The House of Contradictions

In the summer of 1947 we had to move from our house on Meridian Street after several years of happy living in that location. The Hodsons, who owned the property, had sold the two houses on this corner to an oil company who planned to build a gas station there.
The Hodsons had given ample notice, but Mother and Daddy were having a hard time finding a suitable house to rent. Think about it......7 people, 5 kids, 1 smelly dog.....etc, etc, etc. Our parents were getting desperate.
Dad's friends, the Hudsons, lived on West 13th Street close to down town. Mr. Hudson told Dad about a house on their block. He said the woman who lived there was having a tough time taking care of such a big house and was considering renting it. It had been built and always lived in by the Keltners. Mr Keltner had been an attorney, and at one time the house had been quite lovely, with an expansive lawn. It had been lived in for quite a number of years by one surviving daughter. She had , for some time, been unable to do necessary upkeep and repairs. She was also finding it difficult to pay utilities on such a large house. Yet it had always been her home, and it was filled to overflowing with all the family belongings. And believe me, the family had never parted with a thing.
Mother and Daddy talked to her, looked at the house, and tried to talk her into the notion of renting to them. She was reluctant. She needed to find a small apartment. She had way too much furniture and "stuff" to move, dispose of, or relocate. Besides, there was some much needed work to be done before she could rent.
With our lease nearly up, and the deadline looming, Mother called her and begged! I remember the night that mother made that call, and I remember listening to Mother presenting our case and making concessions as to what needed to be done to make the house livable.
Finally, Miss Keltner agreed, but only if we would allow her to leave belongings stored in the attic, the basement, and a large out building on the property. Also, the only work that she could do to the inside was to re-wallpaper the walls. Mother and Daddy agreed.
In a few weeks we were able to move to 322 W. 13th Street, a big grey wooden house with peeling paint that sat right on the corner right across from Central Junior High School, and diagonally from Anderson High School. Thus began the next four years that were built around a house full of contradictions, and my life full of contradictions.
First the house. It had large rooms and plenty of them. But it had no real kitchen. The room that was the only room available to be a kitchen was really a back porch with a small mop sink.
The walls in the rest of the house had been papered with basic, generic wallpaper. The floors were nice hardwood, and the woodwork and light fixtures were nice but from another era.
The house had a beautiful stairway with a stained glass window at the landing. And the dining had a dumb waiter (No, not Daddy. It was an opening with a sliding door and a sort of tray that could be raised to the second floor.) Now, how is that for elegance and a constant source of fascination to kids who were not supposed to touch this, according to Miss Keltner.
Contrast the elegant woodwork and dining room, to the peeling exterior paint and the wildly-overgrown shrubbery. And then let's look from the elegant dining room with the lovely built-in cabinetry in its bay window into the the really awful back porch that poor mother was to use for cooking. Well, Daddy located a rather nice section of white lower cabinets with a double sink that could replace the mop sink on the west wall. The stove and a small side cabinet sat on the south wall that was really an outdoor exterior wall of the house. The refrigerator sat on the east wall beside the door into what I suppose was a laundry area. This laundry area had more of Miss Keltner's belongings and a door to the off-limits basement (also full of Keltner belongings (junk).
The north wall was all windows starting half way up and going to the ceiling. Beneath the windows was bead board. Mr. Contos (I think) gave Daddy a large metal bread display shelving unit, that stood down the middle of the room. This served to store all the dishes, pans, and food that could not fit into the almost non-existent cabinet space. Actually, the bread shelf worked like magic and conveniently held a lot of equipment with wonderful work space on top. I think today's kitchen islands are copies of our bread rack. Mother and Daddy painted the kitchen either white or yellow (I'm not sure.) Then mother painted a picket fence under all the windows. Behind the picket fence were hollyhocks. She even painted a tiny mouse peeking out from behind the fence right by the back door. It was for the amusement of the milk man who left the milk bottles in that spot. Mother made ruffly white curtains for the windows. You know, other than being cold in the winter, it was a pretty cute kitchen.
