It was a Saturday morning, August 14,1948. Dad asked Mom how she felt. Mom said she felt fine. Dad got on his old clothes and started to do some painting. Suddenly, Mom came running and said to take Larry to Grandma's house. Dad took off running down the street and dropped off Larry and came back. Mom let Dad change clothes but was in a big hurry. They jumped into their car, a 1934 Plymouth, and raced for Glenville Hospital. Dad drove through all the stop signs and red lights and the wrong way on a one-way street speeding to the Hospital. When they got there, Mom went into the delivery room. Dad had to wait out by the front door where the desk clerk answered the telephone. He could hear Mom yelling someplace off in the distance. (There was no waiting area) The desk clerk told Dad to go out and get a cup of coffee and something to eat as it was going to take a long time. Dad went to a neighborhood place called Mills Restaurant for something to eat. (This was a place Steve and Frances went once in a while for a steak dinner). When Dad got back from Mills, the desk clerk congratulated him, that he had a new baby boy. (Greg) Dad said "...I thought you said it was going to take a long time." The clerk said, "....guess I was wrong.
I never remember having a blanket thing. My blanket was sort of blue with gray and white stripes. The first kids that I remember playing with were Michael Murphy and later Mary Kay Murphy. They lived on the next street over from ours. We lived on East 173rd so it was either 172nd or 174th. Their father, John, was Dad's best friend. I guess Dad took us over there to play. It was always big fun because they had an empty lot next door to their yard so we had lots of room to run around. Also, across the street there were three vacant lots. They were sort of wooded and had a sort of a ravine in the back part of them. At the very back of the lot was a very high chain link fence that divided the residential property from the parking lot of Cleveland Graphite Bronze, later to be called Clevite, and still there. There was also a boy named Marty who lived next door to us or someplace close. Mary Kay was one year younger than me. When I was four, she was only three but we were sure that we were going to get married when we grew up. I saw their Dad, John Murphy several times a year in the late 80's at Cleveland Indians Wahoo club luncheon meetings. I saw Michael at a Cleveland Indians baseball game in 1993. He was almost totally grey-haired and getting pretty bald in front. The Murphy's moved to Euclid, Ohio, several years after we moved to Seven Hills.
The family enjoyed going on picnic's with George Suki, his wife and sons Brucey and Kippie. We often went to a place in the metropolitan parks called Squires Castle. The castle was an old mansion long since gone to ruin. It was big fun to climb up the walls and up on the second floor. The park had great swings, lots of woods and lots of open spaces to run around. Mom always had great stuff to eat. I remember watching the hot dogs cook and actually getting to cook marshmallows, myself. I remember Mom wearing a button-down green sweater on the picnics. Dad was starting to lose his hair and starting to wear baseball hats.
One of my earliest memories of television was of a Saturday afternoon Cleveland Indians Baseball game. Dad was watching the game with his good friend, Jack Zotler. The only thing I remember about the game was the commercials. They were for Carling Black Label beer. They were the ones that went, " tweet, tweet, Mabel, Black Label". The funny thing about the whole thing was, Dad and Jack were drinking plenty of beers. And, when they set down an empty bottle of beer on the floor, little Greg drank the little beer that was left. Don't think that I got particularly lit up as I really don't remember ever liking the taste of beer, but......
One of the high points of my preschool days was when I told my Mom how to change a flat tire on our car. I was only four years old. Mom had to get the tire changed to pick up Dad at work and didn't know how. To tell you the truth, I don't know where or when I learned, but I knew what to do. Boy were my parents surprised. Their car was a dark green, 1949 Oldsmobile they bought new. It had stick shift, on the steering column, vent windows in front of the door windows of the front seat. You could open those vent windows real far, and get a great breeze when the car was traveling down the road. If Dad opened his vent just a little way, he could flick his cigarette ashes out, or throw the butt out. No turn signals (they came about 1955). They rolled down their door windows and signaled with their arms. Straight out meant you were turning left. Your arm out but bent at a 90 degree angle meant a right turn. They always blinked their headlight high beams when they passed. Or they blinked the headlights to tell oncoming cars that they were coming up on a police car. No air conditioning (early 60’s in luxury type cars) or seat belts (they came after 1961). I remember that because our 1961 Comet had no seat belts.
