Category: mrlesliewong

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Do the Right Thing

I was watching Do the Right Thing and it reminded me of the time Kenny and I went out to Buzz-a-Rama in Brooklyn. Buzz-a-Rama is a slot car track that opened around 1965.

Early vs Late Slot Cars
Early vs Late Slot Cars

It’s more in the neighborhood of Kensington, I think, not the movie’s Bed-Stuy. We had been making our grand tour of local slot car tracks in New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island sometime in the latter part of the 20th century.

Slot car racing was something I’d done as a kid in the 1960’s. I also participated in the brief New York City revival at Manhattan Raceway, as a member of the Rasta-Pasta-Noodle team. The pop culture status of the revival (I know, some people never stopped) was made apparent when Robin Leach and a film crew came to the track.

After Kenny and I left Buzz-a-Rama, we proceeded to the next course of our pastime, getting something to eat. We went to the local pizzeria. I told Kenny that he should ask why they didn’t have any pictures of African-American celebrities on the wall.

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My Parents at Bimbo’s 365 c 1962

Sophia C. Wong and Honki L. Wong, parents of Alberta Mayo and Leslie Wong mrlesliewong

Though my family lived in Oakland, we had a close connection with San Francisco. In the 50’s and 60’s, my dad, an accountant, had an office in 835 Clay St in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

A small political pin-back button with black on white lettering that reads: [Dizzy Gillespie for President] Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Jeff Gold and Jody Uttal Gold
A small political pin-back button with black on white lettering that reads: [Dizzy Gillespie for President]

From the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Jeff Gold and Jody Uttal Gold

Our family often had dinner in Chinatown and afterwards we would stop at the Lucky Corner, a mom and pop grocery store on Grant and Washington that was one of my father’s accounts. I’d get candy for desert. Once, in the store, a tall, African-American man bent over and gave me a Dizzy Gillespie for President pin.

former office of Honki L. Wong, 835 Clay St, San Francisco mrlesliewong
The former office of Honki L. Wong, 835 Clay St, San Francisco mrlesliewong

Then we would walk over to City Lights, the North Beach bookstore. My father, mother and sister browsed the books. As a 12-year-old, I was bored in the bookstore.

On Broadway, we walked past the topless club barkers, who thankfully did not encourage us to go in. When I was older, my father, somewhat embarrassingly, talked about going to the Condor Club to see Carol Doda with my friends’ fathers.

My parents also liked to go out on special occasions. This portrait of them at Bimbo’s 365 Club, probably taken in the early 60’s, was in a frame that sat on our TV room bookcase for 30 years. I can imagine it was taken by a house photographer, dressed in a skimpy outfit and fishnet stockings.