Another surprising photo turned up, and I don't know how long I've had it. I believe my father gave it to me when he and I were looking through his boxes of old pictures. That was a pleasant time, sitting at his kitchen table surrounded by black and white photos, and listening to him try to remember who the people were and what was going on.
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| I believe that's Judy on the teeter totter, with Joe on the other end; I am in fron of Pinkie Moran and Tom is seated on a swing beside me. Bill is the tall one in back, and I can't remember the name of the girl in front of him. Mickey Moran is on the swing, far right. |
In this one, I am with my brothers Bill, Tom and Joe, my sister Judy, I think? and the Moran children. This was taken at our first house in Centreville, Virginia, on Beanblossom Road, probably around 1955. The Morans lived behind us--there was a path through the piney woods that led from our back yard to theirs. The Morans were all blonde-haired, well-tanned and rowdy. We loved to play with them although I think they made my mother nervous--and that's saying something as we weren't too tame ourselves.
One of the things we loved to do was roll on a barrel. We'd get an old metal drum and lay it on its side--30-gallon size was best, but we tried it on 55-gallon drums too--and stand on top of of it. Then by walking backwards or forwards on the rounded side we could roll the drum. It was awesome if there was a little slope as the drum would roll faster and we had to be fast with our feet to stay on top of it.
One day when the Morans were over we had the brilliant idea to get inside the drum and have someone stand on top rolling it. I was inside, as I recall; whoever it was on top started rolling and I started screaming, because I was tumbling all about inside, and it hurt! Another bright idea we had was to put a washtub on someone's head and beat on it with a hammer, like a drum. Tom or Joe, I think, had the drum on his head and Pinkie Moran was beating on it. That lasted only seconds!
Maybe I can see why Mom didn't really like us playing with the Morans after all.
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
Connelly and Moran, two fine Irish names. No wonder things got rowdy!
ReplyDeleteI am from Ohio from a family of 12 children. The Murphy family lived down from us and they were a large family also. This photo brought me back as we had a picture of a group of us and the Murphy children and my two older sisters were outside playing without shirts on!
ReplyDeleteMy siblings and cousins also Rolled Barrels. What great childhood memories! We had to use our imagination . . . and we did!
ReplyDeleteThat is a fantastic picture! A bit "Norman Rockwell-ish". -Jenn
ReplyDeleteKathy, welcome to another one of a large crowd of family! I bet you have tons of nieces and nephews too.
ReplyDeleteI thought about that too, John!
ReplyDeleteHow funny, Nance! We had to make our own fun, and boy did we do that!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jenn--we were wild little ones for sure. I wonder what I had in that paper bag?
ReplyDeleteOh this made me howl with laughter! Talk about learning from experience.
ReplyDeleteWe used to roll each other in an old rubber tire. It was so much fun! I was pretty disappointed when I grew too big to fit inside.
The fun we had in Centerville. Never a dull moment, that was for sure!!
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