Old Stomping Grounds

It looks like a really beautiful day out there. I was headed out to see what I could see, but the car wouldn't start. Called my son, who will stop by after work. Meantime, I guess I am blogging.


Every once in a while there are scenes on TV news of places that I remember well, but they are no longer as I remember them. One such place that appears quite often is the 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby, PA. These days it is likely to be the site of a murder or something equally as disturbing. I remember it so differently.

When I was five, and six, and seven, my mother would take me into the 69th Street area to shop. We would go up the hill on one side of the street and down the other. We would start at the department store on the corner. I guess I knew that store by heart. The best part was paying for our purchases when the salesgirl put the money into a metal cylinder and sent it through the pneumatic tube - Whoooooosh! - and waiting for the change and sales slip to come back. Remember that? As children, we loved it.

My mother was deaf. She read lips perfectly under ordinary circumstances, but occasionally a sales person would turn away while still talking. Then it was my job to relate the missed information. It made me feel very grown up and important.

For some reason I loved to watch my mother buy stockings. She made it quite a ritual, looking at different shades and weights, running her hand inside the tops of the stockings and holding them up to the light. This puzzled me because she always ended with the same kind.

I also liked buying shoes for myself. I never liked the choice. They were usually ugly brown oxfords. But in those days we tried them on and then stood with our feet inside an x-ray machine and could look down and wiggle our skeleton toes. That made it worthwhile.

Then we would start up the hill, stopping here and there, mostly window shopping. At the top was Kresgies Five and Dime. I got to pick out a small toy there. Then on across the street and down the other side. The very best was at the bottom of the hill again. Schneider's made their own candy and ice cream. We sat at a little round table and ate a pointed scoop of ice cream, served in a round metal dish. There has never been, nor ever will be better ice cream than that! If I got really lucky, Mother would buy a pound of butter creams, half chocolate and half vanilla, before we headed back to the terminal.

Another place I see on TV often is the Aronamink Golf Club. As a youngster, the golf course meant only one thing - sledding! It was a long walk from our house, but it was the best. One of the hills there was almost as good as a roller coaster. Naturally, we called it Dead Man's Hill. One of my earliest admirers (about age eight) used to let me go down, belly-flopping, on top of him, because I was afraid to do it alone. Georgie was a sweetheart. He gave me my first kiss, too. We were in the very front row at a Saturday matinee. Gregory Peck, in Days of Glory, at the Waverly Theater in Aronamink. He told me he loved me. Sadly, I did not return the feeling, and let him know it. But he seemed to bounce back from the disappointment pretty quickly.

Other sites flash on the screen. I don't recognize some of them even though they have familiar names. Isn't that where the bowling alley used to be? I thought the Baptist Church was there on Garret Road. I know the Hoagie Shop was there on Burmont Road. That's where I entered one day to find the old Italian lady sobbing into the sandwiches she was making. I asked what was wrong, and she told me she had just heard that Franklin Roosevelt was dead. (At sixteen, he was the only president I had ever known.) And I recognize that corner, where Schline's Delicatessan used to be. They had the most wonderful cookies in big canisters, and Mrs. Schline always handed me an extra one.

I wonder if I would find my way around the old neighborhood if I returned today?