Another Good Man Gone

68f / 20C, hazy with a pink waning moon at 6am. So pretty. Rain in the afternoon, clearing in the evening.

Our community lost a good man last week. John McGinley, brother of my friend Suzy, succumbed to pancreatic cancer after a long battle. He remained the same kind, loving man right through all the trauma of the disease, joking about his hair loss and amazed that so many people cared about him. John was a volunteer firefighter right up until he could no longer do the job as it needed to be done, and he also continued to work at his full time job as long as he could. 

A 2011 photo of John and Suzy

For many years John and his wife co-chaired our county seat's 4th of July celebration, which earned the distinction as being the largest small town celebration in the country. The planning was a yearlong process, and John poured his heart into it, and usually acted as MC too. He was on the town council for a long time, following the footsteps of his parents--His Dad was city clerk, and his mother was mayor until her health forced her to retire. Both were beloved, just like John. 

I know there are men and women like John all across our country, doing the everyday work that makes life easier for so many of us, and often doing it behind the scenes with little recognition or thanks. They just do it because it's the right thing to do, and they enjoy knowing they make a difference, however small. These are the real patriots, the real people who have always made our country great. I know our community will feel the loss of John McGinley for a long time. 

I was sad that I could not attend the funeral, or even the wake, because I didn't want to spread around my nasty cold. I told Suzy I wasn't coming because I knew there would be old people there and I didn't want to make them sick. To which she responded, with typical McGinley humor, "You mean old people like us?" 

Um, yeah. I forget that I fall into that category these days. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Neighborhood

66°f/19°C this morning, another warm day with highs in the upper 70s . Hazy, light clouds, soft breeze. Cooler than yesterday's high of 84f.

/29C.

I enjoyed reading all your comments on yesterday's post about childhood games. Several of you remarked on how lucky we were to have so many playmates, and that is true. But when we moved to Manassas we didn't have many children to play with. The neighborhood on Quarry Road was mostly people in their 50s and 60s whose children were grown, or close to it. (The street was East Quarry Street when I lived there, and before that was known as Railroad Row, because all the men worked for the railroad that ran just a block behind our house). 

Our old house as it looks today. Gussied up! Mom and Dad paid $12,000 for it in 1956, and were the third owners.   Built in 1914, now it is valued at around $675,000.  Image is from zillow.com

You can see our neighborhood as it looks today in this Google maps image. Click the arrows to move left or right. To see the other side of the street, click here.

On one side of us, for example, was Mrs. Renaldu, her brother we called Uncle Riley, and her daughter Miss Mary. Miss Mary was in her 40s, never married but had a boyfriend named Francis who was waiting for his mother to die before he got married. On the other side were the Blakemores; they had 2 daughters. One daughter was at college when we moved there, I think, and later became the first female head coach at WVU. The other was in high school but graduated within a couple years of us moving in. Across the street were the Compton in a two story brick house. They had two sons, maybe a daughter, all in their late teens in 1956. 

The Lonases were directly across from us and I think had only one son who was an artist in Germany. Next to them were the Earhardts,  who had 2 sons, one close to our age but he never played with us, possibly because we were that rare thing in Manassas in those days: Catholic.

Next door to the Blakemores was "Grandma" Compton, mother of Judge Compton in the brick house. She was probably in her 60s then but seem very, very old to me. 

That was our street, the only place we were allowed to be, and as you can see, there was a dearth of young children. There were 2 girls who lived across what we called the back street, more an alley I guess, but they were not allowed to play with us either and we rarely saw them outside. Two houses up from them, though, was a large Catholic family of 7 children. We played with them often for a while, and were allowed to walk to their house, but the parents had some issues and soon our parents decided it was better that we not go there (especially after one incident when the mother ran through the house with a knife, chasing the children. Poor lady had a nervous breakdown, and thankfully got care and didn't hurt anyone).

Our street was a great place to grow up, even without a gang of other kids around us. All the neighbors had gardens and fruit trees, and some had chickens. Mr. Lonas made grape wine and always brought my parents a bottle, and Grandma Compton had an orchard and often gave us apples. Oscar behind us had a tractor and owned a large field across the back street from us and raised a truck garden every year. He was a guard at the maximum security London prison, and sold his produce there as well as at a small stand in front of his house. Across the street was an empty lot that belonged to Mr. Lonas. He put up hay by hand there, and allowed my brothers and their friends to play football there in the fall.

We had a sidewalk in front of our house, just on our side of the street, that ran to the corner and along a busier street. We were allowed to ride our bikes and roller skate on this walk, but no further. The church was only three blocks away, and a small market was just past the church. When I was 7 I was allowed to walk to the market to pick up things for Mom, and this market also delivered in a 1957 Chevy panel wagon. For a brief time the library was just a block away, but it soon moved about a half mile or so away. When I was 10 I was allowed to walk all the way across town to the library and I went every week in the summer, checking out as many books as I could carry.

As we got older we were allowed to walk uptown too, to Rohr's five-and-dime, or to Cocke's drugstore for ice cream. We spent hours with our wagon, trundling around the town picking up pop bottles so we could cash them in for money for that ice cream (2 cents a bottle, and a cone was only a nickel) oorvfor penny candy at Rohr's.

Life wasn't always easy, of course. Daddy was a lineman and got burned badly when he was up a pole,  missing 6 months of work at a time when there was no disability or workers compensation.  Talk about broke! His family helped out and kept us from losing our himone, and the church helped too. Mom was often sick and/or pregnant, so we had a lot of household duties from a very early age. Money was always scarce, of course. 

