More Childhood Memories of
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Provided by John
Babina (Edison 1955, Hall 1956, Notre Dame 1961; and Success Park)
Picking up Popsicle sticks out of the gutter and weaving those wooden
rafts. Buying fake wax mustaches, false teeth and lips at the candy store, candy
cigarettes with real advertising logos on the "pack". Getting the toy out of the
bottom of Cracker Jacks. Mary Jane's pulling out a tooth filing. The
dentist had the old slow speed drills - ugh! Novocain was a separately priced
option - administered only if it really hurt! Remember the vegetable dye
transfer "tattoos" that were all the rage. Buying authentic looking rubber
spiders (some kids put them on the bananas at the TipTop grocery store.) The sky
covered with kites in the Success Park ball field in the early days of spring.
Some strings got caught in the TV antennas and would fly the kite by themselves
for hours in a steady breeze. Milk freezing in the bottles on the porch and
pushing the cardboard lid up out of the bottle. Clothes frozen stiff on the line
(they had to be carefully thawed!) Mom's sheer curtains being dried on these big
wooden frame curtain "stretchers" in your backyard. Making wooden "go-carts"
with abandoned baby carriage wheels (with the baby boom there was no shortage of
wheels). Open flame kerosene "smudge pot" lights as motorist hazard warnings
along construction sites on Success Avenue. Hiking in the "woods" behind Betty
Ann's Bakery, building a camp fire and baking potatoes in the coals. X-ray
fluoroscope machines in the shoe stores. Pair of sneaks tied together and thrown
over the power lines. Weaving potholders on a frame and selling them door to
door. Clear plastic water pistols. Baseballs covered in black tape. Making a
ball of used string, making a ball of rubber bands, making a ball of metal foil
from discarded cigarette packs (Why did we do that?). The loud piercing
whine of gas powered model airplanes that had to be controlled by wires - the
operator had to stand in the middle and rotate with the plane. Finding a "grain
of wheat" penny "tails up" was good luck. Collecting 1943 steel pennies from the
war era. playing marbles, playing mumble-e-peg with a jackknife, playing
hang-the-butcher spelling game, playing "knuckles", a card game. The Old Maid
card game. Hula-hoop craze. John Nagy "Learn to Draw" kits from his 50s
"hit" TV show (with Venus-Paradise color pencil kits from Grumbacker's. Nagy
also did "Famous Artists Correspondence School"). Getting a real "siren" for
your bike that worked by rubbing the impeller driver on the rubber tire. Blue,
red and green color cellophane to put over your black & white TV picture
tube to create cheap color. If you did not have a color set - you said " we're
waiting for it to be perfected"! Bubble magnifier for small TV picture tubes.
The rooftop Bead Chain billboard that lit the giant light bulb each time the
animated chain got "Pulled". The Spanish cannon at Seaside Park point - some
"unidentified" kids were known to throw lit cherry bombs into the muzzle to
simulate cannon fire. People walking out on the Seaside Park breakwater at low
tide and getting trapped by high tide - it was not connected to dry land!
Parking and watching planes land at Bridgeport Airport with your parents was
something to do for a typical Sunday drive. Taking the younger kids on the
miniature amusement rides on Boston Ave. or at the airport. A trip to Savin Rock
was one of the biggest treats you could get on a Sunday afternoon.
Visiting the futuristic "Talgo" train (June '54) parked at the Bridgeport train
station (in the '50s). Patrick B. McGinnis, controversial president of the
railroad, order the train in a lost cause attempt to salvage the collapsing NY,
NH and Hartford RR passenger service. The futuristic Talgo featured one long
articulated cabin - there were no doors between "cars"! They painted the
adjacent columns of the Bpt. RR station red, white & blue and handed out
coloring books to the kids. (Remember the UTC - Sikorsky Turbo Train (late 60s)
that also tried to revive passenger traffic after the Penn-Central takeover.)
Remember the thunderous rumble of the station structure when regular trains came
through the old wooden elevated station. Remember the old station had gargoyles
decorating the tower? The old passenger cars that never got washed - you could
not see out the windows. I was there when a big trailer truck went under the
lower (wrong) station underpass and peeled its aluminum roof off like a sardine
can. It made a loud bang and sprayed rivets all over Fairfield Ave. Remember
when the Beardsley Park Zoo was free. The Tarzan swing at Bunnell's pond
(located where the RT 8-25 connector took a piece of the pond). Did you know
that the two piers, still visible in Bunnell's pond, were for an ice house? My
dad saw it burn down and the fire took out the houses on the adjacent street
near the dam. Buying giant blocks of ice at the ice company for picnics. You put
in a quarter and the block was dispensed out of a chute! Back to back hurricanes
(Carol Aug '54 [60 deaths] & Dianne Aug '55 [184 deaths]) blacking out the
lights at Success park - going out briefly in the eerie calm when the "eye" went
by - shocked by the big trees that came down. The valley towns were wiped out.
If your parents had essential business in the valley during clean-up, they had
to get typhoid shots. Remember when Veterans' Day was called Armistice Day? Kids
would shinny up the drain pipes to retrieve balls landing on the flat 2 story
roofs of the Success Park buildings. The introduction of the "wiffle ball" ('53)
ended the reign of the Spaulding pink ball. (The precursor to the wiffle ball
was a plastic practice golf ball with holes - my dad had used those and we hit
those with broom sticks.). The big deal when Alaska & Hawaii became
states. (The US "officially" had a 49 star flag for one year - It flew over the
White House and Capitol. Nobody bought any since they knew it was changing to
50) The not so big deal (by today's standards) when "under God" was added to the
pledge. Remember when adding fluorine to the water supply was controversial, and
for some "a communist plot" . . . a sign of "creeping socialism". We lived
through the red scare, McCarthyism and black listing on TV. Teflon coated pots
would make you "sick". Aluminum pots were unhealthy. Cranberry sauce was
"contaminated". Eisenhower ate cranberry sauce on TV to "save the industry". The
world came to a halt when "Uncle Miltie" (aka "Mr. Television") was on Ch. 4 on
Tuesday nights. (Milton Berle's show, called the Texaco Star Theatre, was
responsible for a huge increase in TV set sales, the proliferation of antennas
at Success Park & Canaan Village and the demise of many movie houses.)
Remember when old used jelly jars were pressed into service as thermos
bottles? If I had to take some milk with me, a washed out jelly jar with waxed
paper screwed under the lid became a leak-proof "gasket". We also used waxed
paper to preserve fall leaves by ironing the leaves between the sheets (irons
were protected by another sheet of paper) to give them a coating of wax.
Remember pea shooters? How about Flexible Flyer sleds. And yes! . .
. the snow was deeper in our day!
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