My earliest recollection begins when I lived with my maternal grandparents at 3907 Ridge Avenue. They had a five bedroom, three story row house that sat directly across from Laurel Hill cemetery. I slept on the third in the front bedroom in a crib that overlooked the cemetery. I shared that room with my older brother Michael, who was two years older than I. When I was about two years, he decided to tease me, as was his nature. Michael was a mischief maker and enjoyed scaring me. I remember being in my crib while he told me a ghost was in our closet. I am not sure whether the wind or my brother shut the closet door, but I hid under my blanket and my brother—who scared himself—ran down the stairs.
Michael was a handful. I remember coming upstairs once to see my grandmother crawling out the middle second story window onto the roof to retrieve him. Another time she ran out the back door into the yard as he tried to climb over the fence. He was nicknamed “monkey” because he was always climbing a wall, fence or roof. He even liked to take me for walks along the train tracks in our East Falls neighborhood. It’s a wonder we survived into adulthood, and a wonder we didn’t give my poor grandmother a heart attack or stroke.
One of my fondest memories is kneeling on a chair at the kitchen table, watching my grandmother roll out dough for pies. I can still see the flour dusting the table, the rolling pin waiting to be used, and the steady rhythm of her hands. I remember her washing the laundry with a wringer washer, then hanging the clothes on a line in the backyard or in the cellar when the weather was bad. I would sit on the cellar steps and watch my grandfather shovel coal into the furnace; the flames shot red, orange and blue. Coal was delivered by truck through a coal chute in the cellar window, filling a bin inside the house. I can still hear the sound of coal hitting that bin.