Now let's consider that expansive lawn. Expansive? Yes. Overgrown and wild? Definitely.
I think it was Daddy's hope that , with four sons, one of them would decide to be a gardener. Sadly, this never worked out. Other than mowing when they really HAD to, the boys never found any interest in yard work. I think there might have been some shrub pruning ( a very minimum.) Oh, but we did have that requisite line of peony plants, so yea rah for Memorial Day.
Outbuildings? Yes, there was that one dark red shed full of the Keltner belongings safely locked to keep out curious kids. And, oh my , were we curious. Then there was a very ugly crumbling and dangerous brick and block foundation from a demolished barn. It was a lovely, picturesque addition to the back yard right off the alley.
The location itself made for a lot of contradictions. It seemed like it should be just ideal since it was a close, walking distance to down town and shopping. It was right across from the schools.
But, at the same time it was a good distance from any bus stop, so difficult for Daddy's commute to work. So he bought a used Packard. Finally we had a car! However, it was always gone with Daddy, and he worked all the time. Remember, he worked for General Motors. That Packard must have made him very popular at work. His point was that used Packards sold at a real bargain in a General Motors town. Also the house was in such a highly traveled and highly visible area. And, as a kid, I wasn't always proud to say that I lived in that house with the grey, peeling paint and the overgrown shrubs.
You see, I lived in that house throughout the MOST contradictory years of a girl's life - from
6th grade through 9th grade - eleven to fourteen - right when a girl is changing from child to teen and is absolutely a crazy mess of changing hormones. I had to leave all my lifelong friends and go to a new school where I knew no one. My folks did get permission for me to finish my sixth grade year at Central Avenue School. However, I had to walk to town each morning and catch the city bus to school, then eat at Grandma Lininger's at noon (like that was a hardship), and then Daddy usually picked me up after work or I caught the bus back home. Oh, and I took music lessons at school. I was learning to play the marching band chimes (those vertical things called the glockenspiel). And I had to carry them back and forth each day. Needless to say, I never aspired to marching band in high school. Then, in seventh grade I went to Central Jr. High, right across the street, and knew not one person there. I hated junior high!
But, those years did have a bright side. I had a bedroom of my own! For the very first time in my life! Not only that, but Miss Keltner had papered it in pink floral paper. And the Canaday's gave me their daughter's bedroom furnishings. She had married and they were turning her room into a den. I had a twin bed with a rose sateen ruffled spread, a long mirrored vanity with a matching rose sateen skirt, and rose matching curtains. There were two large windows that looked out at the tops of leafy, green trees. I felt like a princess!
So you see, sometimes I loved the 13th St. house, and sometimes I hated living there.
It just depended on the day, and from where it was viewed. I missed south Anderson and all my friends there. I didn't like school there. The boys seemed to be happy. David had a great friend across the street named Garl. Later I will tell you some David/Garl adventures. The Hudsons lived a few doors down and had seven children, but none really matched us in ages. I did play with Julia who was a little younger, and took piano lessons from Mrs. Hudson, who slept through most of my lessons. (Well, wouldn't you if you had seven children and a chance to sit down?)
But I have many stories to share about this interesting house, and this entry is too long already. Just imagine, if you will, a house with a locked basement, attic, and outbuilding, where children are told that they must NOT ENTER those areas. Led to some very interesting adventures!

