I heard this story from my parents:
They had my oldest brother Ralph as a baby and lived in an apartment on Simpson Street in the South Bronx.
There was a hole in the wall where the baby slept and there were rats in the building.
My parents complained time and time again to the landlord to repair the hole but it was never done.
They heard the rats moving around in the walls and feared one would come into the room and bite the baby.
My dad took it upon himself to try filling the hole with steel wool and stuff but one night they found the rat had chewed through and come into the room and was trying to get to my brother in the crib.
This was no regular rodent.
It was huge.
They screamed and beat the rat away from the crib with a broom.
My dad held off the creature with the broom but the crazy animal refused to flee.
My mom ran down to her parents’ apartment to get help.
My grandfather came up and into the room carrying a bowling pin — a real bowling pin!
He went after the rat and started beating it with the bowling pin.
The rat went crazy and charged at him and grandpa kept beating him.
The vicious rodent just kept attacking and it was beat down by grandpa until it was a bloody mess.
It kept coming.
It wouldn’t give up or die.
It must have been rabid.
My grandpa finally beat it to death, a gore-fest right there in the baby’s room.
A dead bloody rat, my grandpa with a blood-soaked bowling pin, my mom screaming, my dad in his boxers.
What a picture! ?!#@$%!
Related:
Needless to say my parents started looking for a new place to live.