A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A STREET KID

My son and daughter give me hints that I might be losing my short term memory.  They are probably right. My remembrance of my childhood are vivid.  My remembrance of things I did last week are a little fuzzy.  

An example of a vivid childhood memory: 

The year is 1943, I am nine years old, World War 2 is raging, my uncles, Allen and Billy are away in the service,  and we have just moved into a new (for us) first-floor tenement on County Street.

(For the benefit of former New Bedford, Massachusetts residents, I will use familiar names for streets and businesses... and also for people, if that is appropriate.)

On this day, my best friend Casey (Robert Case) and I had planned on skipping school.  (Casey wasn't happy with his fourth grade teacher at Cook School and I was unhappy and scared of my German General principal Miss Savage at the Allen F. Wood School.  We felt that we needed a day off.)  

However, the New Bedford education leaders decided that all schools should be closed today for a "Teachers Conference."

My Grandmother was probably irked that I would be home to bug her on a usually quiet school day, so she gave me ten cents and shooed me out the front door with the admonition to be back home by five pm for "supper." (It was Friday and even though we weren't Catholic we always had fish on Friday nights... and, of course, baked beans and hotdogs on Saturday nights.)

The ten cents from my grandmother was to cover the price of a delicious Chow Mein Sandwich for lunch at Charlie Wong's Restaurant on Purchase Street.  Since all "white folks" look alike, Charlie didn't recognize us as the kids who sang "Charlie Wong plays with his ding dong!" outside of his kitchen door.  Mr. Wong would chase us away as he brandished a massive meat cleaver.  I think he just wanted to scare us, because he was truly an angel of a man, usually.

A couple of blocks from my new home, on Orchard Street, there was a large lot containing three half-built homes, which could not be completed because of Government War restrictions.  We kids called the lot "The Three Houses" and loved to roll up and down over "mountains" of dirt, rocks and mud, playing "pirates beating our  German and Japanese enemies."  (We did not use polite terms for our adversaries.)

On the street next to the lot were two gigantic pine trees that we loved to climb.  I've written somewhere how I liked to climb as high as possible and get a panoramic view of the New Bedford harbor, the Elizabeth Islands and mainly Cuttyhunk Island.

Today, after we played on the "Three Houses" lot and climbed our favorite trees, we decided to revisit Hawthorne Street, once the place where "rich folks" resided.

The street was named for the enormous Hawthorne trees that lined a wide avenue. Whaling Industry executives lived there in mansions. However, hurricanes, especially the 1938 surprise storm, blew down the beautiful trees and destroyed the homes.  Only "skeleton" house frames and goldfish ponds remained.  Naturally, we found these premises irresistible.

Today, though, nothing interesting "caught our eye" and we decided to go to Charlie Wong's for lunch instead.

Fortified by the Chinese food, we embarked on a new adventure.

Casey had "found" a large red wagon that would hold a lot of newspapers and magazines, needed by the "war effort."

We made a pilgrimage to residential areas off of Union Street and solicited donations.  As soon as we filled the wagon, we brought our collection to the Saint John Portuguese Catholic warehouse which was situated in the alley behind my County Street  home.

Inside the warehouse were mountains of newspapers and magazines awaiting Government pickup.  We added our piles and felt good that we were helping win the war.

Neither of us had been in the warehouse before, and we were very much interested in seeing magazines that we never knew existed. We sat on a pile of newspapers and were enjoying reading some of the magazines when a burly, hairy priest yelled at us and predicted "eternal damnation" if we didn't go away.  We went away.

We then decided that we wanted to go to the movies.  The Olympia Theater downtown was rerunning "Thanks For The Memory" with beloved comedian, Bob Hope.  However, we had spent our ten cent admission price for lunch.

Luckily, "the fleet was in" and the town was filled with sailors.   These guys are very generous, especially when they are accompanying a pretty girl.  So, all one has to do is find a likely sailor and say: "Please, sir, could you spare a dime?"  Works every time.  So, after Casey and I got our dimes, we decided what to do.

Since it was a "snap" to sneak into the Olympia Theater, we would do so, and use our dimes not for admission, but to buy boxes of cavity-inducing spearmint leaves candy instead.

After watching the movie a few times, we noted the Roman Numeral time on the big clock next to the screen.  Oh, oh!  We had only XV minutes to get home for supper. We said: "Good Bye," planned to see each other tomorrow and rushed to our homes.

I tried unsuccessfully to hide my portion of fish, but I got caught and had to be monitored for the rest of the meal.

Later, at 7 pm, we tuned our Hallicrafters radio to a station that played "The Amos and Andy Show."  Usually it played Mondays, when EVERBODY in the United States listened to this wonderfully funny radio show.  For some reason, it played on Friday this week.

My favorite character was "The Kingfish," who was a classic conman.  

Andy: "Kingfish, I just bought a stucco house."

Kingfish: "Yeah, and you are the stuckee!" 

I loved that show and never thought that it might offend black people.

After the "Amos and Andy Show," we all listened to Guy Lombardo and his band and were serenaded by Helen Forrest.  Nice calming music that stays as an "ear bug" even today. eighty years later.

Around 9:30 pm, I began to "konk out," and needed a little help into my bed, where my mind projected another great day (Saturday!) tomorrow with my good buddy, Casey.

"Good night!

Bugs bite!"

.....................................................................