Roslindale Op/Ed Http://TownOnLine.com
Hank Brandli grew up in Roslindale, MA and now lives in Melbourne,
Fla. He will be sharing his memories of his hometown with Transcript readers
over the next couple of months. He can be reached at hbrandli@spacey.net
May 16, 2002
When Roslindale TVs came with free
magnifying glasses
In
our neighborhood of Roslindale in the late 1940s, there were only two TV sets,
black and white (no color), that I had access to as a youngster. Rocky’s on
Glendower Road or Willy’s on Winton Street.. Both of these televisions had
large magnifying glasses over the small actual screen of 5-to-7 inches. Some
magnifying glasses, I discovered later had color tint bars. Wow.
If you were
Rocky’s or Willy’s buddy on any given day, you would be invited, along with a
select few of the neighborhood kids, into their home on a weekday at 7 p.m. to
watch " Tom Mix, " " Hopalong Cassidy, " " Tim McCoy,
" or a cowboy serial that usually had Bob Steele in it somewhere.
At 5 p.m.,
Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob Smith along with a cast of characters like
Clarabelle and Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring were on TV. Because of
suppertime, only Willy’s mom, who was a widow, would allow raucous kid company.
These 15-30-minute treats were always preceded by knob-turning and antenna
adjustments and watching those fascinating test patterns during these
preliminaries. Remember, they looked like a target. As the words to be
continued lingered on the 7-inch screen.
Another
visual treat of the time was the 10 cent comic (or funny book.) I was allowed
to buy only four per month so as not to exceed my allowance. My selections came
from Disney, Looney Toons, Archie, Captain Marvel, Superman, Blackhawk (with
Chop-Chop), Batman Hennery Hawk. Kids traded comics to keep up.
One day, when
I was about 10, I had a very bad " Archie " experience. Chuck and I
were sitting on his home steps one afternoon looking at comic books when
Frankie came by and told us to come to his house, a block away. He wanted to
show us something while his parents were away. Curious enough, we followed him.
We climbed the backstairs and went to his bedroom. Then, he disappeared and
returned with a small black-and white-comic book.
However. all
the characters – Archie, Jughead, Veronica and Betty – had no clothes. Frankie
turned the pages very slowly. Chuck and I stared at the black-and-white strange
images. I felt clammy. We could hear each other breathing .We didn’t know what
to say and promptly left sheepishly. Needless to say, reading " Archie
" was never the same .
A visit to
Willy’s was more than a TV viewing delight. As I was going out the door, he
would loan me a box of Action comics with half the covers cut off. These were
poor sellers at newstands so dealers gave back unsold comics by cover piece
only instead of sending whole magazine back. Then, they threw unsold copies
away or sold bunches for a few cents. I would read these for days before
returning them. Hulk, Plasticman, Crime Stories were some of names I recall.
Looking back,
I’m convinced that comics, regardless of subject matter, were in all actuality
a great reading tool for kids. It forced us to read.
Then, there were
The Boston Globe and Boston Post, now out of business, Sunday color comics that
were always a special treat; Mutt and Jeff ,Buz Sawyer, Terry and the Pirates.
The daily Record-American that my dad read on the commuter train and would save
for me had Joe Palooka, Curly Kahoe, Ozark Ike ,etc. A Sunday WEEI radio
station had a commentator read and describe the comics drawings to listeners.
This service must have been a great aid for the blind .
Evening Radio
shows such as the Green Hornet, the Shadow, Captain Midnight, Jim Corbett-Space
Cadet, the Lone Ranger and Superman were all-time favorites of mine and all my
friends.
Sunday
afternoon bad weather forced us inside and we listened to Crime Doesn’t Pay,
Mr. Keen (tracer of lost persons),Boston Blackie, Suspense and Inner Sanctum.
In the cool
summer evenings, boys and girls met on Glendower Road below the hill to play
colors, Red Rover, Red Rover, hide and seek and out, where you threw the ball
at someone between lines. In that small section of Glendower Road six of the
girls grew into beautiful teenagers: Roberta, Dottie, Kathleen, Janet T.,
Elaine and Janet C. If only a few kids were around, we could play stickball,
hopscotch, jump rope, " Billy buck, " all great and such healthy fun.
