My Childhood Memories

Mom was home. We were fortunate.

Dad worked as a milkman @ Farrell's Dairy which was down the street from our house. Sometimes he walked home but sometimes he drove his car and parked it in front of the dairy and then drove home. I wonder if the neighbors found this strange.

My great aunt (Mabel) lived at the dairy and sold product there. Kids would come to her back door and yell, 'Mabel' when they wanted something.

Leo, my great uncle, also worked at the dairy.  He was a saintly man. He was always kind.  He drove a jeep which fascinated us. Neil talked about it alot. My father said it was a dangerous vehicle. He hasd driven one during the war.

We liked to come home from school and watch TV. My mother would ask us to go to the store. There were a  lot of different stores.

 

The bakery[Millers {rocks}(as Squirrel (Billy Joyce) called them], the meat stores (2 of them -Grandma Collins liked the one at her corner ( Kenny's) and my mom liked the further one (Kimmick's). There was a pharmacy across the street (Ryan's( Hammerschmidt) and later Dunn's(Knorl)  and Peewees was the grocery store. There were 2 stores: Wrights and Sirata's (convenience type stores). Jean's was a clothing store and there was a hardware store at the corner of Pomona. We could find most of what we needed here. 

On the weekends for something to do we would walk out Seneca- that is beyond Hayden to Woolworth's and Fishmen's and window shop at some of the other stores. We figured they'd kick us out if we went in because we rarely had any money to spend. In the winter it would have been nice to warm up there but kids got no respect. So it goes.

Our world was small and we had little interest in the bigger issues. We didn't have  a need to be concerned about those things. We were lucky to be protected from that by our parents. older siblings and aunts. 

Karen Sacco once told me she wrote to Dear Abby to ask for advice because the TV station changed the time Brady Bunch came on. This song reminds me of that.