Bedtime Stories

 

Did your parents read you bedtime stories when you couldn't get to sleep when you were a child?

Me, on the right shielding my face from the sun with my hand and my two younger brothers on the side roof from our second floor apartment at 120 Washington Avenue, Downingtown, PA about 1947.

Nah, mine didn't either.

We (my two younger brothers and I slept in the same bed until I was twelve years old) were more likely to get a beating with a belt from our father if we didn't calm down. 

Me, still sleeping in the same bed at eleven years old with my two younger brothers one of whom is already in bed. Again, no bedtime stories this night in 1954

Think I'm exaggerating? Think again.

Not that we were overly abused, this was just the way many if not most kids grew up in the Forties and Fifties. We were all acquainted with The Belt if we misbehaved.

Me, the big kid in the middle holding up a grasshopper next to my face with my youngest brother John (now deceased), sitting with his hand under his chin and my other brother Isaac (who is MAGA now and we haven't spoken to each other in three years now) seated below. The steps behind us lead upstairs to our second floor apartment. See those other kids, they knew The Belt too. That was normal life for us kids in the Fifties of working class parents. Our classmates and friends who had parents who had professional jobs lived on Lincoln Highway, one block over. Behind our street was Cox Alley, that's where the blacks lived. Yep, there were people even poorer than we were, "The Coloreds" as we used to call them in the Forties and Fifties. Of course they were called a more derogatory name back then. I got into trouble when I visited her home once. Even though we were poor, we were not to socialize with "the N word". We were taught racism at a young age. It's how it happens folks. Maybe we were poor and "hillbilly" (which we were actually, my father was a genuine hillbilly from the mountains in western North Carolina, even had the hillbilly accent his whole life, he always called me "Half a Hillbilly." We may have been poor and lived in a dump (rent $22.50 a month) but we were better than the (fill in the blank).

Me siting on that same stoop sixty years later (2010). Funny how that stoop seemed so small now and the stairs leading to our second floor apartment so narrow. The place was still a dump.

My brothers and I were born each a year apart. Sleeping in a clothes basket until we got too big then a bed, we were often rambunctious. "You kids keep quiet in there or I'm sending your father in with his belt to put you to sleep!" And believe me, we didn't want him paying us a visit with his belt. 

My Mother and father and me running  up the stoop. I think this was about 1944 shortly after we moved in to 120 Washington Avenue in Downingtown, PA. That fat little ass of mine received it's share of whacks with my father's belt. 

He did come in, how many times I forget but it wasn't infrequent. We soon developed a way to avoid the worst (direct hits) of his belt. As he removed his belt from his pant loops we would be screaming in pain already even before he landed any hits. We would hold the covers slightly above our bodies and scream like he really landed some hits. Occasionally he did and man oh man that hurt! But mostly he missed after about a half a dozen whacks. Of course we were quiet after one of his visits. Looking back on it now, I think he realized he wasn't really landing any blows but his visits still had the desired effect, we were quiet the rest of the night and they could get to sleep. By the way, a few  years later when I recounted these "whippings" to my Mother she told me, "You were lucky. Take a look at the scars on your father's back. They were from whippings he got from his father." Well, at least our whippings didn't leave scars. He did get a several good licks in though. My father had ten brothers (no sisters). I imagine all of them kept their father's belt pretty busy.

120 Washington Avenue, Downingtown, PA (our apartment building the big building on the left) in 1954, the year we moved from there to Boot Road.

120 Washington Avenue July 2002, still a dump. I doubt if any of the kids who lived in this building ever had bedtime stories read to them. By the way, this is why I always wanted a backyard (like I have now). My formative years growing up, no back yard. Me and my best bud Chubby played down by the railroad tracks. I know the smell of coal tar well! That was the only place we could play, if we played any other place we were usually greeted by "You kids get out of here!" I doubt if those adults who yelled at us read their kids bedtime stories either.

Now, imagine if he or our mom took the tact to her restless sons and said "You boys still awake? Oh, I'll come in and read you a bedtime story." HA! 

I bring this subject up because my dear friend Spo of Spo Reflections recently posted about his idyllic "Father Knows Best/Leave It To Beaver" childhood about coming across a book of fairy tales his mother used to read to him and his younger brothers. 