Just Another Reason Why I'm Glad He's the Father of our Children

Unlike a GOOD writer, I do my research after the story is written! And so, yesterday I checked with Don to see if he knew whether Mr. Beher was the druggist or the barber. Don believes that he was the barber. This is strange, because for years now, I have thought that Nancy Bartle grew up and married a pharmacist because she admired her pharmacist grandpa. Nancy married Gene Maddy who has the pharmacies located at the Pay Less Super Markets. Oh well, I have lived my life under many false impressions! To understand this paragraph, you need to read the blog immediately preceding this one.

Well, our conversation about Mr. Beher led into our remembering all the thousands of times we rode the city buses when we were children. I was almost always accompanied by some family member. Don, on the other hand, went all around Anderson, mostly by himself. That's what happens when you are an only child whose parents are working.

Let me explain what is happening in the picture above. The year is 1949. Don is an eigthth grader at Washington Junior High School. There were four Junior High Schools in Anderson at that time: Washington, Central, North Anderson, and Central Avenue. This picture was taken at the city-wide junior high school basketball tournament. No, Washington did not win the tourney, but Don did win the Sportsmanship award. He says that means he was a good loser. I say it was because he has always had a good attitude, win or lose. He is receiving the award from Carl Bonge who was the athletic director and track coach at Anderson High School. He was an excellent and much admired coach, and a very short man. Behind Don and Mr. Bonge are four boys from Central Avenue Junior High School. If you look carefully at the one on the far right, you will see that it is my brother, David. He had no idea that he was looking at his future brother-in-law.

Don went on to high school the next fall as a freshman. Naturally, he went out for the freshman basketball team. About 48 boys from all over the city went out for the team, and he was one of the 12 chosen. The freshman team had no place to practice. So their practices were held at Hazelwood Elementary School at six o'clock at night all winter. Don had to get a city bus downtown, then transfer to the Hazelwood bus and go way out west of town for practice. Then he reversed that trip and didn't get home until 8 o'clock or later. During his sophomore year he played on the reserve team.

t Then, during his junior year he went out for the team, and practiced right up until the Christmas break. At their last practice before going home for Christmas, the coach treated the whole team to Bert T. Owens ice cream, and then cut three players from the team. Don was one of the three. He didn't have a really good Christmas that year.

The other two players who were cut never played team basketball again. One of them did become a team manager. However, Don went immediately to the YMCA and joined a team that played league ball there. He also joined a church league team. He says that he probably played in a hundred very rough basketball games that winner. He was the leading scorer that year in the YMCA league.

The next year was his Senior year in high school. Again, Don went out for the team with the same coach who had cut him the year before. He made the team his senior year, and played in every game. We don't know of any other player who was cut his junior year and then went back the next year and made the team. But, because he did, Don earned a basketball scholarship to Anderson College and it payed for his four years there.

It just shows what determination and hard work can accomplish.

The Good, the Sad, and the Ugly

The picture in the upper left hand corner shows me with my mother and dad probably the last summer we lived at the Main St. address. As you can see in this picture, Mother and I were always great pals. She was determined that I should become a young lady, not a rough neck tomboy by playing all the time with my brothers. She had had enough of boy activities for all those years with all boys. When I came along, it was time for some girly stuff.

The plants growing behind us in our back yard were peonies. There were a lot of peonies in our yard when we moved there. Every year the great quandary was: would they bloom in time for Memorial Day? If they did, we would cut them all and Mother would bundle them into many small bouquets. Then she would wrap cans in pretty paper. We would take these to the cemetery. There the cans would be filled part way with water, and then they would hold the bouquets. These we would use to decorate the grave sites of our relatives. Remember, we had no car, so we would drive to Maplewood Cemetery with Grandma and Grandpa Lininger.

I never was able to spend a lot of time with my dad, so it was exciting that year that he took me with him to Muncie to put flowers on his father's grave site along with other relatives there. We took the bus to Muncie carrying our bouquets and cans along with some tools for tidying the grave sites. I think the trip took us most of the day. The bus let us off right at the cemetery entrance as it was located right on the highway. We walked a long way to the graves, did our work, and then walked around the cemetery seeing all the flowers and the people there. We sat on a bench at the entrance, had our snacks, and caught the bus back home. I think I slept all the way home. Maybe Daddy had a nap, too.

