Going to MBS had one perk though. When we first moved in I wasn’t allowed across the street, not even across Allison Street which was overkill, it being no wider than two car widths and traffic being such that, should a car come down the street, all hands would turn out to ogle it. This rule did not, however, constrain me to Allison Street as I could go around the block without crossing a street. Down to Kingsessing, over to Vodges, up to Regent, back to Allison. There were also two alleys, the one between the Allison and Vodges houses and the one behind the Kingsessing houses. There was a problem though. I couldn’t go to Sergie’s store at the corner of 56th and Regent Street without crossing at least Regent Street, and that meant I couldn’t get cigs for Mom. So it wasn’t long before that restriction was lifted. There being nothing Mom needed across the big streets of 55th, 56th, Kingsessing, and Chester Avenue, however, I was still banned from leaving our block. To get to MBS, though, I had to cross 56th so that restriction was also removed once Mom got tired of escorting me to and fro. Once I vowed to obey the lights the way was clear for distant exploration.
I soon realized if I just went straight there was no way I could get lost. All I had to do was turn around and walk straight back. Hell, you could even cross the street and come straight back on the other side. Looking across the street you could see everything you’d passed on the way out which was reassuring.
Then one day I went further down Chester Avenue than ever before, to 61st Street where Chester stopped and I would have to go either left or turn around. That’s when it occurred to me that it was all just a bunch of squares. If I turned left, in theory, I should eventually run into Kingsessing Avenue, and then if I turned left again it would be the same as if I’d just turned around right now except I’d return home on Kingsessing instead of Chester.
But what if something went wrong and I didn’t hit Kingsessing? What if it too had stopped but before Chester had? Why, no problem! I could simply turn right around and come back to where I was now, then go home on Chester. So I turned left just like someone who knew exactly where he was going. And in no time at all I reached an intersection with a light. It was somewhere I’d never been before but the street sign said, “Kingsessing Ave”.
I turned left and it was a bit spine tingling for a few blocks, terra incognito and all, but then suddenly I knew exactly where I was. Wow. And, at least in theory, I could do this with other blocks. I could go down 55th or 56th and come back on the other, just as I just had with Chester and Kingsessing Avenues. In fact, numbered streets! Holy moly, could it be that 5 blocks past 55th Street I’d find 50th Street? Or 61st Street five blocks past 56th? Move over Magellan!
Jacky, the kid who first chased me back when we first moved in, became my main (only?) friend. He lived on Regent Street. An older cousin had given me a wooden box with a hasp for a lock on it, said it was a strongbox, which inspired a game Jacky and I played. Stagecoach. We would put the strongbox in my Radio Flyer and take turns being the stagecoach driver and the outlaw lying in ambush.
Incidentally, Radio Flyer was named in honor of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of radio, and Charles Lindbergh, inventor of flying across the Atlantic in a ridiculously small airplane with just a couple ham and cheese on rye sandwiches.
The outlaw would crouch beside a stoop or lurk in one of the alleys. The driver would gallop like the horses pulling the wagon while making that clicking sound that imitated horse’s hooves and doing that galloping thing.
King Arthur galloping 
Ordinary peope galloping 
Horse human galloping
But this is not galloping ->
Damn if I can remember what would happen when the outlaw caught the stagecoach or how we determined who won or kept score. It was all about the chase.
Inevitably in such a competitive environment Jacky and I would disagree over this or that detail. And when that happened ->
One time we squared off about halfway between our houses, in front of Mrs. Abbott’s house. Mrs. Abbott was the neighborhood grouch. For some reason, both mothers stood by watching. Jacky and I circled one another, fists up, each demanding the other throw the first punch. At one point Mrs. Abbott opened her door.
“That’s disgraceful!” she called. “How can you let them do that?”
Mom laughed.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Abbott,” she said. “Neither one has thrown a punch yet.”
I resented that. This was a fight, dammit. I was so mad I almost took a swing at Jacky. Lucky for him his mom stepped in.
“OK,” she said. “That’s enough.”
It seemed like there was always something going on. There was a steady stream of hucksters, vendors, delivery men, knife sharpeners, garbage men, and kiddie rides.
For a while some neighbors had ice delivered but pretty soon everyone had a fridge though we still called it an ice box. I also don’t remember any coal deliveries on Allison Street but Aunt Helen’s house still had a coal furnace and of course a coal bin. The truck would park in the street, they’d telescope a chute through the window of the coal bin and let it rip. Great fun. There was, naturally, milk delivery, but also bread. Bond bread trucks roamed the neighborhood.
Here he cometh 
Bread. Bond bread. 
