Best of all the Norristown family restaurant options were its diners. My family frequented two during my early childhood years. Most of the time we went to the Gateway Diner in nearby Jeffersonville. The Gateway Diner was commonly called Joe's, because of its owner, Joe Gulyas. I always ordered the same dinner, chicken croquettes with mashed potatoes. The chicken croquettes came in the form of two little mountains beside a valley of mashed potatoes with a lake of tasty gravy in the middle. (Even as a small child, I saw my platter of food at the diner as the setting of a story. As my mother would often say, I had a vivid imagination.)
The other diner we patronized was Danny's in Bridgeport. Danny's was special because it was located on the water. As a child, I thought that eating at a table overlooking the water at Danny's Diner was just like being in paradise. To me, that was the most gorgeous view ever. Years later, returning to the area as a jaded adult, I wondered whatever I could have been thinking. The beautiful waterfront view was just a dirty little creek. Nevertheless, the memory lives on.
The diners of the fifties had one other attraction besides great food. At every table there was a jukebox. One could put in a nickel and play one of the latest popular songs. One could hear "Volare" or "Rock Around the Clock". Jukeboxes always had the latest songs by Perry Como, Dean Martin, or Bobby Darin. That kind of music was not played in my home. I was never allowed to actually put a nickel in the jukebox to play a favorite song, but other patrons usually played enough songs that we always had plenty of music to eat by.
I remember how thrilled I was when my parents gave me the gift of my own little 45rpm record player. I could stack up my little pile of records, place them on the spindle and play my favorite songs one after another. Records I played over and over again were "How much is that Doggie in the Window?" and "Mr. Sandman". (Years later, when I was in my early 60's, "Mr. Sandman" became a hit all over again and was routinely played in my Jazzercise® class. Most of the women in the class were younger than I was and were amazed that I knew this song. I told them that originally it had been done by another group and I had played that record over and over again on my record player. They had no idea what I was talking about.)
I was glad to have that little record player because I spent most of my early childhood indoors and alone. Confinement was the key word of those years. Much of this was simply due to the weather. Norristown was simply cold and rainy from October through May, with an occasional blizzard thrown in for good measure anytime from November through April.
The other reason that I was kept indoors and alone was "to keep me out of trouble," as my mother phrased it. George Street, in my parents' eyes, was populated by unusual amount of assorted zanies, of whom dear old Mr. Hallman was the least dangerous. The iron fence around the backyard was another means of protecting us from the outside world. It was probably originally intended for decorative purposes, but I saw it only as a huge, forbidding structure meant to keep me imprisoned forever. (There's that vivid imagination again.) I longed to get over that fence and be free. Freedom, not climbing, was the goal. I was not one of those children who had the urge to climb everything in sight. (My husband and I later had one of those children and I immediately could tell the difference between him and me.) I was about four years old and had had one experience of climbing which ended in success. I remember my older brother teaching me how to climb out of my crib. I remember doing it, but not much else. The only consequence for me was getting my own bed. I don't know what consequences, if any, my brother got.
The iron fence, however, was a different matter. I never tried to get over it. I believe that it had a latch on it that enabled adults to come and go at will. Presumably, my parents had told my brother not to teach me how to get out of the backyard, if indeed he knew how to himself. But a girl from the neighborhood, whose face and name I no longer remember, somehow found a way to beat the fence. One afternoon, she enticed me to break out of my backyard and accompany her to a local drugstore to buy an ice cream soda. Apparently she was about my age and not yet able to read because we wound up at a nearby beauty shop. When we walked in and said we wanted two ice cream sodas, the perfect crime quickly unraveled. Not to mention the fact that neither one of us had any idea of how to pay for these treats had we managed to find the right establishment. Of course, the women in the beauty shop recognized us and immediately contacted the proper local authorities—our mothers. We were picked up and returned to "prison" (our homes) immediately.
I do remember thinking that my mother did not seem all that glad to find me. Even though we had been gone quite a while, there were no cries of joy, no warm hugs, and no words telling me how worried she had been and how glad she was to find me. She may have thought that this was a ploy on my part to get some attention and that the best way to deal with it was to show complete nonchalance. The modus operandi of that era was never to show one's true feelings in public and never was that more applicable than in the case of adults in front of their children. In any event, this first great foray into the world beyond my backyard fence was to be the last in that neighborhood. We were about to move from George Street and on to new adventures.
A LOST CHILDHOOD
THE LIE: "Someday you will have children who will turn out to be as awful as you are; then you'll find out for yourself what we mean."
THE TRUTH: "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." Ephesians 6: 4
When I was about five years old, my parents bought a bigger home in nearby Jeffersonville in search of better schools in a more upscale neighborhood. The house was located on Whitehall Road just around the corner from what was commonly called the Halford Tract. The Halford Tract was the residential neighborhood for wealthier professionals. My parents couldn't afford one of those homes, so they chose the next best thing-- a house as close as possible to them. It was one of those houses built from a kit purchased from Sears or Montgomery Ward and is now considered classic, but I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking that it was ugly. (All the people I knew about were moving into brand new homes, either bungalows or split-levels.) It did have a very nice front porch, a front and backyard, and I would have my own bedroom.
Our new home had two very attractive features that immediately thrilled me. First of all, there wasn't a fence anywhere in sight. I felt a sense of freedom which I had never experienced before. Adding to that new sense of freedom was a huge lot right beside the house. I saw myself running and playing madly in that grass-filled lot, which was destined to become a gathering spot for all the neighborhood children. What fun we would all have together! When I mentioned this to my mother, she turned away and said nothing. I would soon find out why. Within weeks, my parents sold the lot to the neighbors whose property adjoined it. They said that they needed the money more than the lot. I never could figure out why those neighbors bought the lot in the first place. I never saw them use it for anything. I was never allowed to play there or even set foot in it. It remained in place only to torture me.
Even if that lot had remained in our possession, its future as a magnet drawing playmates to our home was a matter of some doubt. There simply were not many children in the neighborhood and the children who were there were older boys. Fortunately, my mother had friends who had daughters my age, and I had a cousin Debbie with whom I spent a lot of time. Still, I spent a lot of those early childhood years bored and alone. I often wondered why parents with young children would buy a house in a neighborhood without any children. As I grew older, I began to understand why. The house was next to the Halford Tract. Particularly for my mother, being next to a prestigious address was reason enough.
My parents did make one concession to the fact that they had children. They put up a swing set in the backyard behind the garage. (Actually, probably one of my uncles put it up. My father was not a handy man.) I really enjoyed swinging on summer days, making up stories and telling them to myself as I played