Eddy Street, Fort Edward
We moved once again to Fort Edward, this time in the
bottom floor apartment on Eddy Street. The street is still there but the
apartments and houses are long gone. The rooms were large with bare wood floors.
The wood was old and prickly with the varnish worn off years before. Once again
we heated with wood. I remember the stove pipe going through our ceiling into
the apartment above. The people upstairs were nasty. There was no making toast
on the stove pipe here.
Sometimes Mom and Dad would go upstairs to "socialize." I never understood this. I remember them coming back downstairs one day talking about a fight that had broken out up there. There were cockroaches up there. They were more than likely down in our apartment too but I just don't remember.
The fight started when someone noticed a roach in the glass of one of the women and commented on it. It was taken as another type of comment entirely and Mom and Dad got out of there quickly. They laughed about it for years afterwards.
There was a terrible thunderstorm one day. Our dog, Rivet
was terrified of storms. He hid under a metal bed frame but the lightning came
through and zapped the bag. He yipped and ran fast out from under the bad,
unhurt but scared.
On Sunday afternoons we would stomp on metal cans so that
they caved in the center and stuck to our shoes. Then we'd tromp up and down the
street seeing who could make the most noise.
Next door to us lived two old ladies. They used to give
us a nickel if we promised not to stomp anymore that day. Sometimes they gave us
the funny papers when they were done with them. I used to think they were nice
until we found a piece of meat lying in the dirt by the fence. Dad said someone
was trying to poison our dog because he barked too much. Dad gave the dog to a
friend because he didn't want to see him killed.
We played a lot of games there. It was summer most of the
time we lived there. Sue and I used to go down to the far end of the block where
the Masonic Temple was. We'd climb up the metal stairs at the back and sit up
there and look out at the back yards around us. Sometimes we'd gather baby
thistle flowers and stick them together to make tiny purple and green pretend
carpets for the pretend homes we’d have someday. Luckily, none of us ever had a
purple and green carpet when we became adults.
Sue started school there. She was supposed to be in Kindergarten but they put her in first and made fun of her because she didn't know anything. She cried and Ma had to go to the school to straighten it out.
We went to the school about 5
blocks away. There used to be a feed store and an Italian restaurant next to it.
Rivet got into the restaurants garbage one day and ran all over town with tomato
sauce on his head making everyone who saw him think he was bleeding.
The school was made of bricks and had a small room that
some of us would wait in for the bell to ring before we went inside. We played a
game there called "Kitty Kitty Corners, All Change corners." The game began with
4 kids and two corners. One kid was in charge and would yell "kitty, kitty
corners, all change corners." Then the three of us would try to make it to a
corner first. The last one being out. One morning I smashed my forehead into the
corner so hard I got a huge goose egg.
We played marbles outside in
the yard. In those days it was nothing for a boy to carry a pocket knife to
school. One of the players would draw a circle with the knife and then dig a
hole in the center. We had two kinds of marbles.
Big fat ones were called shooters. These you
used to bounce other marbles out or to shoot somebody's marble inside. I forget
all the rules now but I do remember being proud of taking my own first bag of
marbles to school. I promptly lost them all not knowing that I was playing in a
"keepers" game. Afterwards, I only played if I knew the rules first. It hurt too
much losing those marbles.
We weren't supposed to play a game called "mumbledy peg"
I don't know why it was called that but it involved the boys mostly, once again
drawing a circle and then making a line across the middle. Then each player,
usually they played one on one, throwing his knife in the circle to see how
close he could come to the center. Then a new line was added to the other,
dividing the circle until one boy "owned" all of the circle. I don't know if
there was a prize or not but if you got caught playing it you had to either stay
in next lunch time or spend the lunch recess standing in a corner of the school
yard.
Across the road from the school was a small store that
sold penny candy. We always loved penny candy. There was a gum ball machine with
special balls inside that were speckled. If you got one of them the owner would
give you a free candy bar. I don't remember ever being that lucky but I think
Millie got one once.
Last I noticed. the school had become a feed store and the
little store became a Stewart’s Ice Cream Shop. I think the feed store is gone
now. I haven’t been back in ages.
Sometimes at night in the dark the big kids would play
games in the street. One of those was "spin the bottle" I was only in second
grade but they let all of us play. If some guy got me he would refuse to kiss me
which was fine by me. They always wanted to kiss Anna or Millie or one of the
older girls.
A
similar game was "ring the kisser" which they played with an old inner tube. I
think it was from a bike.
One night the tallest boy threw it and it went
up and landed on the electric pole where it stayed.
We had a very large empty back
yard with not much grass. In the dark we played games like "Run Sheep Run" or
maybe it was called, "What time is it Mr. Fox?"
When the fox answered it was midnight, he also
yelled "run sheep run" and chased us. I liked that one best.