Several retired cops sat beneath the sign, drinking coffee all morning.<\/p>\n
Ex-cop Bill Tofant said to me, \u201cI used to work out every day at the YMCA. You know what that stands for?\u00a0 The Yiddishe<\/em> Meat Cutters Union.\u201d<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t<\/strong><\/span> know that.\u00a0 (I was with retired cops because I was a police reporter in the 1980s.)<\/p>\n \u201cI can still run a mile at 73 and hold my own in fisticuffs, and I can turn my head to see if traffic is coming,\u201d Tofant said.<\/p>\n Tofant liked me — or put up with me — because my Great Uncle Itchy Seiger had owned a deli on Kinsman Road, which all the cops used to eat at.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYour uncle would throw his arms around me every time I came into the restaurant,\u201d Tofant said.\u00a0 \u201cI couldn\u2019t spend a nickel there.\u00a0 They had corned beef, turkey, you name it, gherkin pickles.\u201d<\/p>\n The cops<\/strong> at McDonald’s decided to <\/span><\/span>rate pawnbrokers — most of whom were \u201cgood sharpYidls<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n I knew one of the Yidl<\/em>s: Larry Botnick of Euclid Loan at East 59th and Euclid.\u00a0 Larry had played tennis with my father.\u00a0 Larry got shot and killed in a stick-up.\u00a0 A couple streets over, there had been another stick-up . . .<\/p>\n \u201cThree colored guys went in back of East 63rd and St. Clair,”\u00a0 said Bill Lonchar, an ex-cop.\u00a0 “One guy had a horse pistol yea long. It stuck out like a sore thumb.\u00a0 It was a military weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n Re: the pawnbroker<\/strong><\/span> at East 79th and Hough . . .\u00a0 1.) not shot at,\u00a0 and 2.)\u00a0 \u201cnot so good.”\u00a0 \u201cHe would buy a stove [gun] that was red hot and smile.\u201d<\/p>\n The cops\u00a0 rated Italian. \u00a0 Not pawnbrokers.\u00a0 Burglars.\u00a0 <\/em>Hardly worth talking about.\u00a0 \u201cIf you\u2019re not Italian, you\u2019re nobody.\u00a0 All that goddamn bullshit.\u00a0 All that Italian camaraderie bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lithuanians<\/strong><\/span> were worth talking about.\u00a0 \u201cThe Lits will eat soup for twenty years, three times a day, and save their money, and all of a sudden they buy apartment buildings,\u201d Lonchar said.<\/p>\n The Irish: dunderheads.<\/p>\n The blacks: no comment.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/pawnbroker-safecracker.jpg\" "\\"pawnbroker")
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