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The Old Neighborhood by Eileen Brodie February 7, 2007 Walking down the urban streets, I didn't know then that the surrounding street names were consciously called after trees. They just had their names: Magnolia, Linden, Pine, etc. We usually ran rather than walked. Or skipped, or skated, or scootered. Sometimes one foot on the curb, one in the gutter. Even better when it rained, wearing galoshes, revelling in the cool feel of the water streaming over them, yet dry socks within. At least until the temptation to test the limits led to a flood over the top of the rubber boots, and squishy cold feet resulted. A worthwhile experiment, even if mother didn't agree. On the corner of Webster and College, the little service station was handy for getting bike tires inflated. The mechanics would even fix a flat for a kid once in a while. No charge. The soda machine there held a fascination, with round cubbies that locked the bottle of Grape Fanta or 7up in it's grasp until you put in your money. We'd scooter or skate home, my siblings and I, sipping the sugary stuff and tempting fate by drinking and locomoting at the same time. I wasn't sure I liked carbonation in my drink, but it was too much fun putting in the coins and pulling out the bottle to think about that. I don't remember his name, but a Norwegian-born neighbor had been the one to coach my sister Tina and me in the the art of skating. We had our shiny new Christmas skates on, with the metal claws pinching our shoes and the keys strung around our necks. We clodded along the sidewalk, more walking than skating, but not falling down. This fellow with his pipe in his mouth and bushy eyebrows, watching us through the smoke, waved us over and gave us a much needed lesson. He coached us in how to stride with each leg, how to lean into the active set of wheels. Soon we were feeling the real sensation of skating. I remember later meeting his two nephews , they visited him from time to time and were avid young skiers. They told of going up to Lake Tahoe for winter sports, it seemed so athletic and Nordic. We had other neighbors across the street, also originally from a Scandinavian country. The father drove a low slung blue Triumph convertible, never bothering to open the little door, just stepping in and driving off. They were the family that in summer made home-made strawberry ice cream under the vine covered arbor of their yard. We'd be invited over, and took turns churning the handle until the ice cream was ready. I never understood what all the rock salt was for. Eastward, on the edge of our known world, at the far corner of Webster Avenue, was the municipal reservoir-- We had to assume that there was a reservoir there, because from our vantage point, all we could see was a wall of honeysuckle going round the corner, and a small sign announcing what was on the other side. A humming noise from within had a little bit of a spooky sound when we walked by. It didn't resemble a pond or a lake in any way; seemed more like a massive triangular building, the size of a city block, with a cryptic purpose to me. We always partook of the sweet trumpets of yellow honeysuckle flower. Walked along with them sticking out of our lips. Across the way, John Muir Elementary spread over it's little campus, with pine trees around the buildings, and berry bushes near the stream. We had to cross wide Claremont Avenue to get there, and were supposed to remain nearer to home than that. But climbing the cyclone fence near the creek to reach the best berries was too alluring a prospect to ignore. If we were really adventurous, we'd go beyond the school toward the Claremont Hotel, and explore. Behind the hotel were trails through the Eucalyptus trees, we'd come home with the fragrant leaves and sticky pods in our pockets. At night we'd look out the third story window of our house, and see the glowing tower of the hotel up against the hills. Going south on 'our' side of Claremont Avenue, the Star Market could be found. We went through it's glass and tiled entrance, counting our pennies and hoping to have enough for a 'Big Hunk' chocolate bar, or some 'Teaberry' gum. Once in a while I'd try the 'Choward's Violet Gum', which was spicy and perfume-like in flavor. Loved it's purple color, even though conflicted about the taste. The corners of our neighborhood were marked with large stone pillars, topped by ball-shaped finials. It was a rite of passage of sorts to be able to surmount the square capital stone and seat yourself on the ball. Master of all you surveyed. I remember one kid, Joe; he was tall for his age, and climbed the pillars with ease. He had a way of walking that I still remember, a spring in his step where you could watch him lift his tennis-shoed heels with a dynamic movement, it made it easy to spot him from a distance. The hustle and bustle of College Avenue to the west attracted us after school. We'd go there even if we didn't have spending money, and look through the storefronts. There was Martha Ann's candy store with trays of chocolates and other treats on display. Mom's favorites were the white-dotted chocolate 'non-pareils', with tiny hard pearls of sugar over drops of chocolate. Then the pet store with exotic live monkeys clambering in their cages. I really wanted one for myself. Mom & dad never consented to that. There was a 