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MAXWELL HILLARY “SONNY” SALTER my story!
by Max
YOUNG SONNY
I was born on January 29, 1920, in Brooklyn, New York, in the middle of a raging blizzard. I am the youngest of the five children of Lena Levine and Michael Salter: Edward, Arthur, Glady, Harold and, finally, me. We sons were all given royal British names, and although Salter is, indeed, an English surname, it is uncertain my father's line originated in Great Britain. Russia is more likely.
It was a dark and stormy night, and I was born at home. We couldn’t get to the hospital because of the severe snowstorm. My birth certificate says January 31st, even though I was born on January 29th.
We lived in Brighton Beach at 3013 5th Street, in a nice, two-story house with full basement. We were three or four blocks from the beach.
"WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH EVERYONE?”
When I was a small child, I remember taking a nap under the stairs and causing a small riot because no one in the family could find me. Many hours went by, and everyone became frantic, yelling and shouting. I've always been a deep sleeper, and I slept through it all. Finally, I woke up and asked, “What’s the matter with everyone?”
When I was two years old my father died, so my mother had to work. Before the house was taken from us, she turned it into a boarding house. My mother opened a restaurant on 5th Street in New York, and then she also opened two fish markets. She was making ends meet until the house was foreclosed. Art was supposed to help my mother with the fish markets, but he was totally unreliable. Sometimes he helped, but one day he