WILKES-BARRE — Every year at Easter, I look at that picture.
You can see it attached here — its of me about 5 or 6 years old, all dressed to the nines for Easter Sunday Mass.
This was the way it was back then — holidays, especially Easter, were held in such high reverence. The kids in the neighborhood would get a bath, comb their hair and put on their Sunday very best. And we would go to church and sit quietly through Mass.
When we got home, the clothes stayed on as we waited for company to come and dinner to be served. Sure we all had baskets filled with candy and jelly beans, but that was for later.
But when the solemn celebration was over, and the big Easter meal was ingested, now was the time to change into our “play clothes” and tear open the big Easter basket and start at it.
Chocolate was everywhere — and good stuff, like the solid chocolate, not that stuff that has a hollow center. We would crack open a big bunny or other item and start gnawing on it like a beaver on a log building a dam. It was soooooo good.
And a few white chocolate items were thrown in for good measure, plus some foil wrapped eggs and, of course, jelly beans.
These are childhood memories of long ago. These memories are the same as yours — we may not have grown up in the same neighborhood or town, but we grew up the same way, with the same values, the same traditions, the same lessons learned.
Holidays were always special times back in the day. And it was all about people getting together and having fun.
Easter signaled the start of spring — warmer weather, April showers, flowers blooming, trout fishing and baseball tryouts. Those really were the days.
I still long for those days. I wish I could fire up the Way Back machine and return to those days. I would first visit my house on Reynolds Street and take a nap on my bed. It would be a spring day and the smell of lilacs would come through my screened window. At some point, I would get up, pick a couple of cherries and then shoot some hoops in the backyard, or play some Wiffle ball.
I’d then return to Plymouth Little League and run the bases. I would hop the wall to Huber Field and see the Shawnee Indians playing Nanticoke on Thanksgiving Day. I would then stop at Bill Seras’ candy store for some chocolate and then head into Plymouth High School. I would visit with Coach John “Snoggy” Mergo and wait for him to blow his whistle in the old gym and yell “Next gang!’
Then over to Mergo’s Tavern for a couple of hot dogs and a coke. Steve Mergo would grill the dogs and put them on a soft bun he kept in drawers behind the counter. He would top them off with some mustard he said was mixed with a little beer.
I would then walk up and down Main Street to just see once again the Shawnee Theater, Hacker’s Market, Rea & Derick, Joe’s Pizza, Matus News, Al Wasley Jeweler, Boadmarkle’s, Golden Quality, Red’s Subs, Walt’s Servette, Max L. Fainberg Furniture, and so much more.
And then back home for mom’s delicious dinner and maybe a little catch with dad in the yard. Maybe the other kids would come around and we would play stocking ball in the street, or up-against with a rubber ball, or hide and seek, or maybe Strat-O-Matic on the porch. Later on, we would listen to the Phillies or Yankees on a transistor radio.
These were the days of outdoor clotheslines with freshly washed clothes hanging by clothespins, drying in the warm fresh spring air.
I can see myself on our back porch, a place where every year I would grate a huge horseradish root so my mom could make the wonderful spicy hot condiment for Easter and Christmas kielbasa — which my mom and dad made right at our kitchen table.
Attached to a post on our back porch was a pulley system. We would hang our wash on the bottom line of the pulley system — with wooden clothespins — and send each item out to hang to dry in the fresh air.
When the clothes were dry, my mom would tell me to pull the clothes in, carefully removing the clothespins and folding each item into a clothes basket.
Hanging clothes on that line did sometimes affect what else might be going on in the backyard, such as a Wiffle Ball game. We very well couldn’t play a game with clothes hanging above us. So games had to be rescheduled until the clothes were dry and the lines were free and clear.
I could almost hear the public address announcer:
“Ladies and gentlemen, today’s game between Billy O’Boyle and Walter Roman must be delayed until the O’Boyle wash is completely dry. Thank you for your patience.”
When the clothes were dry, my mom would call for me, tell me to wash my hands real good and take the wash off the line. I would inform the guys that game time would soon arrive and the Wiffle Ball league would resume.
Memories that never fade. Stories that get re-told time and again.
I hope you had a happy Easter.