When it came
to stickball or backyard baseball, Chuck and I played serious Sox vs. Yanks
scorecard events in a house-garage protected quadrangle yard behind 356-360
Beech St.. Chuck’s grandfather taught us to play cricket and showed us how to
make wickets in the same area.
Regularly, on
those hot evenings, Westy’s ice cream truck would always come by and we would
buy and share Popsicle’s which we split, orange sherbert push-ups,
chocolate-covereds, Fudgesicle’s, each for a nickel. We even made future use
out of the wooden sticks.
Those days of
yore were fearless times for most youngsters. Nowadays, the freedom of youth
and imagination have been robbed by parental fear, lack of initiative and the
all-too-much TV watching. Kids today are exposed to way too much information on
the tube.
In my day, we
would walk almost everywhere such as to the Rialto movie theatre in Roslindale
Square, to the Bellevue movie theatre on Center Street in West Roxbury near the
tunnel leading to Holy Name Church to see the cartoons, serials with Frankie
Darrow, Dick Tracy, Abbott and Costello, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry. What basic,
visual entertainment.
On a dismal
day, mostly on Saturdays, for five cents, Billy and I would really see the
world via the MBTA. At Cornell Street or Beech Street corners and Washington
Street, we would board our near private streetcar vehicles with the wooden
seats for Forest Hills. There our Disney-esque monorail tour of Boston would
depart.
Today, I hear
about folks getting frightened riding on rapid transit vehicles. At age 10,
Billy and I would ride all day, with our lunch bag, on the MBTA and never get
lost like the Kingston Trio’s " Charlie. " I can still hear the
conductor yelling out those magical names: " Green Street, Dudley, Dover,
Essex!!! "
At every
stage of our journey, we would " deplane " to view the sights of each
station, read the graffiti on the small billboards, buy a small Chiclet
cellophane pack from a fancy metal dispensing machine after inserting a penny
and split the two pieces. Inevitably, we would pick
up a thrown
away Record – the only newspaper people could read easily on those swaying
trains, holding on to the leather straps and read the comics. For Billy and I,
this trip cost only a nickel, round trip.
For some
unexplainable reason, we thought this was our secret. North Station was a
two-way haven. That is, a person could get off the train, walk across the
platform and get a return train to Forest Hills, via Winter, Boylston, without
a transfer or another token! Imagine.
I remember
the stops vividly except Everett. The few times we went there, it would cost
extra nickels for the return trip. Also it was the end of the line and not
exciting – like the North Station. The North Station was a panorama of
delights: the Boston Garden, Jack Sharkey’s Bar, Ye Olde Oyster House and a few
large hotels. The last time I rode was a long time ago. Now, the overhead
tracks are gone. As I got older, we used any excuse to drive or be driven.
Yet, I
remember another MBTA voyage via the Arborway on swaying bullet-shaped streetcars
along Huntington Avenue. In the summer on very hot days, kids went to Curtis
Hall in Jamaica Plain. There we swam naked or as we put it ballicky. Why
some kids didn’t drown in the green over-chlorinated water mayhem, is still a
mystery to me.
Further down
on Huntington Avenue, past the red brick walled in home for unwed mothers was
the big YMCA where we also swam ballicky. Their gym, encircled by an overhead
track, was enormous not like Rozzie High’s, Washington Irving’s or the Robert
Gould Shaw’s. We were too young to wear athletic supporters or, as Chris
Schenkel would say, jocks.
Some 10-, 11-
and 12-year olds were exposed to new vistas away from Roslindale. The exotic
smoke-filled pool halls (you could cut the smoke with a knife), the Boston Arena,
Symphony Hall, Wentworth Industrial School and Northeastern University were on
that line and close by. The prep school and college students would invade the
YMCA to eat, drink soft drinks and play pool as we kids watched and listened
intently to the jet setters.
If we had the
time, a few of us would walk past the Opera House to the Museum of Fine Arts.
What a treat. The electric eyes on the doors were worth the trip alone.
Inevitably after an hour or so of exploring, the guards would round us up and
throw us out after we got wild or very silly around the mummies, knights in
shining armor or the nude statues.
What a world
Boston was for a youngster touring in those days 50 years ago with a nickel,
dime, and a few pennies along with a YMCA card.