MEMORIES FROM MAYWOOD STREET

I haven't mentioned the drinking fountain on Blue Hill Ave. yet. It was located right between Savin St. and Maywood St. It was green and was right on the sidewalk between the two streets. It worked, too ! Anyone could bend over and get a drink at any hour of the day. I didn't bend, though. Had to stand on tippy-toe to reach it. We kids sometimes used to squirt each other with it.

There were times when we would be playing out in front of our house, and sometimes got thirsty, so, rather than traipse up 3 flights of stairs for a drink, we would go down the street and around the corner to the fountain. Sometimes Phyllis didn't want to go, but she would be thirsty, so I went and got a mouthful of water, and brought it back to her and she'd open her mouth and I'd put my mouth on hers and let the water go from my mouth to hers . Vice-versa sometimes, when she'd be the one to transport my drink of water in her mouth.

Are you grossed out yet ?? I don't know how we ever did that awful thing ! I grew up not wanting to eat or drink after ANYONE ! Don't know if that had anything to do with it, though.

That's not the worst thing like that, that I did. Just me, on this next one. I would see a wad of gum on the sidewalk and pick it up, wipe off any dirt I could see, kiss it up to Heaven, and plop it right into my mouth !! Yuck, yuck, yucky !!! I can't imagine my doing that really disgusting thing, but guess it's because we kids seldom got money for candy, gum, or anything else, that I just figured it was ok to do that, and, since I'd kissed it up to Heaven, that God had taken all the germs out !

I had that friend I mentioned before, Phyllis Verrier, who lived on Maywood, down the street, in the last house, before the chain-link fence from the clinic. It was an old, wooden house, and looked in need of repair. She and her family lived on the first floor and a Mr. Reardon and his family were on the top floor. At one time, gypsies moved into that house and lived on the second floor. When I would go to her house to see if she could come outside, I'd knock, and she would come to the door, just open it a crack to see who was there, then step into the hallway to talk with me. Her parents never had me inside, so Phyllis and I would either stay in the hall, sitting on the staircase, or go outside and sit on those steps.

At one time, when we were both 13, she asked me if a girl could get pregnant from kissing a boy. She didn't use the word 'pregnant'... kids weren't as worldly-wise as today's kids. she said

'have a baby' . Well, me, being the know-it-all, who just KNEW that babies came from our stomachs, told her that no, you can't have a baby from kissing. I didn't yet know how they got into our bodies, but, since Phyllis told me they come out of our stomachs, HA ! that's what I

knew, or thought I did. I didn't tell her that part, just that you didn't have a baby from kissing.

Don't know how I knew that...guess Phyllis told me .

I also learned what Kotex looked like, because another friend from across the street, told me that she had looked in her mother's drawer, and the Kotex looked like a sort-of pair of panties. She had probably seen one of those old-fashioned sanitary belts that girls and women wore to hold the Kotex in place. See how smart we all were ? Hahaha...so innocent .

Heck, I was so uninformed, that my mother used to give me a note to take to Dewey Drugstore up at the top of Dewey St. on Blue Hill Ave. I didn't ever look at the note, because Mamma always told me not to, and to just hand it to the man in the drugstore. He would hand me a square box, all wrapped up like a gift, minus a ribbon, and for a few years, I never did know that I was buying pads for my sisters and Mamma . I was a late bloomer, so didn't know until soon after my onset of menses, at 14 and 1/2 . At first, Mamma pinned a rag to my underwear, without telling me why I was bleeding ! Some mothers back then didn't discuss it and you had to either learn it from your friends, or figure it out yourself.

We sure lived in the Dark Ages !!

For a short time, there was a store on the corner of Maywood and Blue Hill Ave. where they sold Boston baked beans, our favorite. They packed it in white boxes like Chinese restaurants use for takeout, with the wire handles. We would get however much Mamma would tell us to get, and we always asked for extra pork . Every one of us liked the pork, and there seldom was more than enough for one person. The cans has such a small piece, that we sometimes had to take turns from one week to the next, to see who got to have the prized pork ! Sometimes we shared, but that meant we only got a tiny taste of it.

The men at the bean store were very obliging and always gave us the extra piece of pork. Yummy !! Oh, just remembered...those men wore long, white wrap-around aprons and something like chef's toques !!

Can't recall how long that store stayed, but don't think it was for long.

I've already related how great the baked goods at Kasanov's bakery were. Well, there was another bakery, a chain of them, still existing today, called Drake's Bakery. they were on the next street over, not Savin St., ... or maybe two streets over, on the other side of Maywood. can't remember the name of it. Anyway, there was a Drake's plant, and as is probably the case in all bakeries, mishaps occur, so in order to not lose their profits, they sold, in the retail part of the plant, broken pieces of cake, a bag-ful for 15 cents ! the bags were a bit bigger than the ones sold today for packing lunches. We got all kinds of cake, and loved that. We sure had a sweet tooth !

Not only did we have goodies from the two bakeries, but Mamma made the most delicious pies, apple, custard, squash, mince...don't recall if she made blueberry or not, and, of course, lemon-meringue .Yummy ! In later years, she would add canned pineapple to the lemon.

Years later, when I met my husband, and he got to know my Mamma, he was privileged to have some of her lemon-pineapple meringue, and fell in love with it that way, so I started making it that way for him, myself. she also made apple turnovers, and the left-over crust from those and the pies were rolled again, and cut into cookie-sized pieces, odd shaped, and Mamma would put dabs of butter on each, and sugar, cinnamon, and a tiny bit of nutmeg, on them and bake them as cookies for us. Soooo good ! When my kids were younger, I made those for them, too. Linda, especially, liked them a lot.

Much of our lives centered around food. wonder if the sweet tooth we all had came from our English background . Hmmmm .

An incident happened while living at this address, but I'm not sure if a horse or truck was involved. My little brother was pretty young, and he somehow was run over and sustained a broken arm ! He had a cast for a while, but, in his childhood, I think that was the only bad injury he ever got.

He was a happy-go-lucky kid, and made friends easily. he was always going somewhere, unlike me, who, in our early years there, had to go places only if Paul was going, because Mamma was afraid I'd get hurt or picked on because of my small size, so I was more or less

baby-sat by my LITTLE brother !! Of course, he wasn't so little, always being a big kid .

But, if I wanted to get somewhere, he had to go with me. that was so embarrassing !

For years, Mamma would take me to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned, or for an extraction.

Had really bad teeth and lots and lots of toothaches !

Well, sometimes, when she took me to the dentist at Mass. Memorial Hospital, not to be confused with Mass. General hospital, after the work was done, if she had any money, she'd take me to this little restaurant down in the Northampton area, and let me order a grilled cheese sandwich and French fries . that was my reward for not carrying on too badly at the dentist's office. she , herself, would always, I think, order a club sandwich. There were times when big sister, Anne, would take me to this same little restaurant, think it was called Elite, but not sure. Anyway, she always ordered chicken croquettes, while I got my usual.

When Mamma would take us into downtown Boston, via the elevated train, we'd stop in at a restaurant on Tremont St. called Barney Scheff's. they had the best hot pastrami sandwich, served on a bokie( not sure of the spelling) which was like a Kaiser roll, all bumpy like that, but a bit firmer and it was yellow, a sort of egg roll, and the pastrami would be heaped on those, and they always served it with those special dill pickles !! Heaven !!

Well, now that you're all salivating, I'll quit for today, so you can all go and feed your faces !!

Hope you have enjoyed all these adventures, or mis-adventures of my young years. don't think there's much more to tell, but if anything comes to me, I'll be sure and write it here for all of you.

It's been fun !

Thanks for all your comments.

D