REFLECTIONS ON THOSE EARLY YEARS

As a child during World War II, I enjoy pleasant memories that have sustained me as I grew older and maybe, more responsibile.

My first entreprenurial effort was that of knocking on doors. I sought a small fee in exchange for which I would use my five and ten store purchased stencils and a can of whitewash to paint their house numbers on the curb in front of their home.

Our street was steep. The house numbers were usually attached to the house and difficult to see. So a few neighbors shared a few hard earned sheckles with me, thereby encouraging my early work ethic.

Remember now, it was WWII, or soon after. Folks were not inundated with phone calls asking them to buy this or that competing product. No borough official or homeowners association would have to give their clearance in writing, after several committee meetings of course.

No one had to concern themselves as to whether or not my artwork would damage the image of this tiny picturesque Norman Rockwell-like community, Forest Hills Borough, located in Western Pennsylvania.

Even the town Burgess, Al Koch, would not have to offer a legal opinion.

It was just something kids did before taking on a real management challenge. That would be, of course, selling Kool Aid from a makeshift stand. Mine was constructed from discarded plywood, rotting two by fours, and bent 10 penny nails and was located on the front sidewalk facing our fading house number on the curb.

Selling Kool Aid was difficult due to the topography indicated by the name of our town. We lived on the steep side of the street and the stand leaned till we found a brick or two. We also had a real lack of viable pedestrian traffic to which I could market my product.

The Kool Aid business required a 5 cent investment for the packet of powder, two quarts of water, and a full cup of sugar (or so) borrowed from Moms sugar jar.

I think I charged a penny per drink and didn't even require a deposit for the jelly glasses.

People didn't have to drink booze or take drugs then. They got a sugar high from Barry's Kool Aid.

I suspect that as my profits increased so did our phone bill. This would be due to Mom calling the neighbors to encourage them to patronize my glorious stand. But, then again, the Kool Aid was a bargain.

Housing was cheap then too. You could get a second home for nothing down at Beswicks Electric appliance store on Ardmore Blvd. - after the Westinghouse refrigerators were unpacked.The return of the WW IIs vets provided even more empty refrigerator boxes.

Carolyn Beswick was thrilled to see eager kids haul the boxes located outback behind the store to go up in the woods behind the Atlantic Avenue school and build their shacks.

The shacks were anchored to a tree or anything solid and covered with broken branches and leaves gathered from nearby locust or crabapple trees, among several other species. .

Unfortunately, the quality of the construction work performed by us underaged finishers was not well thought out.

A good rain quickly caved in the cardboard roofs as well as the carefully selected foliage cover. The camaflouged ceilings and cardboard entrances, weakened from the rain, soon slid into the pool of water that gathered in our labor intensive basements.

We kids dug out the cellars by hand with the aid of some malleable sticks, flat rocks, a few sandbox shovels, dirty fingernails, and, if you were lucky, some easy-to-hide-in-your-shorts small tools from the rock garden box.

Smuggling a coal shovel out of the house was difficult back then; as all mothers had eyes in the back of their heads.

I should add, we also lost a large number of valuable hidden comic books in those shacks.

Summer's highlight - unless you were rich enough to go on a real vacation - was the Forest Hills Fireman's Fair. It was so popular that some of the vacationing residents planned their "holiday" around the dates of the fair.

The main route in town was Ardmore Boulevard a/k/a Route 30, and was the East to West route travelled by the visiting fire companies from neighboring communities as well as some as far away as the town of Grapeville; that always had the prettiest truck.

The favorite vantage point for most of us Sumner Ave kids was in front of Reiners Drug Store, at the intersection of Sumner Avenue and Ardmore Blvd. A few others preferred to watch from across the street by Kenmawr Ave and in front of Halderman Ford, for a little more comfort.

They sat on actual real chairs in front of the big sign in the show windowthat advertised new Fords one year for $1948; the same as the date of that year.

We preferred the drug store site on Route 30 West as the clowns would stop with their balloons. and horns. I admit most of us brave guys would take a step or two back when the clowns got too close.

The procession would then head on down Route 30, two blocks or so, past Lennox and , from our vantage point. It ended somwhere close to where the Fireman's games were set up by the borough building lots between Marion Avenue and Filmore Rd.

There we dug deep for our saved up allowances and small change from made-up chores. We played Chuck-a Luck, threw darts at balloons, bet on the horse races, and accepted any other challenges that usually blew all the saved up money in one night.

Some of us gravitated to the side of our moms who were sitting around card or picnic tables playing Bingo. Our plan was to see if we could encourage Mom to separate herself from any winnings that might come her way. The consolation prize fom Mom might be a nickel for a soda "pop". If you were lucky - maybe a Cho-Cho bar from a washtub sized container covered with dried ice.

My problem was that if Mom won a game she insisted I stay at her side as she deemed my presence to be a sign of good luck. My only hope was to fake a need for a pee break
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Thank you God for allowing me to have a superstitous Irish Catholic mother!

It wasn't all fun. I remember the family work duties too.

As the oldest of three, they included tending the small victory garden in the corner of the back yard, helping with the eventual canning via the mason jars with the wax lids, hanging those confounded lace curtains on the two racks I set up in the back yard; with all the hundreds of pins that pierced my thumbs and fingers.

Other duties were in the winter carrying the coal in bushel baskets with wire handles that dug into your fingers and palms. You climbed up thirteen steep snow and ice covered concrete steps leading from the front sidewalk, where the coal company dumped it on the sidewalk and street,(forever covering up my carefully painted house number in the process).

Upon reaching your destination about 10 to 15 feet further up a sidewalk and another step, you dumped the baskets full of coal into the small metal window door allowing for the deposit of the coal into the coal cellar. Then you repeated the whole process while hoping Mom had not yet filled up the second basket.

My fulltime job after the war was as a backup watching to make sure my brothers, 4 years and seven and one-half years younger than me were where they were supposed to be. In later years it was sometimes tough for me to turn off that spigot.

But, as a kid I prayed for naptime - not mine - but theirs. That was guaranteed playtime for me.

All in all, those early years weren't so bad