One of my favorite things to do for myself in the kitchen on East 173rd street was to make myself tea. I knew how to fill and boil the water from watching Mom. I would make myself a cup, but I really liked lots of sugar...spoonfuls and spoonfuls of them. Also, I like the taste of lemon so I would get a heaping teaspoon of sugar then squeeze lemon juice onto the spoon until I got it nice and mooshie. I also like to make myself toast. We had a manual toaster, that heated until you opened the sides up. That was great fun for me. I loved to put a ton of butter on my toast then put a ton of cinnamon and sugar on it. Yum, yum .Got started with that cholesterol stuff at an early age. Don't remember who was supposed to be watching me when I was doing my cooking.
I remember my brother's first day of school. I remember that the big, tough guy was scared. But I wasn't. I knew everything was going to be all right for him, and it was. Around that time, he had to learn how to tie his shoes. He just couldn't get the hang of it and Mom got madder and madder. Pretty soon, Larry was getting smacked and he was crying and I was laughing. I could never get over the fact that I thought it was great and extremely funny every time my brother got smacked. It was embarrassing, laughing at another person's pain but sometimes I still get the urge to laugh. I'll tell you one thing, though. When it came time for me to learn to tie my shoes, I learned real fast because I didn't want to get smacked like my brother. I spent a lot of time trying to learn to write like my big brother. I was fascinated with the idea of writing my name. Except, when I really did learn to spell my name, I found out what I thought was my name was really "gory." But I sure was trying and I did a lot of scribbling and called it my writing.
The family enjoyed going on picnic's with George Suki, his wife and sons Brucey and Kippie. We often went to a place in the metropolitan parks called Squires Castle. The castle was an old mansion long since gone to ruin. It was big fun to climb up the walls and up on the second floor. The park had great swings, lots of woods and lots of open spaces to run around. Mom always had great stuff to eat. I remember watching the hot dogs cook and actually getting to cook marshmallows, myself. I remember Mom wearing a button-down green sweater on the picnics. Dad was starting to lose his hair and starting to wear baseball hats.
One of my earliest memories of television was of a Saturday afternoon Cleveland Indians Baseball game. Dad was watching the game with his good friend, Jack Zotler. The only thing I remember about the game was the commercials. They were for Carling Black Label beer. They were the ones that went, " tweet, tweet, Mabel, Black Label". The funny thing about the whole thing was, Dad and Jack were drinking plenty of beers. And, when they set down an empty bottle of beer on the floor, little Greg drank the little beer that was left. Don't think that I got particularly lit up as I really don't remember ever liking the taste of beer, but......
One of the high points of my preschool days was when I told my Mom how to change a flat tire on our car. I was only four years old. Mom had to get the tire changed to pick up Dad at work and didn't know how. To tell you the truth, I don't know where or when I learned, but I knew what to do. Boy were my parents surprised. Their car was a dark green, 1949 Oldsmobile they bought new. It had stick shift, on the steering column, vent windows in front of the door windows of the front seat. You could open those vent windows real far, and get a great breeze when the car was traveling down the road. If Dad opened his vent just a little way, he could flick his cigarette ashes out, or throw the butt out. No turn signals (they came about 1955). They rolled down their door windows and signaled with their arms. Straight out meant you were turning left. Your arm out but bent at a 90 degree angle meant a right turn. They always blinked their headlight high beams when they passed. Or they blinked the headlights to tell oncoming cars that they were coming up on a police car. No air conditioning (early 60’s in luxury type cars) or seat belts (they came after 1961). I remember that because our 1961 Comet had no seat belts.