That summer Daddy took me on Sunday afternoon walks. I loved to walk with him. One Sunday we walked all the way to Columbus Avenue and Stanton Park. We stopped there so I could swing on the swings. It was still a park until a few years ago when the city abandoned it. Now it is just an empty lot.

One of the most memorable trips that I made with Daddy, was to Noblesville. His church choir was doing a combined concert with one in Noblesville. I sat and watched the rehearsal. Daddy gave me a copy of the cantata they were singing. I remember that I tried to follow along with the music. After the rehearsal Daddy took me to a restaurant to eat. We had STEAK! I think it was the only steak I had all my childhood! We didn't tell the rest of the family.

The other pictures are taken in our front yard at the Meridian Street house. Dan and I are trying to train our dog, Mickey in the right hand picture. Jack brought that pup home when I was about four years old. And he lived forever! He was the ugliest dog in the world. Disney had just introduced Mickey Mouse---hence the name. Mickey suffered from a terminal case of eczema. He had a large bald spot on his back that was always pink and scaly. Mother was the only one who really loved him. She was so soft hearted. My cousin, Darlene, was here at our house a couple of years ago. She remembered Mickey. She said your house always smelled like a DOG! How embarrassing. And we didn't even notice.

With Dan and David in the left hand picture, are their friends, Buddy Lefner and Freddy Miller- all looking as cool as they can. That was the summer of the terrible polio epidemic. We were not allowed to go swimming in the public pool, or to get too hot or over tired. Freddy Miller did get polio. We were all so sad and worried about him. Dave, Dan, and I went all around the neighborhood and collected money. Mother took us to Kirkman's Jewelry Store. Mr. Kirkman sold us a very nice watch for a fraction of its cost. We went to see Freddy and gave him the watch so that he could keep track of the time while he was bedfast. Freddy did recover. He was left with a limp , though.

Behind Dan and I in the right hand picture, you will see Meridian Street. Right across the street was a small strip of shops. There was a barber shop, Behers Drug Store, and a store that changed renters all the time. Now, I'm not really certain if Mr. Beher was the druggist or the barber, anyway he was there somewhere. I would go searching under all the chair and sofa cushions for lost change. If I found enough, I would go to the drug store and buy a movie magazine. Then I would cut out all my favorite stars and keep the pictures in my treasure box.

Freddy Miller's teen-aged sister gave me a whole stack of her fashion magazines. Oh, what a treasure! I cut out all the pretty, colorful pictures and kept them in my box for years. When Jack came home from the army, he brought a wooden ammunition box that had an attached lid. Mother painted it yellow and painted my name on the top. She also decorated it with "Peter Hunt" Pennsylvania Dutch designs. I kept those pictures and my treasures in that box forever. Now that I write about it, I do not know what happened to that box. I know that Cheryl had it in her room at one point in her childhood. Now, I am very sad.

Mr. Beher was Nancy Bartle's grandfather, and they lived on Meridian a block south of us. Nancy was also brother Clyde's girl friend. He played high school basketball, and Nancy was a very cute cheer leader. On game nights the whole family would pile on the city bus, ride to down town, then walk the six or seven blocks to the high school gym. Mother and Daddy had seats in the team parents section. But Dave, Dan, and I sat on the very top row! Boy, did we have fun! I loved those games. After the game, we walked back through rain, snow, or whatever, to catch the bus back home. The bus would be packed full of cheering students. They always laughed because one night I said, "I hope that kids have this much fun when I'm in high school."

Truth be known, I don't think any season was ever as exciting as those years when Clyde played basketball.

We Move Two Blocks to the Better

The summer between my third grade and fourth grade years, we moved from 2202 Main St. to 2220 Meridian St. We seemed to stuck on addresses with twos! The picture above shows our family at a family picnic that summer. Notice that brother Jack is not in the picture. This was 1945, and as soon as Jack graduated from high school that spring, he was drafted into the army.