'zooey' odor as you walked through the door to visit the puppies sleeping in woodchips. The stationery store was nearly an equal attraction with special papers and notebooks, and gleaming writing instruments: pens and wonderful mechanical pencils. The camera store was intimidating, the shopkeeper not fond of young patrons threatening his wares. There was a chemical smell when you did brave the interior of his shop. Bolfing's Hardware was north of Ashby Avenue, just past the Wells Fargo bank. Went there with dad a lot, and was always happy to run an errand for a bag of nails or something he needed for a weekend project. I loved weighing out the nails into a paper bag. I recognized the difference between an eight-penny nail and a ten-penny nail long before I knew the arcane history of their nomenclature. I'd read the chart on the back of the tape measure, it told how many nails there were to a pound, depending on the size. Used to wonder who it was that first counted out a pound of nails in order to discover that. Bolfing's gave away smooth wooden yardsticks for free, I would get one from time to time-- sometimes it was actually necessary after a brother broke the last one in a mock swordfight. As I got older, I was allowed to go to the library west of College Avenue. I'd ride my brother's bicycle. I remember the smell of the books, the wooden floor, and the grown-up feeling I had from walking by the group of youngsters clustered near the librarian reading to them at story hour. Always took more time than necessary to select a book to take home, enjoying the hushed atmosphere and the endless potential adventure and knowledge lodged behind the covers of the many books. After the librarian stamped my selections, I'd ride home with them safely in the basket and carefully tip myself and the bike into our tall ivy bush at home; I couldn't reach the ground with my feet on my brother's bike, so I had to plan my take-offs and landings, using brick steps or similar to compensate. We did a lot of walking--mother didn't drive-- but we got around fine. We'd walk over the city limits into Oakland on school days to St. Augustine's, dressed in our obligatory wool jumpers (us girls), or knobby brown slacks and white shirts (the boys). The mornings were a chaos of brown bag lunches and last minute hair combing, along with frantic searches for the sponge applicator bottle of shoe white for touching up our much-scuffed leather saddle shoes. We'd hold hands to cross the busier streets, fingers still white from applying the stuff. I took to wearing shorts under my impractical pleated jumper. It really didn't lend itself to playing on the monkey-bars, and the first thing I would do on the walk home from school would be to stop at the gas station on Adeline, whip off the itchy jumper, then tuck my white shirt into my shorts. Then I felt ready for anything, a whole afternoon of play. It was a good old neighborhood to grow up in, I remember. The elderly Mrs. Boldt, who made home-made candy on a marble slab in her kitchen, told us stories of her travels, always telling us that the one thing we should see in our lives were the Fjords of Norway. She walked downtown on her own, using a wooden cane. One year she showed us the pedometer a relative had sent her. She had attached it to her cane, and would shake it vigorously, adding steps to her total count, even as she sat talking with us on her porch, laughing at her own mischief. She was such a different person from the scary Mrs. Jones on the corner of Ashby and Linden: the tall Mrs. Jones would brandish an ornate hairbrush at us from her porch, railing against our tendency to shortcut across the sloped corner of her lawn. I learned later that she took delight in doing this, and never really meant any harm, although we did make a brown path in her lawn with our bikes and scooters. I went back to the old neighborhood years later, it looked smaller to my grown up eyes. The evergreen tree that mother had planted in front of our old house was now too big to really belong there. The three-story house was hard to see because of it. I stood and wondered what had become of the Furys, the Hodgeheads, the Walkers, the Yosts, the Fites, the Brunos, the Simmons and others. Maybe somewhere, they wondered what had become of us. About the author: One of ten kids, Eileen inherited her mother Jeanne's love of books and writing. Along with that she has her dad's affinity for things mechanical--An ironworker by trade, Jim always patched up the Brodie household from ten kids' worth of wear and tear; Eileen liked to help and learned a lot along the way. After finally getting a bike of her own, (that actually fit), she spent over a decade racing bicycles and working in bike shops, including Old Town Bike Shop of Colorado Springs. She works from time to time with her brother Steve and gets to take on the fussy work of doing crown molding on new kitchen cabinets. Loves languages and speaks Spanish, French, and a bit of Italian, only a word or two of Danish, though. Two large, old dogs clutter up her home, mooching and living a spoiled life in general. Quotes her mother's wisdom almost daily, and cherishes the roots-and-wings philosophy of that wise woman, who is alive and well in Tucson, Arizona, churning out snail mail in gentle defiance of the computer age. | | | |
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