterling.
My Dad was in World War II,Korea and later Vietnam,but My earliest memories are in the mid to late 1950's.
For me this was a Pre TV era of my life there might well of been TV already in Sydney,But we did not live in Sydney,So all of my earliest views of the out side world came from either a short wave radio or the movies we would go see virtually every weekend...
in those days when one went to the movies there was a double feature,an A movie which was either an American Major Motion Picture often already at least a year old Or an English Movie... Plus a B movie which could be either an American Movie (Some times it might even be in color,Which we thought was a big dear) or an English one (Usually in Black & white...
A News Reel witch was a filmed version of the news here in Australia it would be the Pathe News,From the U.K. and 2 cartoons from the same studio as the A Movie (Ie:Warner Brothers,MGM or Columbia). It was these via these Movies,News reels & cartoons I got My first impressions of America,For although I was American & I was derisively called Yank at school every day ,The only actual American I knew was My father & he was rarely home.
So I would study these movies to glean what ever I could about what I then viewed as My home land.
So all the American idiom I knew at the time came largely from World War II,cowboy,or gangster movies of the of the 30's,40's $ 50's,To this day I say Howdy as a reminder to My self from whence I came...
One day while watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon (I was around 3-4 years old) I with great interest noticed a character based on Actor/Director Otto Preminger & he was trying direct a Movie,And I recall thinking to myself,Oh there is a guy who tells every one what to do & how to make a Movie,I want to be that guy! And so began a life long journey in the quest to write & direct Movies...