A ROWHOUSE RUNT'S RAMBLE AND RAG

A ROWHOUSE RUNT'S RAMBLE AND RAG(L DOUGLAS ST OURS) A ROWHOUSE RUNT'S RAMBLE AND RAG


Today the streets and alleys of my old neighborhood
are jammed from corner to corner with parked cars
and almost no kids and no place for kids to play
on the streets and alleys anyway, but when I was little
the cars were few and there were a million kids
and the streets and alleys were our playgrounds.

Front and rear our inside group rowhouse was solid brick to the roof flashing.
The compact concrete front porch was spare and square, railed and covered.
Off the back wall a wooden triangle structure provided access to the cellar
through double doors too heavy for us youngsters to open.
Our pocket sized backyard was bordered by a chain link fence
identical in height and design to the fences on all of the adjacent lots.
But for the street numbers, you couldn't tell the houses apart.

Snug on the back stoop right by the door jam sat a two by two trap door box which belonged to the dairy. Right before every dawn except for Sunday, the milkman in his truck would stop and go up the alley and deliver quart glass bottles of whole milk exchanging them for the empties
placed outside by dad the night before.

In the moonlight or dark clouds or rain patter or - when late - with the sunrise sliver, with both of my brothers fast asleep, the clank and clatter of those deliveries would also herald a reassurance that I survived another night hiding under my covers for fear of the invisible demons and monsters secretly lurking and scheming under my bed.

Clad in my puppydog pajamas and duckhead slippers, I'd pad down the stairs, tiptoe across the kitchen, unlatch the door and carry in the milk and sometimes a fresh cake of butter or a cardboard carton of eggs. Occasionally Big Luke, the dimwit next door, would be up too and think he was being funny leaning out his door, exposing his tinkler.

The back stoop, which was wood until dad cemented it, was so small that you had to step down and off of it to open the wooden screen door to enter my mom's domain, the hot sweaty and aromatic kitchen. Thanks to my maternal grandfather, who visited just thrice, for our backyard we acquired a clothes tree, a sandbox, a swing set, and for the summer an inflatable pool which left on the lawn a yellow circle of death.

On the fair and warm days, a shabby old man lacking teeth would trudge up and down the alley
crookedly pushing a wobbly cart holding what appeared to be a spinning wheel with a belt looped
from its axle to the sprocket. It was some kind of cutlery sharpener and that wretched geezer earned a quarter per piece sharpening the knives of homebound housewives most of whom, like my mom, never learned how to drive.

During the harvest season, a pipe smoking arabber, lazily stirruping a horse drawn wagon, would clop clop up the block and in a operatic pitched voice chant "OWYEE! FRESH! TOMATERS! LOPES! TATERS! MAYLONS! STRANGBEANS! STRAWBERRIES! AND KALE!" Again and again you could hear him for a mile, a marathoner's throat singing in rhythm with the hooves of that tired old mare. Sometimes we enjoyed the grand thrill of petting and feeding an apple to that same horse.

The iceman still cometh to the home of an ancient and brittle widow and her middle aged spinster daughter half block down from where we lived on the alley. It was a kick for us kids to watch in awe as a cigar chomping barrel chested man grappled, pronged, and shouldered a huge cube off the truck and lugged it though the old maid's gate, up the stoop and into her matchbox kitchen.

I was the last of the nervous nellie holdouts, the last child my age to dare and ride a bicycle without training wheels. One day my mother said "that's it" and got Jeff, Mark's older brother, to remove the trainers. She then took the bull by the horns, or to put it more accurately, by the handlebars and told me to saddle up.

She promised me that when I started peddling, she'd stay with me, even run with me and hold the back fender. But instead she let me go as she thrusted me forward and for about two seconds I was flying solo until I crashed into a fence, but more importantly, I crashed through a psychological barrier and henceforth I happily rode up the alley and down the sidewalk keeping up with Mark.

Once we ventured a block too far and onto an adjoining alley where we were attacked by crabapple ambushers whose fusillade stained our T-shirts and taught us to respect and mind our boundaries.

Perpendicular to the wall, the front porches were an ideal set up to pitch and trade baseball cards. It was a swell way to burn and be burned hustling younger kids when the older kids weren't hustling you. It was a time for winning and losing a Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Warren Spahn along with the local icons like Brooks Robinson and football great Johnny Unitas.

In those days the big star professional athletes lived in middle class neighborhoods just one socio-economic layer above our own. They held off season jobs running liquor stores, bowling alleys, and restaurants. All the time you'd spot or bump into them on the corner or at a store, though I was always too shy to request an autograph.

The alley and the sidewalk were always chalked for hopscotch games by girls who never tired of jumping rope.

At the end of the block and across the street was a weedy lot - a stones throw from my front door - where we'd play target practice throwing rocks at empty bottles and through the center of cast off tires, and when bored kneeling around a stick etched circle to shoot catseye marbles until our thumbs ached.

It was all lots of fun till the hardhats arrived with their impressive machines to build a shopping center. They got so flustered chasing us off the construction site, they called the cops, but before they could collar me, I ran like a rabbit for my house and hid in the cellar as scared as a mouse.

Two blocks up a slight hill and across a busy boulevard was a woods which we never explored without dad. That was where we discovered the skeleton of a dog which dad instructed us not to touch.

During the fall on our narrow street, we'd play tackle football wearing uniforms, pads, and helmets. Gosh, now I wonder, how did dad afford all that? Money or not, thanks to the baby boom we never lacked for players.

With summer we'd play baseball where two alleys converged opening sufficient space for a diamond from which we paced off left and right fields out to the fences. Home plate was under a lamp post from where we chipped a flock of fair and foul balls. I was not among the lucky few who slammed homeruns which once in a while shattered the window panes of beleaguered homemakers.

by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
March 2010