Being a child in Runnemede in the 40s and 50s

As I mentioned at the beginning I started my life in Runnemede -- my time in the town lasted for 22 years -- when I was a year old. We had no town playground. The little league/Babe Ruth baseball field was put in I think in the early 50s. I remember the first time I went to a ball game I was 9 or 10. You know what was so great about those little league games? The french fries from the concession stand, and those frozen Three Musketeers bars. Yummm! No one made fries like those ladies who ran the concession stand.

While I'm thinking about it. On the southeast corner of the Pike and Clements Bridge road, there was a snowball stand -- opened only in the summer. For a dime you could get a great snowcone. My favorite flavor was rootbeer, but I also enjoyed chocolate, grape, and cherry. That was before the 7-11 went in. Way before the 7-11 went in. But that's where it was located.

So what did we do for play in those days before TV, or when TV was just beginning? Well, I remember one day I built a house out of mud. Well, not really, but I laid a good foundation. I found that when my walls were about 4 inches high, they started to implode on themselves. I played with something akin to legos, but they weren't legos. They were made of particle board, or something like that, and they were shaped like bricks. I built houses with those bricks, day in and day out. And where did I do that? On the floor of the only closet in the house -- it was my sanctuary.

No child of mine would ever be able to play on my closet floor, because to me the closet floor is just more space to store things. But not my mom. The closet floor was kept clear, no shoes, no bags, nothing, just me, playing with my bricks.

I recall sitting on the curb on Clements Bridge Road -- something you couldn't do these days because traffic is so heavy on that road -- and I sat there and looked for Studebakers. I loved those cars. My friend, Linda and I, would have contests -- she looked for Fords, and I looked for Studebakers. She always won, but I didn't care. I just like to look for Studebakers. Isn't that silly?

Linda's dad built a playhouse, I would guess it was 6 by 6 and we played with our dolls and I had a doll coach and my mom sewed clothes for my doll, and I was a mommy, as was Linda. Her dad also built a sliding board -- it was made of wood, but it was so smoothe and we never got a splinter. To make it more slippery, we would slide down it on wax paper a few times, then it was really slick. It was higher than any sliding board I've seen in any swing-set kit you can buy today. And, it was not flat, but it was curved at the top and bottom. Linda lived three doors away from our house.

Linda was a 1/2 year old than I, so she started school before I did. And one day, I wanted to go to school because Linda, my best friend was in school, and the 4-year-old mind of mine couldn't understand why she was having all that fun in school, and I was alone in my mom's closet building play houses with play bricks.

So, I marched over to the school and walked in. The school was located across the street from our house -- which really made it convenient for me to walk in. I don't think I got very far before I was escorted from the premises and sweetly told by Mrs. French (the principal) that I would enjoy all the benefits of school in one short year -- easy for her to say -- years are shorter when your "old", but when you're young a year is forever.

Some time I'll post something about schools in Runnemede. I still see those rooms, those tall windows, the cloak rooms. And back in those days there was no lunchroom. I wonder if they have lunchrooms in the Runnemede schools nowdays.