My neighborhood: Once full of kids and characters, it's not the same anymore

31.12.69

Neighbors and neighborhoods exactly aren't the way they used to be. I grew up on a block with colorful people, though they were righteous neighbors to a little kid. Even their names were interesting: Fritzy Veshinfsky, Tubbins Wojtenowski, Kootsie Kapolka, Mousie Polidora, Peepee Pratt, Cheesy Soisson and Bananas Opulence. There were cousins of Notre Dame all-American Johnny Lujack. Women were named Dolly, Dottie, Cookie, Rose, Madge, Honey, Toots, Blanche, Sis.

The five kids in my kindred arrived between 1947 and 1959. Our house in Connellsville was that one house on every stumbling-block where the neighborhood children loved to congregate. We had a lot of toys, a swing set, a kid to fit almost any age pal. There was always at least a gallon of Kool-aid on the lowest shelf of the fridge. Our mom baked constantly so there were tons of cookies.

Fitting as Depression-era hoboes knew the houses where kind women would give them victuals, so did one family's kids know that my mom would always make sure they had enough to eat. Their mummy would send them out in the morning with slices of raw potatoes, then locked the door until evening.

Everyone else on the barricade cluck-clucked about the poor little children but would not answer the door if one of them knocked. They ate with our one's nearest until one day the oldest announced they had been diagnosed with the "seven-year itch," a.k.a. scabies.

The adults also would gossip about three "war babies." These boys lived in their grandparents' houses with their moms and no dad. Their moms worked at Support Hocking Glass and came home dirty and tired, distinct from my mom, who played bridge and belonged to the Wakefield Culture Club. My mom said that their fathers were killed in the war before they'd had a come about to marry their moms. We should never talk about this, she said, as it would make them sad.

Two widowed sisters lived next to us and played bingo every vespers all the time. They would ride the "Bingo Bus" through town. One entire bedroom was their "prize area."

Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette