Introduction

Introduction

While I was born in 1951, sometimes I feel like I was born in 1914. My father told me so many stories about growing up in Philadelphia, and occasionally even about his family, that I feel some sense of at least one person's life in those years before I was born. While my mother, of course, wanted a child, I'm not sure that my father did. I think there was a part of it all that scared him, so they waited quite a while to have me. I hope I was "a relief" to my father, and I think I worked hard to be a good son. Looking back, especially at those few older pictures I have of my father, I think the very best part of his life was the first half - back when things were simple, he had good friends, and the burdens of adulthood were not yet upon him. Looking back, I feel like the best part of my life was the first half, largely due to my parents. It was a time when life was simple, controllable, and when I was actually organized! I'm sure my father found many good things in his entire life, as do I, but I believe we had this in common - that there is nothing better than growing up in Philadelphia. So, do not find the title of my new blog in any way depressing, my friends, its just a perspective that I've found interesting to investigate.

I'll start by writing about my family. I realize we are nothing special, but as we've learned from millions of pages of memoirs written and published, there can be much to be learned from those who came before us.

As I get past some family stories, this blog may be of interest to anyone who grew up in the Delaware Valley/Philadelphia/Delaware County in the 1950's and 60's, or to anyone married/partnered to one (if you are, there is much you need to understand before the two of you can communicate!).

Please check out my book, Saturday Night at Sarah Joy's. All proceeds go to the Hurricane Sandy NJ Relief Fund. Information is available at: saturdaynightatsarahjoys.blogspot.com.

Thank you!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

My Town

I grew up in a small town, and probably like everyone else, I always think it was a one-of-a-kind place.  Honestly, I don't think I've seen another place like it.  There weren't a lot of houses, but they were all good looking, and many of them looked the same.  My friend lived in a two story, and used to act like he was richer than those of us who lived in ranch houses, but at least our front door worked!  There were a dozen street lights and we actually had one outside of our house.  It was sweet.  Down the end of our street was the church, the one church, and down the other end of the street there was the diner.  We also had a pretty nice gas station, for those who didn't use the public transportation. We were small, but we were big enough to have a fire house.  That was interesting too.  We were probably the luckiest town around because we never had a fire, none that I remember. It probably sounds like our town was just one street, and it almost was; Main Street was one big circle with a small lake, Mirror Lake, in the middle.  Oh, would we skate in the winter!  We'd often sit on the back porch or just stand in the back yard, and watch the train go by.  On some days the train would go by, oh, about 50-60 times a day.  You knew it was going to be a good day.  Some times there would be lots of freight trains, other times lots of passenger trains, and then there would be days when nothing but a trolley car would zip by on the tracks.  We'd watch the train round the curve and disappear into the tunnel.  I always liked the freight train because sometimes you could see the smoke coming out of the engine as it choo-chooed along.  The train station was a busy place, that's for sure.  We also had a loading area where the freight train would stop and they would load and unload stuff - never knew what it was.

Probably one of the unique parts of our town was the tree.  We had normal trees, of course, and shrubs, lots of shrubs, but we had this tree.  If you compared it to our ranch house, I estimate it was about 13,000 times as high.  Sometimes it was just hard to sleep at night, especially when the lights on it were blinkers.  I used to have to cover my bedroom window with cardboard.  The tree made the whole town smell great, but like any thing in nature, it was dangerous as well.  One time, when I was walking to school, which was held in the church, a pine needle slightly longer than I was tall fell and knocked me to the ground.  My mother said she hoped that someday we'd have a hospital, but hadn't yet seen one in the catalog, whatever that meant.

For a small town, let's just say I've seen my share of catastrophes.  I've seen trains derail, trains run into cows, cars, ice skaters, and once, even the diner.  I was actually sitting in my back yard that incredible night when a passenger train was slowly rolling by.  You could see the passengers through the windows as the cars rocked back and forth.  I caught it from the corner of my eye, falling from the tree - tinsel.  We'd had tinsel fall in the back yard before, and once even on the roof, but this time I saw it fall, and fall, and land across the train tracks.  Sparks flew everywhere, big sparks.  It was like lightning coming up off of those three tracks.  Before the train could get to the tinsel across the track, everything went dark, even our street lights.  We just sat tight until power came back on.  Even now, so many years later, I haven't been Plasticville for years, but I still keep an eye out for falling tinsel.  I'm sure some of you know just what I mean.  It was a long time ago (before we went HO).



© 2012 John Allison

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