Still Here

        Once it becomes a memory it seems it’s there to stay. I see that big radio sitting in one corner, the Sunday funnies all about the carpet, as are Daddy Bill and Jimmy. What’s Lil’ Abner done this week, where is Popeye going. Jimmy’s favorite was Alley Oop, a straight and narrow fellow, who was the splittin’ image of the king, more honest and perhaps more mellow. No Daisy Mae in Alley’s life, just a skinny gal like Popeye’s Olive Oyl.

        A sort of middle room with a RCA Victor Phonograph in a corner. About once a week they set up the card table: ugly Russell Houk joined them, later I was the fourth for Spitzer. There was a wooden icebox in the kitchen at first, later a refrigerator. I remember the icebox fairly distinctly, and next to the doorway leading out the back way.  I see the stairs to the second floor, I see a bedroom clearly. There was a bedroom downstairs too, a small room tucked in oddly. Along the front the unheated sunporch, used only in the summer. A front stoop in the front of it where Jimmy sat and waited for Daddy Bill to get off the 2 to 6 shift.

        There was a Horse Chestnut tree out back with a swing there just for Jimmy.

So many special things for that pampered little boy. Even a small wooden play house with an adjacent sandbox for that toddler and his friends. Across the yard was the old wooden garage, housing a ’36 Plymouth.  

And I see our neighbors, her name Stella
Her husband Earl was a wonderful fella
Down the street was Grampa Smith
A friendly old man I played Pinochle with
At the corner at State Street a grocery shop
Where I bought my candy and my pop
My house was big when I was small
After I grew up, not large at all
Lake Huron was just one street away
In the summer we were there most every day
They say that all those folks are dead
But they’re living here inside my head
Memories of the distant past
Quite amazing how they last