My youth in a cocoon

GUESTWORK | Phil Bradley

In 1952, when I was entering second grade, my mother and I moved from my grandparents’ house to an old Victorian house on the corner of Douglas and Governor.

Like many families in those days, we shared the house with several generations. In our case with mother’s cousin, Ruth Butler, Ruth’s two children and her mother.

Life was simpler in those days, and individual privacy scarce. Mother was a divorced single mom with a clerical job at an investment firm downtown. We couldn’t afford our own place, even a rental, and didn’t own a car, though we borrowed grandfather’s from time to time.

But, really, I lived in the cocoon of the immediate neighborhood. In those days you could live a normal life restricted to just five or six square blocks. Our neighborhood was typical of most in town.

Most of what we wanted or needed was there. On the rare occasions when we wanted to shop downtown we rode the bus that ran along Governor. Mother rode it back and forth to work, as did many of the neighbors. But mostly we walked.

My school, Dubois, offered kindergarten through eighth grade. It was two and a half blocks from the house and, like everyone else, I walked to school. At least five of my teachers also lived within walking distance. At the start of each school year Mother invited my teacher over for dinner to get acquainted.

A block away were two small “Mom and Pop” grocery stores, Eagen’s and Lee’s. We shopped regularly at Eagen’s. But not for eggs. A lady brought them to our house from her farm outside town. And not for milk, either. The dairy delivered the glass bottles of milk and cream to our back door. And in the summer there were vegetables from our backyard garden which my grandmother tended.

Next door to Eagen’s was Clyde Scott’s barber shop where all the boys in the neighborhood got their GI crew cuts. Next door to him was the Community Bakery. Fragrant bread and lots of baked goods.

We didn’t shop at Lee’s but went there regularly because the owner gave away the real wood orange crates in which his produce was delivered. We made wonderful constructions out of those crates, including the candy and lemonade stands that we set up regularly on our corner. (Though the Methodist Church was catty-corner the worshipers never seemed to have a thirst on Sundays.)

But being just three blocks from Sacred Heart Academy, we had Sunday customers from there. Often nuns would go out walking on those still afternoons. As Dominicans they wore full black and white habits and always strolled by in twos.

On the corner of Governor and Lincoln was the Avalon restaurant. They served meals all day, but we kids just went in to buy candy from their wonderful penny candy counter. Really it just cost pennies. There were luscious root beer barrels, sticky Turkish taffy, chewy bubble gum with enclosed baseball cards, licorice, miniature wax objects with sweet liquid inside, red wax fake lips and really cool sugar cigarettes. The cigs made us feel very grown up because in those days every grownup we knew smoked cigarettes.

As I got older, I would ride my bike a block farther to Lincoln and Edwards to hang out at the soda fountain at Zorn’s drug store. Vanilla Cokes, 10 cents. Phosphates a little more.

Absent the Internet our view of the larger world was limited. We got two newspapers, the evening Register (Democratic) and the morning Journal (Republican). Better still, on Saturday mornings we had “The Lone Ranger” and “Sky King” on the radio.

We got our first television in time to watch the Democratic convention that nominated Adlai Stevenson in 1956. With that Sunday evenings became a ritual. My aunt and uncle always came over to watch Ed Sullivan and Loretta Young.

At a certain age, I was allowed to ride my bike to my grandparents’ house on MacArthur, leave it there, and walk down to the Esquire Theater for the Saturday morning kids’ shows.

Still our life remained insular. Most things a kid needed were close at hand. There were few links to the world outside the neighborhood.

The summers were the best times outdoors. I had a giant sandbox and filled happy hours creating castles and little villages. Next to it was a rope swing hung from an old maple tree.

It was the evenings that were magical.

After dinner the neighborhood kids would gather for games. Early evening saw hotly contested games of marbles.

As the group got bigger we would play hide and seek. And as dusk settled it was always kick the can which included kicking, running, yelling and hiding behind a neighbor’s bushes. Heaven for a kid.

But then, as dark came the street lights went on and everyone knew the rule. The street lights meant everyone had to go home for the night.

In the safety of our homes, in the cocoon of our neighborhood, we slept and dreamed of the days when we would be grown-ups. Just as now we sleep and dream of the days when we were kids.

Phil Bradley of Chatham lived in Springfield at 342 South Douglas and from second through eighth grade attended Dubois School.