Nostalgia is what it used to be, at least for me.
Ahhh . . . memories
It has been a while since I have written for my blog. Since neighborhood and family will be an integral part of my writing hereon in, I thought I might start with this piece …
Life holds a knapsack full of memories – all of them significant; many, if not most, are worth recording. Growing up in a neighborhood of family and friends was a journey to cherish. That neighborhood and the people living, working, and playing there, though from diverse ethnic backgrounds, had strong traditions of family, caring, and mutual respect. I will write about them.
I was grateful for the simplicity of the time, and though I know I can never return, my mind does.
Memories of growing up gave me the incentive to write, and there is no end. These essays of my past assure its permanence for me … of necessity perhaps … to honor not only those who I have loved but also to honor the time in which we lived. I define myself with stories that relive the fun of my early years in a small, easily managed world. It was like a club; one I could enter and leave as I wished. When I entered that club, I was comfortable. When I left, I wanted to re-enter.
Save for the memories, there is little left of the neighborhood and the weave of families that helped to shape my life. These essays are a sentimental glance to a time that made me what I was to become. What I write of stores, streets, schools, houses, sidewalks, streetcars, telephone poles, gardens, neighbors, and friends was in a small world on a few city blocks.
The neighborhood was a savory stew of people, immigrants, their children, and their children’s children. There was not a face or a voice I did not recognize. Most were Italian or Irish. While my grandmother was singing Vicin ‘u Mare, my mother was singing Fascination, I was singing Earth Angel and someone else was singing Danny Boy. We not only melted into America, but we also melted into each other.
