Oddly, it is this summer night custom from which I developed a case of arachnophobia, a fear of…. uh… itsy bitsy spiders (yuck!). After a typical night of sleeping peacefully on our parents’ bedroom floor, my sister awoke and began brushing her long dark hair, as she did every morning in her attempt to straighten out her curls. In mid-stroke, what should happen to fall out of her hair and saunter away on the floor like he owned the place but a big, black, hairy spider—believe me, it was not an itsy bitsy spider. For me, this was more blood curdling than crossing paths with snakes and it left its traumatic mark. I was such an impressionable little snot!
Each side of the double had a full basement. I often played in the basement, but grew to dislike them because of the dust and bugs they seem to collect despite mother’s constant cleaning. It is where friends and I skateboarded—well, we put a piece of wood on top of a roller skate and pushed ourselves along with our hands. It is where friends and I played basketball—well, we used a tennis ball and a tape recorder that counted down the minutes from five minutes, and we aimed the ball through a specified space in the cross ceiling. It is where friends and I played hide-and-go-seek—well, we tried to even though one soon learned where to find the few best hiding places.
On our side of the basement there was a separate room where my father had built an intricate train setup with original Lionel trains. Lionel was just about the best toy for a young boy. There were dinning cars and cabooses. We had train locomotives that smoked after dropping a smoke pill in their stacks. These smoke pills were later discontinued as they were found to cause cancer. We had train cars with cranes and cargo. In and around the multi-layered tracks we had signals and switches, roads and cars, people and streets, bridges and lakes, fences and buildings, barns and animals, and always something new to add every month or two.
And, when we were not good or violated limits, we were often banished to the basement, sort of an underground timeout. During the day, this was not so bad—with the darkness of night, it was a different story. We were generally good children, but mother did almost all the parenting in the house. Even good children go bad once in awhile and tax even their most patient caretakers.
My grandmother’s basement had a separate room that included kitchen appliances. She also had a separate room right off the backdoor. It was not uncommon for grandmother to take in a single female border who would use her basement as a kitchen. This was somewhat confusing in that our Italian family, especially and particularly our grandmother, was more than just a little bit suspicious of strangers outside our family or our Italian heritage. A famiglia!
In the center of the large front yard spanning the doubles was a birdbath sculptured by my paternal grandfather, who was no longer alive at the time. I spent many moments kicking footballs and batting baseballs from our front yard to my friend Rick’s front yard across the street, especially on Sunday evenings after dinner when our homework was done and school seemed such a long time away. The driveway was covered with rock, doublewide, and quite straight until it made the right-hand turn to the double garage. Opening each garage door was manual labor, as there were no automatic garage door openers in those days. For many years, only our father’s car inhabited the garage. Our grandmother and mother never drove. It stayed this way for a long time until the three of us began driving our own automobiles. In a recent visit, the driveway is now cement with a below ground swimming pool crowding the backyard.
A hedgerow along the driveway divided our property line from our neighbors. We spent much time moving the rocks here and there looking for those special quartz rocks or any rock that was shinny or out of the ordinary. There seemed to be an abundance of them in our young lives. There was an alley to one side of the garage where one could take shortcuts to friends and places. Yard fences were not common then—we did not know anybody that we wanted to keep out—and we often had a straight shot to anywhere we wanted to go. Bush upon bush circled the house—a trimmer’s nightmare. Nature’s insects and tiny creatures were in abundance back then, but in today’s cities, you hardly see a one even with focused scrutiny. While growing up, a multitude of cocoons dangled from the bushes and inside each cocoon was a caterpillar waiting to burst out… and sometimes we prematurely helped them. Butterflies, grasshoppers, praying mantises, bumble bees, and yellow jackets were more common than people on our street. Nature’s mix was in full bloom before overrun by suburbia.
You did not lock your doors to your home when you left during the day or slept at night. You left your keys in your car. Sleeping on the porch or in the backyard was not uncommon. You could walk after dark without fear of becoming a blot on the local police blotter. Not that in 1951 there were no murders, child abuse, rapes, robberies and other insidious crimes. Our parents and neighbors protected us from those kinds of events and they did not occur naturally in our community.
In our town, the civil defense sirens always shrieked at 11:00 am every Friday. In our neighborhood, the emergency siren was located outside the old family owned Stop ‘N’ Shop grocery store. Mother often walked us to the store… and everywhere. When marketing with our mother, we often found ourselves covering our ears in a vain attempt to banish the noise. We did not understand what the howling was all about or all the nuances and dangers that made up civil defense. The wailing of the civil defense siren in our town has changed neither the day nor the time in over a half of century. I always thought this would be a good time for foreign invaders to attack our town, as the citizens are complacent to its pleaful warning each and every Friday morning.
Your newspaper was delivered to your front door, not the end of your driveway, in the street, on the roof, or not at all. Mail was delivered to your mailbox on the porch or swallowed by the mail slot of your home. Siblings often fought one another to be the one to extend their arms up the mail slot to see if more mail lingered outside. You enjoyed talking to your letter carrier and he not only had time to talk to you, but also enjoyed a glass of water or a cookie. Going postal was not a phenomenon. Milk in glass bottles, butter, and other dairy products were brought to your door—well, actually to your porch and placed in your family’s milk box. You did not pay immediately for these products, but you were extended credit even before credit cards became commonplace—you were trusted and charged no interest. You left the money you owed in cash in the company’s envelope and placed it securely in the milk box until tomorrow’s delivery. I still have a metal Roberts milk box trying not to rust away in the garage like many forgotten things of the past.
A big yellow truck hauling three men collected the neighborhood trash like clockwork every Wednesday in our neighborhood. Recycling was not in vogue. There were no plastic trash bags, only aluminum or metal trashcans. Each and early every Wednesday morning during the summer, Mark, my back door friend and I, sifted through the trashcans of the neighborhood looking for discarded Stokely van Camp company canned vegetables, fruits, etc. Armed with our trusty razor blade cutters with no thought of malice, delinquency or terrorism, we slashed the can labels that could be mailed to the packing company and bartered for prizes—just as magnificent as Battlecreek, Michigan. It was a time when you did not fear sticking your hands into somebody else’s trash of life.
As a child, you really enjoyed the summer because you were actually out of school for at least three months because the next school year did not commence until after Labor Day. Schools did not legislate wholesale group testing, 185 days of attendance, or made-up snow days—and yet, children of the time did not grow up uncouth and stupid! Summer days were long back then and summer evenings seemed forever endless. You had time to decompress from the school year and enjoy a good part of the summer before thoughts of schooling reentered consciousness. What you forgot over the summer usually was something you were not going to use as adults anyway. As a young child, it was your most favorite time of life that you hoped would never end even though year by year you knowingly felt it slip away, as being childlike gave way to maturity.
Summer ice cream cost a nickel or a dime, as the ringing bells or music of the Mr. Softy truck or the three-wheeled bicycle with the icebox lodged in front of the handlebars beckoned you. Children searched their family’s couches and chairs, or begged for coins as others ran into the street ready to make their purchases. You rode your