Woodbine Avenue
Philadelphia, PA
1962-1995
I remember the first time I saw our new house. I was six.
My family was living in North Philly.
The three-bedroom row home housed 8 of us. So this new house with seven
bedrooms seemed like a mansion. We had a
yard and a driveway and a garage. This place overwhelmed me with
excitement. I could hardly wait to move
in.
We lived next door to the Bartons and they had ten
kids. Two doors down, on the other side,
lived the Hunts and they also had ten kids. In the years to come, some
variation of the 27 of us played together.
Large azalea bushes bloomed each year in the front
yard. Most of the neighbors had azalea
bushes so each May, the street came alive with magnificent colors of pinks,
whites and reds. The lilac bushes bloomed around the same time. So the air was filled with this wonderful fragrance.
There was a city park at the end of the street and we spent
hours here, playing war. In our games,
we were always at war with Germany and Russia.
The Americans always won.
Most of the people on my street were Irish, Catholic. We attended Our Lady of Lourdes School and
Church. Everyone knew everyone else. All
of my friends had siblings who were friends with my siblings. Our parents were friends with each
other. There weren’t many secrets in my
neighborhood.
On Halloween, we wandered over to the the Italian
neighborhood. They lived in row homes
and they gave out better candy. Unlike my mother, those mothers encouraged us
to take “two”. My mother would reprimand
anyone who attempted to take you. “Hey you, I see you. Put that one back, you ingrate.”
I remember snow storms that dropped three feet of snow. My
brothers had to shovel the walks. They
also had to mow the lawn. The girls had
to clean up after dinner. I always
thought the boys got off easy. But a few
years back, I purchased one of those old push mowers. They are hard work and now I understand why
my brother s complained so damn much.
Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. Dinners included the
nine of us, my grandparents and Margaret and Howard (my grandmother’s sister
and husband). As my siblings found
marriage partners, we added a second table.
When the next generation arrived, we moved a third table in to the
kitchen. My mother cooked a great meal.
The best china came out. The silver was polished. We used cloth napkins and lit candles. There
was turkey and creamed onions, stuffing, cranberry sauces, sweet potatoes,
green beans, pumpkin pie, minced meat pies, ice cream, wine, after dinner
drinks and so much more. My father said
grace and after a few lines, he started to cry in gratitude for all his
blessing. My mother followed up by
laughing at him. He didn’t care. He was
just so damn grateful. “MY cup runnith
over,” he would tell us. After my mother died, Thanksgiving was never the same
for me.
We lived around the corner from the Overbrook School for the
Blind. I watched blind kids take on challenges
with a courage that I have never had. We attended their concerts, watched them
play sports and cheered for them as they mastered the skill of walking with a
cane.
I loathed my school days.
My teachers were mostly mean spirited and abusive. The days were heavy with anxiety. The nuns seemed to randomly hit us and I
never quiet understood why they hit me.
But I lived in fear of my 5th grade and 6th grade
teachers. I transferred out of that school after 6th grade. I was never hit again but I still had to
dodge abusive comments from my teachers.
I am glad those days are over.
My grandfather had a heart attack on our front porch. I
thought he was going to die. But he survived and lived for another 12
years. Ling cancer got him and his death
broke my heart.
My mother had a baby, #7, in 1970. She had had six of us in seven years and then
eleven years later, Brian was born. That
was a shock to all of us.
Kathy got married in 1979, the first wedding of the
family. As we were leaving for the
reception, my father drew a line in the sand, “No one is to invite anyone back
to this house after the reception. I
have paid enough for this wedding. Enough
is enough. No one come s back to the house.”
As we were leaving the reception, we were all given a stack of
bills. “Here, you go get ice and cokes
and get some lunch meat and bread. We
can make sandwiches.” And off I
went. Jimmy had to find beer and someone
had to find cheese and crackers. And the party came back to our house and
stayed until the last bit food in the refrigerator was consumed. The last
guests left around 3 in the morning. And my dad had a great time.
In 1983, Ronal Reagan called the house and nominated my dad
as a judge to the Federal Court. That
was thrilling.
After I came back from a trip to Italy in 1973, I painted
the ceiling in my closet. I didn’t tell
my mother and I thought she might be mad at me but she was rather pleased that
the Sistine Chapel had moved me so much.
There was only one air conditioning unit in the house. It was in my parent’s bedroom. In the summer, we crowded in that room on hot
nights and watched television together.
My parents used to travel from time to time. So they would leave us with old women to look
after us. One woman was so old that we
worried she couldn’t take care of Brian.
He was still an infant. So we each took a day off from school just to
keep him safe.
An ice cream truck came down the street one night. Mr. Hunt came out of the house and stopped
the truck. “Give me everything you have
in this truck,” he told the guy. The man
sold him everything and Mr. Hunt gave all of us a treat or two. “Ok,” Mr. Hunt told him, “don’t come down
this street again.” We never saw him
again.
The Hunts had a milk dispensing machine that gave them
regular milk or chocolate milk. I thought that was absolutely great. My mother mixed our milk with powder
milk. That wasn’t so great.
My grandparents lived two miles away and every day they came
to visit us. I loved their visits. I loved my grandparents.
Mr. Tweresy lived next door.
He would take the boys with him
every Saturday and they would go to the neighborhood grocery stores to collect
the stale bread. This bread went to a
local orphanage. Afterwards, he took the
boys out to breakfast. I always wanted
to go with them but I couldn’t because I was a girl.
The bread man and the milk man came to the house every
day. On cold days, the milk would freeze
up just a bit.
When my parents decided to sell this big, old house in 1995,
I felt a great lose. I loved this house.
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| Four generations sitting on the front porch. |