If you recall history, then you will recall that the war ended in Europe later that summer. Jack did go to Germany, but saw only peace time service. When he returned home after serving his two years, he went right to college. He was only home for vacations thereafter, never really lived at home again.

In the front row in this picture, from left to right, you will see my cousin, Darlene, me, Darlene's grandma (she is my Great Aunt Loretta), cousin Loretta (named after her Grandma and always called Sis), my Grandma Lininger, ( all 4' 10 of her), Mother, Mother's cousin, Faye , and my cousin, Diana. Darlene, Sis, and Diana are Faye's daughters, so they are actually my second cousins, but we have always been very close.

In the back row from left to right are brother Dan, Bob Spearman, Clyde's good friend, Clyde, Daddy, Faye's husband, Bill, and David. Bob Spearman is probably 83 now. He still lives at Dewart Lake, Indiana, is very fit and healthy. He was a state champion track star from AHS. And Clyde and Bob both played on the only state championship basketball team from Anderson. They were only juniors, but it was the most exciting event of my childhood.

We had so much fun at the picnic that day. It was a family picnic at Shadyside Park here in Anderson. Faye and all her family came from Indianapolis. You can tell that Darlene and I were having a blast by how dirty and suntanned we were. I'm surprised that I still had shoes on. I spent that entire summer going barefoot. In fact I spent most of my childhood summers going barefoot. I could hardly stand to have shoes on when school started in the fall.

We moved to Meridian Street because the house was quite a bit bigger than the one on Main. We actually had three bedrooms, all upstairs, 2 for the boys, and Mother and Daddy's. I still had the gosh awful cot in the corner of their room. In fact, I didn't have a room of my own until we moved to the next house. But more about that another day. And in this house, we actually ate dinner in the dining room. Mother painted a lovely floral painting that matched the drapes on the corner cupboard that Grandpa Lininger made. It held the pretty pink flowered dishes that Grandpa and Grandma bought for Mother on her birthday.

This house also had two living rooms. No, EXCUSE ME, It had a living room and a PARLOR with french doors. Ooooh, we thought we were really living. We rented the house from the Hodsons next door. They owned all three houses from the corner of 23rd North, and lived in the third one from the corner. They would, in two years, sell our house and the one on the corner to Shell Oil Co. They were torn down and a gas station was built there.

Because of the parlor, we could have a piano, and Daddy taught voice lessons in the parlor. Besides his full time job at Guide Lamp, our dad taught voice lessons, directed a church choir, the American Legion Chorus, and the Anderson Community Chorus. He really wasn't home much. Instead of regular heating going to the second floor, this house had holes in the ceiling of the downstairs rooms with heating registers installed in them. David and I would recline on the floor upstairs and watch the vocal lessons going on below. Do, do do, do, do do, do, do - fa, fa,fa,fa,fa,fa,fa,fa, etc. With our Dad interrupting to demand that they breath from their diaphragms. Yes, it was pretty funny. We were in trouble more times than I care to recall for giggling overhead.

Clyde was gone with school and jobs all the time while we lived here. It seemed like Dan and David were always on their bikes. All the time we lived here, they also shared a paper route. They delivered the afternoon paper, The Bulletin. This was good, because no Green was ever good at getting up early in the mornings. Dan did one side of Fletcher St. from 23rd to about 15th St., and David did the other. They also spent a lot of time at John's drugstore on 23rd, a terrible place where the main attraction was a pinball machine. But, I think their paper bundles were dropped there, so it made a perfect hang out until the papers came.

I would have been very lonely except that the Windsors lived across the street. I spent all my time with their daughter, Claire. She was a year older and very brainy, but she could think up the BEST ways to pass the time. In fact, the entire Windsor family was very brainy. Her older sister, Prudence, made marionettes. Now, I don't mean hand puppets. I mean the paper mache kind with strings and all. Their whole back porch was her studio, and was filled with puppets. Of course, we weren't allowed to touch, but we spent a lot of time watching Prudence. Also, that summer, Mrs. Windsor let us take over the attic. We arranged all their stored attic items into a very artistic gift shop. At least we thought it was artistic. It was impossible to have any customers, but we would have hated to part with our treasures anyway.

