Playgrounds are for organized play; neighborhoods are for unorganized play and observation. My neighborhood consisted of the four blocks along North Cedar Street from Troutman’s drug store, on the corner of Cedar and Robbins Avenue, to Pearl Street. Between Robbins and Pearl were an unnamed alley, Seneca Street and Cherry Street, the eastern border for the Lincoln Elementary School playground. Beaver Street ran parallel to Cedar Street. My parish church, Our Lady of Mt Carmel, was on the corner of Beaver Street and Robbins Avenue.
Within a half-dozen blocks I could readily visit not only my grade school and parish church, but also the local drug store, grocery store (Morabito’s Italian) and Isaly’s dairy where I could buy five-cent ice-cream cones. Robbins Avenue was also the site for Rossi’s Funeral Home and the offices of Dr. Claypool, the family physician. We had no real need for a car, which is a good thing, since my father continually refused to buy one.
Across the street from our front porch there was a two-story apartment house, which had been converted to accommodate the Church of the Nazarene on the first floor. The second story had a single apartment. For several years it was occupied by my Aunt Vi, Uncle Chick (pronounced with a long “I”) and my cousins RoseMary and Donna Weida.
Mrs. Andrew, a wealthy widow, resided in the opposite corner house; we rented our own house from her. Behind her brown house, across from our backyard, with its vegetable garden, was a yellow house she owned. It was occupied by Mrs. Corbett, who gave me piano lessons for two or three years. Mrs. Corbett had a son, Jim, who was also a friend of mine, although not as close as Jimmy Rossi, the one who had died of polio. Several years later, when the Corbetts moved out, my parents and I moved into this house, where I lived until leaving for college.
The neighborhood looked like many found in small towns in Ohio in the middle of the twentieth century. The residential streets were lined with elm trees, long gone now as the result of blight. Buckeye trees were more fun. I gathered their nuts and strung them on string chains. I wondered what would really happen if I ate one, having been warned not to. Elm and buckeye leaves were also great for raking into piles each fall so that we kids could jump in them before re-raking them for burning at the curb. Was there any fragrance that smelled more like autumn incense than burning leaves?
The sidewalks were made from grey, slate slabs, about three feet on each side. Magnificently smooth for roller-skating, with bumps in between, especially if the tree roots pushed them upwards to different heights. The slabs were still better than the poured, concrete road pavement that caused my roller-skates to vibrate as I passed over it.
My house, like many others, had grey, plank-siding. The overlapping boards would send my tennis ball in a variety of directions unless I bounced it just right against the outside wall facing Seneca. Most houses were constructed, like mine, near the front street, with a very small yard and a covered porch with spindle-rails. This was a good place to sit on a rainy day, especially on our two-seat swing suspended from the porch roof.
Yes, the front porch was the place to watch people walking by; to wave to some; and to chat with a few. Each open porch was a place for play and for observation of small-town life lived outdoors.