In the 'Hood

Growing up in pre-WWII in Philadelphia, your whole world was confined within one square block of row houses. One one side we had German, Irish and Italian and on the opposite side were Jewish, Irish, English and Greek. Everyone got along - we were all in the same boat. There was no discrimination - The Irish kids beat up on everyone. What with gas rationing and the scarcity of autos, the street became our playground. The girls jumped rope with long clothline ropes and they were very quick afoot. They made up songs to accompany the jumping and when they inserted two ropes and called it "double Dutch" it was a thing to behold. Both sexes played Hop Scotch and I could hop on one leg to compete while could never match the females with their rope games. The boys' game was stick ball - all you needed was a cut off broomstick and a pink hollow rubber ball called a Spaldeen. Usually a manhole cover was designated as home plate with the trees and gas lamposts as bases. In those days certain merchants delivered supplies to your doorstep using horse and wagon transport. The milkman came in early morning - you could hear the clip-clop of the horse's hooves - the milk was in returnable glass bottles and the rattling of the empty bottles at 6AM preceded the alarm clock. But the bakery goods arrived in mid-afternoon usually during a stick ball game - we begged the driver - not for sample sweets but to please not park the horse over home plate. Were the horse to have an accident then the game would be called and what could a guy do on a summer day? Perhaps mow the lawn or visit the library? Are you kidding? How about a cold Pepsi under a shade tree.!!
More later.
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