The real highlight of the summer was the stage show we presented. It was a real collaboration with Dan and David. Our house had a big garage out back. The boys loved it because it had a basketball goal over the garage doors, and a large paved area for a court. That is where all the boys were when they weren't on their bikes. But Claire and I persuaded them to build a stage in the garage. Claire wrote a show. I really don't remember the show itself. It wasn't a play, but more of a variety show. I think there may have been some singing. All I remember was that Claire was dressed as a scarecrow and stood through the whole show in the corner of the stage, doing monologues. I don't remember doing anything but being in awe! The boys sold tickets to all the kids in the neighborhood, we had the show one evening, and actually a pretty good crowd came to our garage. What fun that was!

During these years we also listened to a lot of radio shows in the evenings. We would take our places on the carpet in front of the big cabinet radio and listen to The Shadow, Jack Armstrong, Fibber McGee and Molly, and my all time favorite, One Man's Family. I think One Man's Family was an hour show and was on Sunday evenings.

Mother listened to the radio during the day while doing her work. She especially liked the Arthur Godfrey show. Sometimes she got so wrapped up in her shows and her projects that she would forget the time. I remember coming in from school for lunch and her looking up and saying, "No, it can't be noon already!" I think she was painting pictures that day. She also liked to do ceramics. One day I came home and she was sitting with her feet propped up in front of the oven ( the house was cold that day), and she was writing a program to give for her club.

Mother always enjoyed her Home economics club (It was called the Golden Rule Club), and a club called The Twentieth Century Club. The Golden Rule girls were mothers good friends for all the years I knew my mother. Mother was one of the charter members of Twentieth Century. These ladies started the club when they were in their early twenties before they were married. It seemed to me that all the rest of them had a lot of money and fine houses. But Mother always put on her best duds and went off to that club one Monday afternoon a month. I know our house always got its very best cleanings when it was Mother's turn to be hostess! And Mother was known for the programs she gave, and she often painted the covers of their year books.

Besides listening to the radio, David and I liked to makes snacks in the evening. I remember our making cookies called Hermits, and making Mother's Never Fail Fudge recipe. We also made a lot of popcorn to eat during the radio shows. We must have made terrible messes, but our patient mother put up with us.

The saddest thing that happened at this house was that our Grandpa Lininger died that first winter. Because Grandma was so lonely, and because she lived right across from Central Ave. School, David spent a good part of the winter with her. I know that he was one of her favorites, and she one of his. She fed him whatever he wanted, he took care of her yard, and she taught him how to crochet! He was the only Green kid to learn that skill. He never made anything with his crocheting, and I think he promptly forgot it when he quit staying with Grandma.

The most memorable moment came at Halloween. We must have had a fuse box or something on the outside of the house, and Halloweeners kept turning off our lights. Guess what! We heard our mother say a swear word - damn - for the one and only time in our lives!

For Andrea - Tales from 2202 Main Street

My niece, Andrea, has requested that I write some more stories about her dad, David. David is my brother who passed away a little over a year ago. He is also the youngest of my brothers and only two years older than I am.

This picture shows our parents in front of a very ugly Christmas tree, and was taken in our house at 2202 Main Street, in Anderson. The house is still there, and we pass it driving south from the library on the days I volunteer there. It still looks very much like it did 70 years ago when we moved into that house. We moved there from Marion where my dad had sold furniture for Sears Roebuck. He quit Sears because he got a job at Guide Lamp. World War II had started and Guide was making materials for the government. So many people were able to get jobs that had had no jobs during the depression.

