The 60’s

Growing up in the 60’s ( part 2)

I went to catholic school in the 60’s from 1st to 6th grade -
Yup- catholic school with nuns and all, the runs that cracked your knuckles with a yard stick if you did something wrong.
I walked to school , about 3 miles , that’s right walked to school at the tender school grades of 3rd to six grade - down hill to get there and uphill to get home. We could cut through the woods , my grandmother lived in an apartment on the back street of the school and I would visit her every once in a while. She was my dad’s mom from Portugal and spoke English but preferred Portuguese. She was certainly old school, she had a wash tub in her apartment complete with a wash board.

After school I would help my friend with his paper route and he would pay me by stopping at the penny candy store in between our route, we would also buy pea shooters there and a box of peas for an all out war. They had all the favorites, waxed lips, sugar straws , candy dots, and of course baseball cards.
We biked everywhere too and we use to put the baseball cards on our bike wheels with a cloths pin that smacked the spokes to make it sound like a motor ( or so we thought).

When we went anywhere my friends dogs always came with us, back then you never put dogs on a leash and you certainly never picked up their poop.
We spent hours especially in the summer sitting in each other’s back yards playing cards, poker, high low jack and rummy , when we weren’t playing cards we were throwing a ball around or playing a pick up game. If we weren’t playing cards or sports we were building forts in the woods, up in the trees or on the ground.
We never played in anyone’s house, we were always outside somewhere.