I didn't have the typical teenage years either. I wasn't allowed to drive, date, or have a job. Dad was very strict on the girls, not so much with the boys who could do all those things.  I missed a lot of school, especially when Mom went away for depression for 6 weeks. My sister Judy and I took turns missing school, cooking and cleaning and keeping the home running. I babysat many many evenings when my parents got into square dancing and were gone several evening a week and sometimes on weekends too. So when former high school classmates post on Facebook about parties, swimming, dances, etc,  well, I have nothing in common there. 

Still, I have no resentment about those teen years, or being on the edge of poor all through my childhood.  I had parents that I knew loved me dearly, all my siblings, a good if untidy and ramshackle home, good neighbors. I know I was lucky, and thenolder I get the more I realize the value and the impact of that upbringing.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Childhood Games and Memories

As I was looking through old photos yesterday, I came upon this one of me and my three older brothers, apparently ready to play. Check out those cowboy hats.

And that made me think about all the games we used to play. Because, as with most of you who read this blog, we didn't have electronic devices to amuse ourselves. We played outside most of the year, and when that wasn't possible we played inside. Together. Not sitting alone with a toy, but playing games as a group.I'm not saying there weren't squabbles and even outright fights, and times when one or another would go off in a huff and try to play alone. It didn't work though, because where is the fun in that? Although I suppose younger generations would argue they have all kinds of fun alone with their video games--but even then many engage online with other players.

The little house in Centreville, where we lived until I was 5, and there were 6 children. Dad and his brothers built it in 1948-49, and it had no running water, and an outhouse. We were surrounded by woods. No one wanted to live in Centreville then, because the soil didn't perc so you couldn't have a septic tank and of course there was no city sewage. Dad bought an acre for $10.00 down, $10.00 a month. I wonder what that land is worth today? It really wasn't crooked, just the photographer!

What games did we play? A quick list of outside games: baseball, dodge ball, Red Rover-- where did that game get its name, I wonder?, hide-and-seek, tag, freezetag, Mother May I, Simon Says, London Bridge, Duck Duck Goose, blind man's bluff, In and Out the Windows, I Spy, tetherball, volleyball, badminton, basketball, kickball, and Red Light Green Light. We also played jump rope, using a long rope with two to turn the rope and one or more jumping, but this was one game it was possible to play alone, along with hopscotch. Not as much fun, but doable when necessary.

In Centreville, the Morans lived down a path through the piney woods. I still remember the oldest one was Mickey Moran, and one of the girls was Pinky, but can't recall the others. They often were our playmates, but Mom didn't like them much, possibly because they were Irish. We loved them because they were wild and always ready for adventure. in the photo, I think it is a Moran on the glider, my brother Joe in the shadows in back, me in front, holding something, Pinky behind me, my brother Bill, another Moran girl standing, and Mickey on the swing.

When we were stuck inside, we played card games, like Go Fish, Old Maid, Slap the Ace, BlackJack, Battle, War, and probably others that I don't recall. I think we played Rummy too when we were a little older. Then there was checkers, Chinese Checkers, Monopoly, Sorry, and again, probably others. 

When I say we, I usually mean most of the ones in the photo below, taken late1967 or early 68. I am on the back row left, beside me is Mary, Judy, Mom and Dad. Seated left to right, Lizzie, Julie (the baby of the family), Cathy, Theresa, Maggie, and John. Joe played with us a lot, and Tom occasionally. Bill left for the seminary when he was 14, around 1962. but I don't remember him playing with us. None of them were home at the time of the picture, but were probably working as they started working on local farms when they were in their early teens. Stephen is missing from this photo for some reason--he was one of the younger ones. between Maggie and John. I was married in November 1968, still a child really. 

Sometimes, whether inside or outside, we made up games, like cowboys and Indians or one we made up called Western Town. We made our own bows and arrows with sticks and strings. We made telephones with string and tin cans, always an activity that kept us busy, trying longer and longer strings to see how far away we could "hear"each other. We played in the dirt with our tootsietoy cars, long games that could last all summer, and inside we might just play records and dance. Of course we girls played with our dolls, sometimes pushing them up and down the walks in buggies or towed along behind our bikes in wagons. We made houses in piles of leaves in the fall, designating rooms and roles amongst us. In winter if there was snow, we were plenty busy, in and out so much I am sure it drove Mom crazy trying to dry so many mittens and socks and boots. Sometimes on Sunday evenings, we would have "family entertainment", a sort of talent show in which we told jokes, sang, etc. -The sliding pocket doors of the living room made a nice "stage", and I seem to remember that Joe was our MC. Some nice summer evenings we would have a weiner roast and would just sit around afterward and sing.

The old house we moved to, in Manassas, is still standing, and beautifully renovated and restored. We were hard on it. Mom planted many flowers in the front gardens over the years. This must have been taken soon after we moved in.

One glorious summer we decided to stage a musical. We chose Mikado. Dad's parents broke up housekeeping when Grandpa retired in 1956 or 57 and they gave us pretty much everything from their house, as they were moving to New Orleans to live with their youngest son who was single. They didn't need furniture, dishes, glassware, or the record player and big record collection. Apparently they liked musicals because there were many in the collection; we loved Mikado because we could sing the songs. We used cardboard to try to make sets and scrounged around in the attic for costumes. Sadly, our production was never completed. I can't remember why--did we argue over who got which role, or did we just lose interest? Whatever the reason, the whole thing kept us busy for weeks. I think I was inspired to do this by Little Women, Louisa May Alcott's book, in which the girls often staged plays that Jo wrote. It was fun and still makes me smile,  remembering how earnest we were. 

Me at 8 years old. Don't I look a little angel? Looks can be so deceiving.

I know one thing--if we ever told our mother we were bored, look out. She would quickly find us something to do. And if we complained that we had no one to play with, she would just laugh and laugh. With so many siblings, really? No one to play with? 

We didn't have money, but the lack of it never seemed to matter when it came to having fun.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.