There’s one theme that runs through the time I lived a child’s life on Shady Ave. Ext…
Passion. It sounds strange, I know. But all of us–and our street was a microcosm of the Baby Boom times–we had Bruce Segal, a teenager at one end, then the ages of the children run all the way down to new babies… My two friends, Arlene and Naomi, had mothers who were pregnant with a third baby and as it usually goes, we didn’t notice their big bellies ever. Then the mothers came home with this new baby. Anyway, all of us played and fought and cried and got into trouble together, with no fear.
Playing softball, the arguments over whether it was a foul tip, a strike, a ball; these got so loud on summer nights–no air conditioning of course–that the adults had to intervene. Breathlessly racing down the back alley playing cops and robbers…investigating every corner of the street, almost losing our balance on top of what we called The Terrible Hill, screaming…a mother deciding to take us swimming at Blue Spruce or South Park with no seat belts in cars so a pile of children sat on top of each other…my mother organizing one of her favorite activities, a cookout in Frick Park, singing as she packed hot dogs, marshmallows, Hershey bars, potato salad and lots of Cokes into the carriers, then we–half the people on the street–got into cars, all of us children singing funny songs in the back seats with somebody, usually my father who was quiet and hated all the noise, telling us to “turn down the volume.”
If I had a choice in the matter to have what ever kind of childhood I wanted, I would not have changed anything. I had other times, full of excitement, but these were the innocent times, clean of monthly blood, having to use deodorant, worrying about your hair and face and skin. This isn’t sad. When I was spending those last days with my mother before she died I told her this, all of it, and it made her so happy…
Finally, I met up, just several years ago, with a boy, now a doctor, who lived on our street. We were talking about this subject and he said: “I’m married but I won’t agree to have children until I can find a place like Shady Avenue Extension.” Sadly, this was the reason I suffered from anxiety and depression when Michael was little. Our street was NOT like Shady Ave. and I thought I was depriving him of something. As it turned out, if Michael lived the lifestyle I did, he’d have kept to himself. He was quietly waiting to become an adult, and children’s things did not interest him.
Thank you to Bruce Springsteen: “…glory days, they’ll pass you by, glory days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye..” Except those times aren’t really gone.
lgmwriting 