Those Were The Days

I grew up in a mixed religious and ethnic neighborhood, in an area which encompassed many miles. There were Greeks, Italians, Jewish people, Gentiles and maybe a Polish family. We all lived in harmony in our townhomes. You were connected to your neighborhood by the walls; you had a tiny patch of grass in the front and lots of grass in the back, where my Dad grew grapevines, tomato plants and peach trees.

He use to make sweet delicious wine and if he liked you as a member of Mom’s family, he rewarded you with a bottle of Joe’s sweet wine. If he did not care for you, you were never offered a bottle to take home; he might offer you a glass now and then when you visited.

He grew tomatoes and pickled them and if he liked you, you went home from a visit with a beautiful round bottle of Joe’s pickled green tomatoes. Many family members yearned for his pickles and wine, a select group received one or the other and maybe once in a while, both of them.

Nobody one upped their neighbors. We were all basically of the same income area. Moms stayed home, cooked, baked, cleaned, grocery shopped and took care of the children. Our homes were sparkling clean and neat. We all owned a large radio that was a huge piece of furniture in the living room and small radios in our bedrooms. We would listen to quiz shows, soap operas, music and movies that were transferred to the audio portion and we would listen to the stories as we now view the stories on the television.

Neighbors were usually friendly with their immediate neighbors. We all respected each other’s religious holidays and Sabbath days. There were no harassing events going on.

We had a neighbor who liked to visit on Friday nights because she knew Mom would offer her a nice piece of homemade chocolate cake and, if lucky, a goblet of Joe’s wine. She knew she could not smoke in our house especially on Friday night which was the Sabbath.

We all liked each other and no one made any derogatory comments to each other. Sometimes we would mention in hushed tones a bit of gossip we had heard about someone around the corner.

One man played the piano so beautifully and he played by ear. Those of us who were learning to play the piano resented him because he could hear the music and could immediately play it, whereas we had to buy the sheet music and learn it by reading it. We were amazed that he could do that and we could not.

When another man was the first guy to ride a motorcycle through our quiet streets, it was quietly whispered he was not such a nice person, because he was on that kind of vehicle. This was false, he was a very nice young man and when people realized that the motorcycle did not change him into a bad guy, they all wanted a ride with him sometime.

When Mom wanted to play cards, she had only to walk around the block to a friend’s home and they all took turns to have a game night where the ladies served fresh cookies and a soda drink to each other. They all tried to outdo each other in a sweet way to see who would make the best dessert to be served that evening.

This is all a sweet, decent and kind of retrospective look at the ‘olden days’ when I was a kid in the 40s. When I was fourteen in 1948, we moved away. We all sure did miss one another, all of us, the Greeks, the Italians, the Jewish people, Gentiles and whoever knew each other in this fine and kind neighborhood.

Those were the simple, plain and wonderful times.