YEAH, I’M FROM STATEN ISLAND. YOU GOT A PROBLEM WIT DAT!

Yup, I was born and raised on Staten Island, and I’m proud of it! I have a belligerent tone because when I was growing up, I always heard Staten Island (“the forgotten borough”) was the Rodney Dangerfield of the city, “We got no respect.” I’ve been away for over three decades, but I still have that chip on my shoulder.

To the rest of the city, Staten Island still has a reputation for being a little off and quirky. Where else would residents think nothing of the fact that the characters in Mob Wives live in their back yard, a clown terrorized residents as part of a botched 2014 publicity stunt, and obstinate wild turkeys control some streets?

Staten Island (aka “the Rock” to residents) is a place of a thousand neighborhoods separated only by street signs. Growing up in my hood, everyone’s name ended in a “y” or they had a nickname. We had Tony, Timmy, Johnny, Mikey, Larry, Kenny, and Louie. Other personalities were: Fat Eddy who would scavenge for treasures on bulk pick up day, Drunken Willy who supposedly dropped dead on a bed in the local furniture store—sales lagged after that, and Shotgun Annie who reportedly shot at kids who played in a stream behind her house.

The Rock is known for its orange and blue ferry, densely packed townhouses with no parking, lots of strip malls, no subways, the “Goodfellas” living on Todt Hill, the Staten Island Mall (pronounced “maul”), female residents with poofy hair and vivacious nails, and, in years past, the world’s largest landfill. It’s a land where men over 50 think they look dead sexy in velour tracksuits with dress shoes, leopard skin for the ladies is timeless and front yards are guarded by large concrete lions and Virgin Mary statues in tub-like shelters (aka, Mary-on-a-half-shell). On Staten Island, everybody has a cousin or “knows a guy” who runs a car stereo/alarm shop or exotic wheel rim outlet. Hair and nail salons are as prevalent as asthma inhalers at a Trekkie convention. This part of the Island’s economy is so vast, it’s rumored their union president proudly boasted, “We use so much hair spray and polish, we suckah punched a five-mile hole in dah ozone ouwselves!”

Bagel shops also pepper the landscape. At least three of them on Victory Boulevard (pronounced Vick-tree Bull-vahd) claim to have the best “everything” bagel in NYC. The delis are equally amazing. Our favorite recently had a sign announcing its “Re-Grand Opening.” Another catchy poster was in our favorite diner. It announced its daily special as, “Todays Special-Pork Lion.” Grammar and spelling skills obviously aren’t required for a food license on the Island.

Like the rest of the city, getting around can be a chore. With little traffic, it once took me 25 minutes to get to Mike’s Olympic Diner—not to be confused with the Olympic Diner, which has the same owner (Mike). I took a different route back and hit 22 lights in the 3.5-mile trip. You can’t swing a cannoli on the Island without hitting a traffic light.

Okay, so Islanders may be a bit eccentric. My people may swear, argue endlessly about traffic directions, engage in heated debates whether to call it “tomato sauce” or “gravy,” beep, have no respect for personal space, and consider any 60-square-foot piece of pavement legitimate parking, but they’ll do anything for you. And every time I walk into a shop there’s a regular guy of any race, creed or color greeting me with a “Hey buddy, how yah doin?” That’s why I love the place and love the people even more.

Whenever I’m back on my ancestral turf, my latent accent returns and I fall back into the rhythm of making neck-snapping lane changes, eating way too much diner food and critiquing others’ driving while driving like an idiot myself. The people seem the same, but the city sure has cleaned up since I left. There are no longer burnt-out cars on roadsides, rampant potholes the size of RVs and I don’t fear for my life stepping onto public transportation. I guess the place grew up, like me. But this place will never stop changing and never slow down, unlike me.

As much as I love the Island and the rest of NYC, I know I can never go back because I’ve become too soft. Plus, I still stink at stickball and basketball, can’t spit worth a darn, and I look horrible in velour.

So yeah, I’m from Staten Island, a land once home to such notables as: Gene Simmons, Macho Man Randy Savage, the Wu Tang Clan, Peter Michael Davidson, and Jersey Shore cast members Vinny, Angelina and The Situation, and the not-so-notable me.

You got a problem wit dat!