On a sunny morning in the spring of 1972, I stepped off of my porch at 1861 Weston Ave. and took a good look at the neighborhood that surrounded me.
Four generations of Croisdales lived in my house. It was a duplex, the kind that were commonly erected here in the booming years of industrial growth that preceded the outbreak of World War I.
My great-grandparents lived in the upstairs apartment, while my parents and my brother and I shared the downstairs with my grandparents. Looking back, it seems we were crowded in, but it never felt that way.
There was a front set of stairs that connected the two apartments and that is where company came to call. It was commonplace for people just to turn up at the door in those days unannounced. When they did, we were always happy to see them. We'd invite them in for cake and coffee, and not think about the clock once while they were there.
Today, it is cause for alarm when the doorbell rings. No one just turns up -- no one that we'd let in anyway, just people peddling products or religion, and we hide behind closed curtains in either instance.
The house also had a back set of stairs that ran all the way from the basement to the second floor. Those stairs no one used, no one except me and my kid brother, Damon. I was 8 and Damon was 2, and those stairs were like having some kind of secret passageway built right into our own home.
But I digress. This is about 1972 and the images that I captured of my old neighborhood. Next door was Mrs. Curry. She was my great-grandmother's age, and I loved her as if she was flesh and blood. Rhubarb grew behind her aging, leaning garage, and when it came to harvest it was a treat to eat a piece sprinkled with sugar.
Mr. Jacobs lived across the street. He worked long hours -- I think in one of the city's busy factories -- and he rented one of our two garages to park his new car in, to keep it free from the acid rain that fell on a city with so many smokestacks.
Mr. Higgins lived on the other side of us, and his house had impeccable hedges. Mr. Higgins spent long hours trimming and shaping his hedges, and they surrounded his house like a security fence constructed by Mother Nature. The only things that liked hedges more than Mr. Higgins were the spiders that lived in them. After it would rain their webs would glisten, and I once counted over 100 of them taking up residence at Hotel Higgins.
Three doors down was old mean Mr. Metzger. Every kid called him that, and for good reason. We played a lot of games in the street on Weston Avenue -- touch football, ball hockey and a variation of baseball called "Hotbox" primary among them -- and Mr. Metzger seemingly spent every waking hour just waiting for that one false move.
The second a ball would roll onto his yard he would move with a speed that belied his many years. and he would snatch the ball and would, what to us kids was an unpardonable offense, keep it -- forever! Sometimes old Metzger would sit on his porch while a game was in progress and just glare. He would mutter things like, "That ball better not come on my lawn."
His wife, who looked like she tasted lemons for a living, would sit beside him with a glare that could bore a hole through titanium steel. As a result, no kid ever had a good thing to say about the cantankerous couple, but we did save up our best soap to use on their windows come Halloween.
Speaking of Halloween, Mrs. Brooks, who lived a few doors down, always gave out apples and pennies. We actually ate the apples because no one had ever thought of sliding a razor blade into one and slicing open the tongue of a kid just trying to follow the food pyramid guidelines. Pennies were great currency then because they could be turned into candy at Grobey's corner store on 18th Street, and as a result Mrs. Brooks' house was always very popular on Halloween.
Mrs. Hooper lived up the road and she had a three-legged dog. It was always fascinating to watch that dog adroitly stand on just three legs. While it didn't seem to slow him down much, he did seem angry about his three-quarter status as a dog and I was always careful to walk a wide berth when he was in the front yard.
I had a lot of friends on the street. On the corner of Weston and 18th lived the Routhiers. Bobby, Steve and Sherry were all cool kids, and their yard had a round bush that was often used as a hiding place for empty pop bottles that later would be returned for the nickel deposit.
The Erias kids lived up the block. They had a family of eight -- four boys and four girls. The boys were all gifted athletically and the girls all had smiles that could melt a curmudgeon's heart. Their house was the first of five that all contained kids in my age bracket.
The Pallaci house came next, followed by the McMahons, the Carneys and the St. Onges. Across the street from them were the Grandins and the Nichols, and both families had multiple kids.
Brian Benedict lived on the corner of Weston and 22nd Street, and John Bergey lived a few doors down from him. There was another set of Croisdales, my cousins, across the street from my house, and the Fritz kids lived next to them.
Dale and Patty Fritz would put on a MD Carnival every year -- the ones promoted on the widely popular Commander Tom Show. That year, Patty was a fortune teller and she had a full costume and crystal ball. She was set up inside the hallway at the side door of the Fritz house. "Madam Patty" told me I was going to have a long and happy life and, you know what, turns out she was spot-on.
The Pearsons lived next to the Fritz family, and Kippy Pearson epitomized cool circa 1972. Kippy had long hair and he smoked things legal and not so legal. He listened to Alice Cooper and Led Zeppelin and he had a stash of nudie magazines in his basement. If Kippy said something was cool, it was, and you didn't dare cross him because he would serve his revenge steaming hot, and then give you another dish ice cold for good measure.
So on a sunny morning in the spring of 1972 I stepped off of my porch and I drank all of these things in and I made a note to myself to remember as much of it as I could. My 8-year-old brain couldn't have properly articulated it then, but I knew that I was fortunate to be living where I was, exactly when I was. I sensed that Bob Dylan was right and the times were indeed a changin'.
I also knew that what was coming wasn't better -- in fact it was bitter. And I knew that the next generation of kids was going to get the short end of Niagara's stick.
On a sunny morning in the spring of 2012, I step off of my porch and my head is full of thoughts of the way things were 40 years ago. I think about the kids I knew in the old neighborhood and the rich lives they have led. Then I think about the kids growing up in Niagara Falls today. I think about the transient streets and the run-down buildings. I think about the sense of family my old street had and I know it is a feeling they will never know.
I think about what has slipped through our fingers like sand at the beach. It is spring and the rains have not come, but for this morning at least, my tears will nurture the flowers that have once again come to smile on the neighborhoods of the city that time forgot.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 24 2012 |