My hillbilly father at twenty-one years old when he worked for Lukens Steel in Coatesville, PA

My hillbilly father in his favorite attire, a white T-shirt (he professed from the wife beater T-shirts) in 1954 at Gindy Manufacturing Company on Boot Road in Downingtown, PA after we moved from Washington Avenue. He was a charmer to the ladies. Not so much to his kids. The few times I complained about his treatment (mostly annoyance) to his kids, he usually responded "I brought you into this world and feed you! For that your should be thankful!" And I was an am. Funny thing now, I have most of his mannerisms, which shocked me when I first saw myself on a video.

Me with "Pop", which is what we called him, in 1991. This at his three and a half acre home "in the country" (still Downingtown address) on Hopewell Road. He loved to garden and raise chickens. His hillbilly heritage. Still wearing his T-shirt. Notice I keep my distance. I was still an annoyance to him. But he did bring me into this world and fed me. Thanks Pop! By the way, when I came out gay, he didn't care. Thank God I didn't have one of THOSE fathers. Small blessings. My Mom was more upset than he was. She came to accept my gayness but was never comfortable with it. She did love Bill though, who was only four years younger than her.

Bill and my Mom 2001 at our seven acre property in Pennsylvania, one road over from her home. They were best pals. I think Bill was more upset than I was when she died. I was very upset of course, but Bill was devastated. He never got over the loss of her friendship. 

Spo, your childhood was an exception, believe me!

I literally know of no one in my social circle of family, friends or co-workers who were lulled to sleep with either one of their parents reading them bedtime stories. Not a one! How about you Jon of "Lone Wolf Concerto"? Did your dad read you a bedtime story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?

Have any of my readers of this blog have anyone (including aunts, uncles, cousins or grandparents?) send them off to Dreamland by reading to them the fable about the Three Pigs? 

However, even though I didn't have the luxury of having an adult reading me a bedtime story of Cinderella, I did discover there was such a thing as a fairy tale. Probably at school around the third grade when I was ten years old and could read. 

I got me a book of fairy tales and let me tell you folks, I read that book cover to cover......many times. I thoroughly enjoyed each story. Here is list of the stories that I can remember reading and savoring:

Little Red Riding Hood

Cinderella (I was intrigued by Prince Charming, of course!)

The Three Little Pigs

Hansel and Gretel

Goldilocks And The Three Bears

Rapunzel

Jack and the Beanstalk

The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe 

The last one, "The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe" was a fairy tale but I was intrigued because that image of that old beat up shoe and all those little kids pouring out of shoe reminded me of the low rent, cockroach infested apartment building we lived in when I was a kid up until I was twelve years old at 120 Washington Avenue in Downingtown, Pennsylvania from 1943 to 1954. 

I don't know what happened to that book of fairy tales but I treasured it. I think this was the first time I was sent into another world other than the world of white trash chaos in which I grew up at Washington Avenue. Funny thing though, I don't feel like I was deprived by not living in a neighborhood of tree lined streets with verdant lawns and loving attentive parents who had time to read me and my brothers bedtime stories. I was already in our life of harsh reality and didn't know there was that other world until we got a TV and I saw "Father Knows Best" with a mom who always had a pearl necklace with her crisp shirt waist dress, greeting "Jim" when he came home with his briefcase with a hug and a kiss before dinner. "Jim" (the actor Robert Young), would have dinner in his suit. Did any of you reading this blog have dinner with your dad who wore his suit to dinner? Yeah, right! My father always had  dirty, greasy, white wife beater T-shirt. Not even a shirt. That's the way it was folks. Again, we, my brothers and I didn't know the difference because that's just the way it was. This is why I always smile to myself when I read or see someone who had a different childhood. I did have two friends who had parents like that though. My longtime friend (to this day) Bill B. His mother was literally Mrs. Anderson. She had the necklace and shirt waist dress and her house was always immaculate. His father did wear a suit. But then he had a professional job as did my other longtime school mate fried (to this day, we do weekly Zoom calls). His father was a pharmacist. Both families lived in real houses. They could afford it. We couldn't as probably everyone on Washington Avenue. They lived in the high class section of Downingtown, one street over (could well have been a different world), on Lincoln Avenue. Every time I visited I felt like I wasn't even good enough to step across the threshold into their houses. But that's a subject for another blog posting. You know how I ramble on sometimes in these blog posts. 

So no, I didn't have bedtime stories of fairy tales read to me but I'm no worse off because of it.

Me with my Mother and father August 1972. Everything turned out all right.