One of my favorite things to do for myself in the kitchen on East 173rd street was to make myself tea. I knew how to fill and boil the water from watching Mom. I would make myself a cup, but I really liked lots of sugar...spoonfuls and spoonfuls of them. Also, I like the taste of lemon so I would get a heaping teaspoon of sugar then squeeze lemon juice onto the spoon until I got it nice and mooshie. I also like to make myself toast. We had a manual toaster, that heated until you opened the sides up. That was great fun for me. I loved to put a ton of butter on my toast then put a ton of cinnamon and sugar on it. Yum, yum .Got started with that cholesterol stuff at an early age. Don't remember who was supposed to be watching me when I was doing my cooking.
I remember my brother's first day of school. I remember that the big, tough guy was scared. But I wasn't. I knew everything was going to be all right for him, and it was. Around that time, he had to learn how to tie his shoes. He just couldn't get the hang of it and Mom got madder and madder. Pretty soon, Larry was getting smacked and he was crying and I was laughing. I could never get over the fact that I thought it was great and extremely funny every time my brother got smacked. It was embarrassing, laughing at another person's pain but sometimes I still get the urge to laugh. I'll tell you one thing, though. When it came time for me to learn to tie my shoes, I learned real fast because I didn't want to get smacked like my brother. I spent a lot of time trying to learn to write like my big brother. I was fascinated with the idea of writing my name. Except, when I really did learn to spell my name, I found out what I thought was my name was really "gory." But I sure was trying and I did a lot of scribbling and called it my writing.
Refrigerators in the 1950’s weren’t very good. They never got down to a freezing temperature. They all had drip pans to catch the condensation off the “freezer” part. They called them ice boxes, because these refrigerators had recently replaced ice boxes. The ice man would come around in his truck and people would buy a big square of ice and put it in the ice box to keep stuff cold. And people walked to the neighborhood grocery stores, on almost every corner on a daily basis to buy food. Anyway……….on hot summer days Mom and Dad would take us to the ice cream stand, on Lake Shortt Bouldvard. The top of the stand looked like an ice cream cone.Mega treat. It was 10 years later before you could keep ice cream cold overnight in the refrigerator. They would spell out I-c-e c-r-e-a-m to each other to see if they wanted to go. When Worrie heard i-c-e he would start screaming ice cream, ice cream, and Mom and Dad would have take us to get it. Probably one of 5 greatest food treats in my life and I can’t remember the other four. Sometimes we even got “Boston coolers.” Root beer floats. Wow!!
We kids really loved it.
My brother took the CTS bus to William H Brett School. He used to get hassled at the bus stop. The fifth graders sometimes took his bus pass and always tried to get his money. I remember Mom or Dad talking to Grandma about how they were going to handle the situation. Bobby Mueller was a neighbor of Grandmas. He was the worst of the bullys. They were really worried that they would not be able to fix things, but when Dad went to talk to the bully's father, the trouble stopped. I know one thing, though. Larry must have done quite a bit of fighting at the bus stops or at school because he sure was a great fighter. I never heard of him coming close to losing a fight and I don't think he ever did. He was already a great fighter before we moved from Collinwood.
We kids really loved it.
My brother took the CTS bus to William H Brett School. He used to get hassled at the bus stop. The fifth graders sometimes took his bus pass and always tried to get his money. I remember Mom or Dad talking to Grandma about how they were going to handle the situation. Bobby Mueller was a neighbor of Grandmas. He was the worst of the bullys. They were really worried that they would not be able to fix things, but when Dad went to talk to the bully's father, the trouble stopped. I know one thing, though. Larry must have done quite a bit of fighting at the bus stops or at school because he sure was a great fighter. I never heard of him coming close to losing a fight and I don't think he ever did. He was already a great fighter before we moved from Collinwood.
Greg,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog!
Your "big" brother,
Worrie