Growing up on the Streets of Philadelphia

To some extent, I can feel what it is like to be an immigrant to America. My father emigrated from Lithuania when he was eight years old. Actually it was From Scotland that he emigrated. His parents had left their home in Lithuania for the coalfields of Scotland a couple years earlier. They left Scotland for the coalmines of Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania as soon as they saved up enough money to come to America.

By the time I was born in 1938, we were living in Philadelphia. My father had changed his Lithuanian name of Sentilitus to Daley. He changed his name to a more American sounding one when he took up prize fighting. Sentilitus was too long to fit on the fight card. Daley sounded a bit like Dempsey, one of dad’s heroes. I never saw my dad fight. He left the fight game before I was born. “I had over two hundred fights and never knocked out. I was what they called a crowd pleaser. I never backed off no matter how much punishment I took. I fought three fellows who later became lightweight champs, and beat the three of ‘em. I was never a contender myself. If you don’t got the right manager, they don’t book the right fights…. I never got no education. That was my big mistake. I dropped out’a school in the sixth grade. When you ain’t got no education everyone takes advantage of you….” my father told me.

Though he was no longer in the “Fight Game” my father stayed a member of the local boxing association as long as he lived. He took us to see a boxing match now and then. He even bought boxing gloves for my brother and I. He taught us “the old one two,” jab and follow up with a right cross. We use to box with the neighbor kids out in front of our house on 13th Street. It was lots of fun ‘til he has to pawn the gloves and lost them along with his pin stripe suit.

The first thing I can remember is our three-room apartment about a half block up from Berks. I remember, my brother and I took a long walk up to Susquehanna Avenue one day. We were looking in a pawnshop window admiring the horns and guns and jewelry and stuff. Then, we forgot how to get home. We stopped a red car and told the cops we were lost. Luckily, my brother, Joey, remembered our address. The cops drove us home. Everyone was out in front of their houses looking at the red car.

A little later we moved to 1859 N. 13th Street. We rented a first floor three-room apartment with a front yard. When we first moved in there was a green iron gate around the yard. The grass was green and the landlord kept it mowed. My brother Joey and I slept in a bed in the front room. My two younger sisters slept in a fold down couch across the room. My Mom and Dad slept in a bed in the middle room with our baby brother. I remember there was a suitcase under the bed that we use to keep some of our clothes in. The third room was the kitchen where we spent most of our time because the radio was there. We had access to the basement also. And after the landlord closed his shoemaker shop,the basement was all ours.

The landlord, Mr. Algernon had a shoe repair shop on the left hand side of our apartment. We use to spend a lot of time in their watching him cut leather to repair shoes. He had several hand machines and I loved the smell of hot leather when he worked a machine. Later, he put in a penny pinball machine. He use to let us play and give us lots on free games. He would send us across the street to the drug store to get the newspaper for him, the five star edition.

On the right side of our apartment there was a cleaners. You could see inside it from a glass door on the other side of our bed. The cleaner lady, Jane, use to give use money when we stopped in to say hello, sometimes, as much as a dime. We would run as fast as our legs would carry us right across the street to the Temple Drug Store to buy penny candy.

The drug store was a neat place to hang out. Besides penny candy, they had a counter where you could buy a slice of cherry pie, or a fountain soda. One time my mom sent me over to get a tomato sandwich when I told her I was craving one. Sometimes on payday, or if he was winners at the weekly poker game, my dad would take us to the counter for a milk shake of a banana split.

They had two pinball machines right as you enter the store, me and my brother, Joey, use to stand for hours watching the older kids play. And, every once in awhile they would let us play if there were games left when they were ready to leave. The girls from Temple University use to come in for breaks and lunch. They always told us how cute we were. Sometimes they would buy us each a soda.

There were two phone booths in the back of the store. Once I heard the phone ring and it was my mother’s friend, Hazel. She was calling to get someone to run over to our house to tell my mom she was on her way. I thought it was so weird that I’d answer the phone and it would be for our family. Of course, back then in the early forties, you had to be rich to have your own phone. People would call a store nearby and someone would always be willing to run over with the message.

Whenever aunt Hazel came over, it was party time. She would always bring a big jug of wine, potato chips, and sodas for us kids. She was my mom’s best friend. My dad hated her because she would never come around unless she brought drink. Mom and Hazel would sip on the wine and share the crackers and sharp cheese with us kids. The more they drank the happier they got. After a couple sips, my mom would break out her harmonica and start playing, A couple more sips and her and Hazel would begin sing all the old hymns.