Grandma's Story - Chapter 1 Part 1

Before you read this, go to "Grandma's Story - Introduction" (September 7, 2008).

Chapter 1 - For Sam, Age 5

Once upon a time, Grandma was five years old, just like you are now. I lived in a house that was very different from yours. It was in a place called Queens in New York City. My neighborhood was Ridgewood. It didn’t have big buildings and “too many people”. The streets were called blocks and had sidewalks and brick houses, three stories high, all stuck together.

I remember my block being a long, sunny street with three skinny trees across from my house. Each house had a gate and a stoop, four fat cement steps that led to the outside door. In the summer, we bounced our Spaulding balls (the best bouncing balls!) against the stoop. The big boys played stick ball in the gutter, where the cars drove by. Only there weren’t too many cars back then so we could even draw in the gutter with chalk and make games. I liked to play Potsy, which is like Hopscotch.

We didn’t have air conditioning either. On summer nights everyone sat in the gate on benches or on the stoop and waited for the Bungalow Bar truck to come with its ice cream pops. It was a white truck that looked like a little house and its bells were music to my ears.

It was fun living on Linden Street, my block. We rode our bicycles and scooters on the sidewalk or roller skated. Those roller skates were metal with metal wheels and you needed a key to tighten them to your shoes. I liked the feel of my tingly feet after I took off my skates. One time I was riding my bicycle and I saw a neighbor kid, Dennis W., coming up the street. It was too late to stop and I hit him and knocked him down. I fell off my bike. Later his big sister came to my house and yelled at my Mom. I was so scared. I learned a good lesson – don’t ride bicycles on the sidewalk.

When I was five, I started Kindergarten in the Catholic school down the street called St. Brigid’s. My Mom had also gone to St. Brigid’s. I was so excited to go to school. It had a sandbox and see-saw and jungle gym right inside the classroom. One day my cousin Joseph and I were playing on the see-saw with another girl. We thought it would be funny if we sat on one end and kept her up in the air. She didn’t like it at all. And we soon got tired of the game, so we got up. To our surprise, the girl came crashing down with a bang! She started crying and told the teacher, Sister Rita. Joseph and I got punished. We had to sit down and skip recess. We were also supposed to tell our mothers what we had done. I felt very sorry but I learned another lesson, a Physics lesson. I knew what happened when you take a weight off of one end of a balance. The other end comes down really fast. Oh yes. I did tell my Mom what had happened but Joseph didn’t tell his mother. I guess I learned another lesson that time.