Much of my dad's salary went to sent a dollar a week to many places where debts had piled up during the depression. Of course, as kids, we didn't know that. We were just thrilled that we had a yard with cherry trees small enough to climb, and grandparents who lived only three blocks away! After we moved, we had no car. But, as kids, we didn't worry about that either. I'm sure that it was either repossessed or sold to pay off debts. Anyway, our dad took the city bus to work and back home. David and I spent many an afternoon climbing and swinging in the cherry tree. But we knew that we had to listen for the bus that brought our dad home in the afternoon. He had forbidden our climbing after David had fallen one day and knocked out his breath . I think Mother was too busy to notice our climbing or enforce too many rules! She was a real softy, and we got away with many pranks until Daddy came home.

Our oldest brother, Jack, had built a soap box racer and competed when we lived in Marion. David and I loved it. We would take turns pushing each other up and down the sidewalk, back and forth to the corner and back. We thought we were really cool race drivers. I can still feel the hot sidewalks on my bare feet.

I think that once the unpaid bills were sufficiently paid off, we were able to get the first telephone we had since moving back to Anderson. I can still remember that telephone number. We were so excited! Our little house had only two bedrooms, and the four boys had the bedrooms, 2 to each room. Our parents had their bedroom in the dining room, and I had a cot in the corner of their room. The phone was placed on a bedside table by where Daddy slept. All the kids took turns those first weeks playing with the phone, listening to the dial tone, calling our grandma, while bouncing on the big bed. Dan was so excited that the first night he took the telephone book to read in bed before he went to sleep. Clyde and Jack teased him about this for the rest of his life. No good joke ever died in our family

Jack was in high school when we moved to Main St. I think his younger brothers and sister were a constant source of embarrassment. He was downtown one day with his teen- aged friends. They saw two boys on bikes who were searching store trash bins for cardboard boxes. They were laughing at these poor trash pickers. When the two boys rode off with their boxes, Jack realized that they were Dan and David. They were collecting boxes to build a "club house" in the back yard. Poor Jack - so humiliated.

A neighbor boy, Harold Thomas, lived three doors down from us. He was an only child, so he had every toy - even a great big sand box. David and I spent hours at his house building villages in Harold's sand box. One noon time I was home from school eating lunch. After lunch I went to Harold's and lost all track of time building houses in the sand box. When Mother finally realized where I was, I was a filthy, dirty mess. She had to give me a bath and mend a new dress for me to wear. I was LATE back to school. And, yes, you read this right. We ALL walked to Central Avenue School - no school buses. And the mothers were home to fix our lunches, so we had an hour to walk home for lunch. NOBODY ate at school. And, yes, all the girls had to wear dresses to school. Now, those were the days.

On my way back to school after lunch each day, I passed Wilding's neighborhood grocery at the corner of 23rd and Main. Our mother had a charge account at Wilding's. For a while, I had a really good thing going. I would stop each day after lunch and charge a Milky Way candy bar. Alas, Mrs. Wilding decided to check this out with Mother. I was BUSTED!

As far as school clothes were concerned, I realize now that I was comparatively lucky. David was at the tail end of all the four brothers, so he got the tail end of all the hand-me-down clothes. I can still see him in those faded striped tee shirts and striped socks. It is no wonder that his third grade teacher, Miss Bronnenberg, took him under her wing. In fact, I was soon under her wing, also. She always called me "Little Miss Muffet." She had certain students out to her house every year to go caroling and have cookies and hot chocolate. David and I got to go every year. We loved her little house, all decorated in Early American charm with its great big fireplace.

But, back to that ugly Christmas tree. There was no money to buy a tree that year until they were put on "Last Chance Sale" prices right before Christmas. I think the boys carried it home from the A & P Market. When it was finally set up in the living room, I cried because I didn't think it was tall enough (not because it was ugly.) This, despite the fact that Daddy had just cut off about six inches to get it into the living room - another one of those "never die" stories that I had to hear every Christmas forever after.