After the Jewish holidays were over...and
the women wore their beautiful new suits and mink stoles...everyone
in holiday best...after the sukkah was taken down...the dances for
simchat torah were danced...the new year celebrated...atonement
made....came the real beginning of the autumn....pyrocanthus berries
were bright orange...and the cold rain would begin...with just a
few ruby and amber leaves left on the trees....I remember being
an early bird at Maple Avenue School...starting back after an American
cheese sandwich and malted for lunch near my mother's store...from
the candy store on the corner of Elizabeth and Lyons....in little
galoshes over my shoes...a hat with a snap strap under the chin
and a clear plastic umbrella from the bo-peep shop on Bergen Street...
...I can hear the sound of the rain on that umbrella today...with
those big wet maple leaves and the fuzzy balls underfoot...the smell
of the buses roaring up Lyons Ave....as I walked to school...
....passing the upholstery shop in the gray house on the corner
of Bergen and Lyons...up past Schmerele Brothers Furriers...the
great big toy store...the Berkeley Savings....and across the street
was the neighborhood orthodontist, Dr. Kessler...who put wads of
red wax over protruding braces....then continuing along....all the
houses with yellow lamps on in the rain...mothers home watching
soap operas with organ music and Spic and Span commercials...oh
to be home, instead of marching to school...
....watching Tex and Jinx...and Queen for a Day....the Kate Smith
Show with the beautiful Indian princess...and then later, the Magic
Cottage...Superman, yippee!!!and there was Douglas Edwards and John
Cameron Swayzee with the news...and Dinah Shore at night with great
Chevrolet commercials..."see the world today, in your Chevrolet!!!"
.....but on I went to school...walking past Goldfinger's Furniture
Store...across the street, the Regent Florist, the old Acme where
I got my first golden book of Cinderella, my favorite book in the
world...past the brand new post office, so modern looking...and
then under the mighty shadow of the red roofed Beth Israel Hospital...was
there any friend of mine that wasn't born at the Beth?
...then...crossing to the left on Maple Avenue....passing young
Israel synagogue....and finally....
to Maple Avenue School...with the little flag pole and windows
covered with construction paper fall leaves with school paste that
I loved to eat off of the wooden sticks...I can still remember the
wonderful smell of those great big white jars of school paste!!
the bell would ring...and off to the musty, little wooden cloak
rooms...soon it would be time for leggings too and wet mittens...and
then to the little wooden desks with the inkwells....
......there were the Sally, Dick and Jane readers with Puff and
Spot...and all those dreamy pastel perfect family pictures...arithmetic
and music class with Mrs. Schwartz and her pitchpipe...cooking class
making applesauce and writing recipes on index cards...gym with
blue bloomer uniforms and sneakers ...dismounting the big horses
and climbing monkey bars on the wall..... and history class studying
quaint countries...
.......there were no computer labs...no Xeroxes...just wet purple
mimeographs that smelled great....who had ever heard of a place
called Vietnam or a president named Kennedy...or the internet...or
biotechnology....lasers or optic fibers....
......and I remember gazing out the window at the rain in the trees...wondering
what it would be like when I was all grown up...looking out at Pomona
Ave.....and far beyond the horizon...never dreaming what would have
become the dream....
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