The kids have been very naughty
For my money, though, the stars of the show were the garbage men and the Good Humor guy. Garbage was kept in the back yard in those 3 foot high garbage cans and even us kids had to walk single file in the alleys, so there was no way to get a vehicle to those back yards. The garbage truck would park at the head of the alley and these guys, invariably black, would walk down the alley to each yard, heft a can onto their shoulder, schlep it to the truck, empty it, bring it back, get the next one. In the summer they’d be shirtless and those guys were cut.
But the Good Humor guy… Yeah, there was ice cream and that alone would make him a star, but our guy also had six fingers on the hand he used to hand out the goodies. Had a second thumb between his regular thumb and index finger. Completely mesmerizing.
Sold more ice cream than any other driver 
At least he wasn’t all thumbs!
Speaking of things weird, Allison Street got repaved once and us kids found out we could chew those little chunks of tar. Even once the pavers were gone we figured you could gouge out a chunk of asphalt and chew it. As to why anyone would do this – well, who had any any chewing tobacco?
Here’s a thing I never figured out. Who decided what season it was? For a while we’d all be into marbles. Then the yoyo man would show up.
No no. Not him. 
No, not Nixon! 
Yes, that guy.
He’d be outside the 5 and 10 on the corner of 55th and Chester doing tricks. We’d all ooh and aah, then get a yoyo and for a while we’d be walking the dog or going round the world or rocking the cradle. And, by the way, what was the story on the diamonds? You couldn’t get just a plain yoyo, how gauche. Had to have one with a diamond. Then two diamonds. And of course they cost more. Well, after all, diamonds aren’t free, right? Did we actually think those things were diamonds? Or that they in any way made a yoyo perform better? PT Barnum was almost right. He just underestimated the number of suckers per day.
One day we’d all be riding bikes up and down Allison, the next it would be roller skates. That would last for a while and then we’d all be dismembering the skates to make orange crate scooters.
Unlike the one depicted above, ours were always decorated with bottle caps and whatever assorted bright objects we could drive a nail through. If you ate your Wheaties you could get little license plates for your scooter.
What was especially slick about these scooters was the shelf. You could put stuff on it! Cargo!
Speaking of bottle caps, at some point it would be bottle cap gun season. Try to find an image of that now. Here’s what you get flooded with ->
Are you kidding me? You can buy a plastic bottle cap gun? I suppose nowadays it’s okay to put someone’s eye out. Hmmf. In fact, I’ll go so far as to harumph. Back in the day, when I got home from trekking that half block from school, on foot mind you, if I wanted to put someone’s eye out, and of course I did, I had to make my own bottle cap gun. This is what’s wrong with today’s America. You can buy a bottle cap gun instead of having to make one yourself. This is what a homemade looked like ->
But to be slicker than slick you’d fasten your bottle cap gun to the top of your orange crate scooter and bam! P-51 Mustang! I still find it hard to believe neither the orange crate scooter, nor the bottle cap gun, nor the combination have been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. Radio Flyer’s there, the yoyo made it, marbles, roller skates, they’re all in. Barbie, crayons, etch-a-sketch, erector set, Lincoln logs, Lego, Frisbee, Hula hoop, Tinker toys – why not the orange crate scooter? Steroids?
One day, during the summer between first and second grade, I decided to give back to the community. It seemed to me that the infrequent, by today’s standards, traffic at the light at 56th and Kingsessing was going a bit too fast and I decided to do something about it. I took my orange crate scooter (an officer of the law needs a vehicle), a notepad and pencil and parked, in plain site mind you, on the corner of the intersection by the convent. There I recorded the license plate of any vehicle I thought might be exceeding the speed limit, which, of course, folks being folks, was most of them.
After a full morning’s work I went home for lunch and gave my list to my mother with the instruction that she would do well to pass it on to the local constabulary. Instead, she took me there. Must have been around 64th or 65th and Woodland. It was humiliating. Clearly, they thought I was cute! The more I glared at them the cuter they found me. The parting shot was a chuckling promise to “look into the matter”.
Who did they think they were kidding? Was I supposed to believe they were going to call up each driver and ask if, on or about such and such a time on the somethingth of June, did you break the residential speed limit at the intersection of 56th and Kingsessing? And then what? These dirtbags, these perps, were going to cave?
“Yes! I did it! How in the world did you catch me?”
And then the cop says, “Your ticket’s in the mail you scofflaw, you flouter of rules!”
Not the way to handle the situation. These people had been caught red-handed. Just haul them in and give them speeding tickets! I was no fan of the police and their utter lack of professional courtesy.
