MEMORIES PT9

There were plenty of things to do growing up in Dorchester. I’d play stickball with
Barry Solomon and Arnie Black and other kids in the alleyway between the two
apartment building across the street. We’d either use half a “pinkie” rubber
ball or a “pimple” ball. Eventually those were replaced when the first “wiffle” balls
came out. We’d also play “Three Flies Out” off the cement front steps of a building
across from Barry’s house. If we didn’t have a rubber ball, we flip baseball cards
on the front porch.

Another game we played was “Buck, Buck” but you really needed a bunch of kids
to make up two teams. We played “Redlight” and Dodgeball, and of course “Hide
and Seek” which was best played around twilight on summer evenings. We didn’t
play much basketball when I lived on Capen St because the basketball courts
behind the Thompson School was where the older kids hung out.

Winters after a snow storm we’d go around the corner and sled down Selden
St.  Back then they seldom plowed the side streets down to bare pavement
on the side streets tight away, but then again, there weren’t quite as many
people driving cars as there are today. We played street hockey before they
came up with plastic pucks and stick blades, and we “skated” our shoes on
the icy streets.

And if there was a rainstorm or it was snowing out, then you read a library
book, or a comic book, or maybe watched some black & white tv if there
was something good on to watch, like one of the Tarzan movies Channel
7 showed on Sunday afternoons on ”Cinema 7”.(This was the age before
Sunday afternoons were taken over by the NFL)

These days I look at all the technology we have around to entertain ourselves
and our kids, but at one time people could do that with far less. All we needed
was a rubber ball, or a piece of chalk, or a favorite book.

((335 words))

Written for Family History Writing Challenge