Random memories

Part 1

This particular section may be of interest to no one other than myself, but I am writing it anyway. After all, it was a part of my life, and I like to look back at it from time to time; it's good for a warm feeling of nostalgia, and maybe a pair of misty eyes.

If you are in this blog for the long haul, though, buckle up, as we will be doing a bit of time traveling. When I talk about the neighbors surrounding my current home in this section, I am referring to people who were probably living there as early as the 1930s straight through the '50s and very early '60s, when my sisters and I were young children.

Before I begin, I will issue the disclaimer I nearly always put out there when talking about what was, for me, the distant past. I remember things I overheard way back then, and, as a very small child, could easily have thought they happened a certain way and for a certain reason, simply because that is the way it registered on my young mind. I will try to point out things of that nature as I mention them so you will not have to lose sleep trying to figure out which events are in doubt.

The Wheeler family lived right next door to Nana in those days. Next door to the Wheelers on the other side, and, I thought, owning both properties—the Wheeler's place as well as their own home—were Russell and Caroline Diehm.

This is the first instance of doubt. As a kid, I remember hearing my mother say that both properties were owned by the same family, and I assumed, for some reason, that the owners were the people we always called Uncle Russell and Aunt Caroline.

In retrospect, the Wheeler's house could have been owned by the Wheelers, and the two properties would still, technically, have been owned by the same family. Julia Wheeler and Caroline Diehm were sisters.

Just because I can be what we used to call a nitpicker—or a great picker of nit, when we had a case of the sillies—I suppose the properties could easily have been owned by the Haydens, who were Julia and Caroline's parents; it makes no difference now, of course, but if I stayed awake nights trying to figure this out, the least my readers can do is fall asleep reading it!

Behind all of our backyards was a long piece of property that faced Burnside Avenue, and was owned by a very dear man named Max “Pat” Pinette. To my mother and her siblings, and later to my sisters and I, he was always, “Uncle Pat.”

Like Uncle Russell and Aunt Caroline, he was not a real relative of ours, but “aunt” and “uncle” were commonly used to denote respect for older people back in those days. In fact, we called them all by those names right up until the times of their deaths.

As kids, we came to visit Nana nearly every day after school, and, because the yard here on Bragg Street was always under careful surveillance by Mr. McDonald, who owned it then (as my devoted readers already know), we played either in Uncle Pat's backyard, where he had been kind enough to install a swing set for all the neighborhood kids, or in the backyard of the Wheeler family or the Diehm family.

Aunt Caroline's niece, Judy Wheeler, was my sister, Joanne's, age, and she was one of our regular playmates. I cannot tell you how many of our old family photos feature Judy, who was nearly always in her cowboy outfit. Judy was a good sport, and was usually up for pretty much any bit of mischief we could find.

As it happened, there was a mechanic's shop across the street from the houses I have mentioned here, and it was owned by Frank Whitner (who was, by the time of my childhood, the father-in-law of my uncle, Jack Ghagan, Jr.). “Whit” as he was known around the neighborhood, always had stuff that Judy found fascinating all around his shop

I remember her coming home one day with an old ball and chain. Joanne and Maureen began to drag it around the yard, and told me it was Judy's brain—it had finally fallen out of her head! I think Judy laughed harder than any of us.

Part 2

This may sound unbelievable, but I swear it is the truth. Some of my happiest early memories involve trips to Main Hardware with my father on Saturday mornings.

I mentioned earlier in this blog that Daddy had a nice garden when we were living on Burnside Avenue; I probably also said that Main Hardware was the place my father went to for his yard tools and all of his seeds. I think he and I spent part of every Saturday morning in the spring picking out seeds, as well as whatever new tools he might need.

What I did not say before, was that Main Hardware was also the place partly responsible for my brief foray into the criminal world; small wonder I worked for a criminal defense attorney once I reached adulthood—crime was in my background!

On that fateful Saturday morning, Daddy was selecting vegetable seeds for the garden, so I got some flower seeds for my mother from the beautiful display the hardware store had on the counter at the rear of the store. I was sure Daddy would want to get flowers for Ma; I did not know, until we got home and I pulled them out of my pocket, that you were supposed to pay for them. I suppose I was all of 3 or 4 years old at the time, and not terribly worldly.

I still remember the look on my father's face when he realized what I had done; I imagine he also wondered if I would soon have my chubby little face on a “Wanted” poster at the Post Office—his youngest child was a petty crook!

We went back to the store so I could face Obbie and Morris, the two brothers who owned the store, while Daddy explained that I did not understand how money worked. The pair of them would have been only too glad to let me have the 19 cent packet of flower seeds for my mother, but my father said, “No, we need to pay for them.” He produced 20 cents, and I got to keep the penny change to help me remember the day's lesson. Obviously, it worked, since I still remember the incident!

The other thing I remember about Main Hardware was that there was a second floor to the place, and it housed an impressive array of wallpaper books. I remember following my parents, Morris and Obbie up the stairs one Saturday morning—Daddy always let Ma accompany us on special occasions like selecting wallpaper—to view the wallpaper books. After selecting the paper she wanted, we headed back downstairs for paint.

While my mother had a definite preference for white woodwork, I can clearly remember Obbie pointing out that he could match any paint color perfectly to any wallpaper sample, or even other old paint. It was true, too, as I found out many years later.

My father, by then just old enough not to want to climb a ladder anymore, had hired a professional painter named Leo, for a job in the Bragg Street house sometime after Ma passed away. During the course of a conversation they were having one day, Leo told my father, “If you ever wanted paint matched up in the old days, there was no one better at it than Obbie from Main Hardware. I remember seeing him do it when I was younger.”

In reply, my father laughed and said what was one of his pet bits of wisdom. “There's more truth than poetry in what you just said, Leo. Obbie was the best. I knew him for a lot of years, and I remember a guy coming into the hardware store once with a bit of trim. The paint on that little piece of wood was old, but Obbie matched it up just right.”

It makes me smile when I remember how respectful Daddy was of other people, and how he would take the time to praise someone for doing a good job, even if they were no longer around to hear it.