Getting Older

My friend and St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan wrote about getting older this weekend, and I thought that that would be a good topic to start blogging again.  I’ve been taking a hiatus as I celebrated by 75th birthday.  As I’ve written before, memory is a strange thing.  I consistently can’t remember where I put stuff, but I am also starting to remember things from the past.  Sorry if this bores you, but I’m really doing this for myself, to try and remember these things – the more I write, the more I remember. 

I’ll start with the first half of the 50’s.  My father accepted a job with UNIVAC where he designed the electronics for the world’s first high-speed printer.  I recall flying from Boston on what I think was a two-engine propeller plane in 1951, and looking out the window with my mom saying, “That’s Dad’s car.”  My parents picked a row house in Clifton Heights to rent.  It was one of my only experiences with antisemitism.  It was a working-class neighborhood of mostly Catholics.  To get from the back where the kids played to the front, you either had to go through your house or walk around the block because there were no alleys between the houses.  The kids of my age excluded me because I wasn’t one of them.  I’m not sure they knew the real reason.  We had no TV, but our neighbor wouldn't let me in her house with the other kids to watch Howdy Doody!  Eventually, we got our own TV set, which I recall clearly.  It was a real piece of furniture with a 12-inch screen.  Another memory I have is trying to play with a few kids in the back… a young girl went into her house, brought out a hammer and hit me on the head.  Her parents were mortified and apologized.  I ended up in the hospital with double vision for a day.  

I do remember the neighborhood being excited when my Mom brought home my brother Dan from the hospital. 

The next thing I remember is my parents buying the house at 7603 Farnsworth, a new subdivision in northeast Philly.  I remember the moving truck and my getting my hand caught in a door.  I also remember that the bastards who built the house did not spring for light bulbs, so that when we arrived (after the first truck broke down), my Dad had to run out and get bulbs. 

The brand new neighborhood had plenty of children, including three of my age:  Jack Greenberg, Gabby Mellio and Mickey Rosenberg, whom I haven’t seen or heard from since we moved from that house in 1960.  We played baseball in the street right in front of our parents.  Basketball in driveways and football in the backyards.  I think it was a pretty typical upbring for the 50’s.  We also went to the Jersey shore in the summers, renting a small cottage on Long Beach Island.  Back then, the road was two lanes with too much traffic and plenty of cars overheating, including ours! 

All of us except for Gabby went to JH Brown School where we were bused in.  I still remember my teachers' names. 

It's funny how one remembers so many of these details from so long ago.