Friday, August 20, 2010

More Than a Playhouse

Even though our family was poor by the Great Depression standards, so were all the other families of our Forth Street neighborhood.  No one had a garage, many not even a car and us kids were generally wearing hand-me-down clothes from siblings or cousins.  I wore cousin Shirley's outgrown clothes that mother lovingly altered to fit me.  My photos of that time might see me in a plaid skirt and a flowered blouse and I thought then that I looked perfectly alright.  Can you imagine that my father managed to find some used lumber and build me a playhouse in the back yard?
         
The design was such that one day it could be a miniature home for me and my dolls, another day a fort for the good kids to fend off the bad kids, Sometimes it became a grocery store filled with empty boxes and cans gleaned from our trash cans along the alley.  Probably the best part was when my cousin Horace, who lived just two houses away and was older than me and my friends, built a radio out of odds and ends that actually worked.  We set up an important spy outpost with that radio, a small table and various sturdy boxes to sit on.  Those were really happy, exciting days for not only me and my sister, but also all the neighbor kids who were willing to take on the character that we assigned them to be.
        
The little house also had an attached porch which was perfect for putting on neighborhood plays.  Since I was the owner-manager of the building as well as the star and director of the play it soon became apparent that if there was to be other days of other plays I would have to be far more democratic.  According to my cousin Shirley I was evidently somewhat of a "spoiled brat" at times and that was apparently why my friends and cousins refused to be in my plays. With a little coaxing on my part and an offer to share costumes, the plays continued for awhile, but not very successfully.  Oh well, I could still direct most of the time, but had to give up my hope, once again, of ever becoming a star.   

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