Life With Fred and Lucy by Marie Gilbert

Author:Marie Gilbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2018-05-09T13:53:11+00:00

Dennis, Susie, Lucy and Michael in Atlantic City

Street Games

When my siblings and I weren’t working in the grocery store, we played outside with our friends. In South Philadelphia during the 1950s, we had electric trolley cars to get us wherever we wanted to go. These trolleys ran on tracks. Since not everyone could afford a car in those days, we kids had more room to play stick ball on the street. I can see the puzzled looks already. Stick ball? Yep, that was another term for baseball, but without a field, bat, or even a regular ball.

I honestly don’t remember any of the kids on our street belonging to any baseball leagues like we have today. I don’t know how it was in the suburbs, but if you lived outside of South Philly, you didn’t know what you were missing.

We South Philly kids were resourceful and could make up games to play at the drop of a hat, but let’s get back to playing stick ball. There was always an old broom stick that was used as the bat, but the most important equipment was the pimple ball. My father sold pimples balls for 10 cents in those days. When a child came in for a ball, my father would slice the pimple ball in half. This was the only way you were allowed to use the ball in a game. We designated whatever cars were parked on the street as bases, and home plate was usually a neighbor’s step.

Whenever a car drove down the street or the trolley came by, we would stop the game until it was safe to continue playing. Sometimes, we were so focused on the game that we didn’t notice the approaching car. It’s a wonder nobody was killed; we’d only move out of the way after the drivers yelled at us. The game would usually last all day, or until the neighborhood moms yelled from their front doors that dinner was ready.

Jailbreak was another neat game I loved to play. One person was picked to be the designated jailer: their job was to capture the crooks and put them in jail. The jail was the front steps of a neighbor’s house. The trick was to keep the people in jail from breaking free while you capture more prisoners. Tag, jacks, hopscotch, and roller skating were other favorite games that we neighborhood kids loved to play until the call for supper sounded.

We didn’t have video games or computers in those days and the television only had three stations, so it was up to us to make up our own games. We were never bored, but if we even dared to say that we were, our moms had plenty of work for us to do around the house.

Dennis’s sister Annie also came to spend a week with our family one summer. I lent her an extra pair of skates to go street skating with us. These were the skates that attached to your shoes, remember? The

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