1946 anno domini found the world at peace. Except for the Jews, Arabs, and Brits in Palestine. And the French and Viet Minh in Vietnam. And the Muslims and Hindus in India. But hey, there’s always something, right? No reason to nitpick. We Gillons first holed up with Pop’s parents on Regent Street. Till it […]
Category: Sixth Boyhood
Follow-up to Five Boyhoods
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 […]
About the time Howard Unruh took his Luger for a walk in Camden my mother took me to enroll in kindergarten at S. Weir Mitchell public school, which, per Wikipedia, is historic. S. Weir Mitchell was a physician, scientist, novelist, and poet. He lived before there was movies, TV, or Twitter so he had a […]
1949 will ever be remembered as the year of silly putty. Everyone remembers where they were when that little toy store in New Haven, Connecticut, sold its first plastic egg shell of the stuff for one dollar American. I’m sure you also remember this was the year RCA first came out with vinyl 45 RPM […]
The other day my wife asked me something about my hip arthritis. “Hip arthritis”? I say. “Yeah,” she says and repeats her question. “I don’t have hip arthritis,” I say. “Of course you do,” she says. “Uh, it’s my hip. I think I’d know”. She gives me that look. “Don’t you remember going to PT […]
Ya gotta like 1947. The main story, of course, was Jackie Robinson, but there were other tasty items. Guess what this is -> Yes boy and girls, it’s the first ever computer bug. Literally. The crew of the Mark II computer at Harvard had a problem. It turned out to be a moth in Relay […]
The 1,946th year of the Common Era brought the world peace. Aside from the civil war in China. And the Jews, Arabs and Brits in Palestine. And the French and Viet Minh in Vietnam. And the Muslims and Hindus in India. But who’s counting? As with any year, there was old and new business. Various […]
Now the question was how to get from Washington state to Philly. Both Mom and Pop were fed up with trains and Mom wanted no part of airliners, not after seeing this ad -> Mom thought a bus might be nice. You could meet some interesting people on a bus. But Pop was a do-it-yourself […]
In 1944 in Europe the Allies were finding out that Italy was a “soft underbelly” only when defended by Italians. When defended by Germans it was anything but. In the Pacific we were learning of the existence of places like Kwajalein and Eniwetok. In Philly Mom was thinking, why let Pop have all the fun? […]
Once upon a time in 1938, on the 5400 block of Regent Street in West Philadelphia, during a game of two-hand touch, a girl named Tessie offered to teach Pop how to kiss. Pop, fourteen going on ten, declined. Tessie said if he changed his mind he should come to a party at her house […]