Chapter 5

When I was a young child, we lived in a neighborhood just across the Rouge River from Delray. This was kind of an extension of Delray in that ethnic Hungarians heavily populated this area bounded by Fort Street to the west and the railroad tracks on Pleasant Avenue to the east just before River Rouge. It also contained a good number of ethnic Italians and Poles. Italians lived there too because it was close to the area along Oakwood Boulevard which was chiefly an Italian neighborhood.

My earliest memories as a child are from when we lived in a small house on Liebold Street. This is where I played outdoors with all my Hungarian and Italian young friends of the same age. The Joseph Toth family lived next door and their son Martin Toth became my life-long friend. We played such games as “kick-the-can”, “hide-and seek”, and “tippy” out on the street or in a vacant lot.

In the summer we would wait for the ice delivery truck to come by. While the delivery man carried a large block of ice with tongs to an upstairs flat, we youngsters would reach under the canvass that covered the ice behind the flat bed to grab a small chunk if ice on a sweltering day. We thought it was “gold” and we were getting away with something, but actually looking back, the small pieces of ice were so insignificant that the deliveryman would have cared less even if we were caught in action.

Just to the north of our neighborhood was the Rouge River. As youngsters, we would cross the railroad tracks to get to the river where there was place where the river was shallow and surrounded by cattails. This was our swimming hole we called “BAB” or bare-ass beach. On a hot summer day, we boys would take off all our clothes and take a swim. Even though it was part of the rouge river, the water was clean. However, once my dad found out that I was going there, it became off-limits.

About the same time, there was a big ship that caught fire in the river near that location. People came from all around to watch the ship on fire and the effort to put the fire out.

When I was in about the first or second grade of school, we moved a block or so away to where my parents bought a small grocery store on Pleasant Avenue. We lived in the living quarters above the store. There were several other small grocery stores likes ours in the immediate neighborhood. Ours was in the middle of the block between Liebold and Patricia Streets. Papp’s Grocery was right next to ours on the corner of Pleasant and Patricia. Further down, there was another small grocery store on the corner of Liddlesdale and Pleasant. Next to Papp’s grocery there was a bar and restaurant just before the streetcar tracks. Behind the bar building was one of those old dirt floor bowling alleys where the men would gather to play and drink in a small patio area. From that area, they would bowl the balls toward the pins, which were located in front of a very high wooden fence that blocked the balls from going outside. We called the bowling with the small bowling balls and pins “kugli). I used to climb over the fence in the evening when the men were playing to set pins for them. Every once in a while the men bowling would yell down to me, “gyere ide kis fiu.” I would run up to them and they would give me some change, a quarter or so. I felt like a millionaire at the time. I was making money!In the summer there seemed to be a Hungarian picnic somewhere every Sunday afternoon. My parents would attend these and the one at White Acres Park near Trenton also had one of these “kugli” bowling dirt lanes with the long wooden “V” shaped ball-return track. Of course, this was just another opportunity for me to set pins and make some money. Even more than that though, I can still hear the music and see all the people dancing to Gypsy music in the pavilion. Everyone had a good time to relax with friends and relatives at the end of the week.

Of course the war was still ongoing. At our store certain foods were rationed and there were signs hanging from the ceiling on what was rationed and what kind of rationing stamp was required for purchase. The store had a meat counter and high shelves all around the walls. We had to use a kind of “grab stick” to take items off the high shelves. Baskets of apples were left on the floor and so were eggs that came in large two-compartment wooden crates. Lard came in a large five or ten gallon tin container. Oysters also cam in a large similar container and my dad would open up the lid and eat the slimy thing right out of the container.

Bananas came in bunches still on the stalk with the bananas facing up on the stalk. We hung the stalks of bananas in the basement and only brought up a few “hands” at a time to sell in the store upstairs. It was still like this even into the 50’s when I worked there while in high school for my aunt Helen and Uncle Dick who later bought the store from my parents.

Our store sold chickens and turkeys that were kept live in a separate building behind the store. There was a concrete smokehouse there too where my dad would smoke meats such as ham and “kolbász” sausage. The chickens and turkeys were pre-ordered by the customers and my parents would slaughter them in the basement of the store. I remember feathers and blood were flying everywhere during the process.

I remember walking to the grade school around the corner from our store. It was located on the corner of Liebold and Lenard Streets and was therefore called Liebold-Lenard School, but we kids called it the Chicken Coop, because that is what the yellow building looked like. I went there from kindergarten to the third grade. I still remember some of the teachers and a lot of what occurred there. My third grade teacher was Mrs. Tate. My first fistfight was with bigger kid named Jimmy Compania (Sp.?) and he scratched my face all up. I didn’t even know how to fight back and I just stood there, but my dad told me I better learn quickly and so I did. Next time I hit him in the face with my fist and he never bothered me after that. When the war ended, factory whistles blew and people were happy making all kinds of noise like beeping their car horns and pulling empty cans on ropes behind their cars. In order to take part, I stood in front of our store beating a big steal washtub with a stick. A friend of mine had a violin and he played it while I beat the tub. We didn’t make good music, but we made a lot of noise for the happy occasion. The trouble was, as youngsters, we really didn’t completely understand what the fuss was all about. Frank Toth, the musician, opened a barbershop right next to our store. I still remember when he was remodeling the building and erecting mirrors on the wall for his barbershop. He and my father became very good friends for the rest of their lives. They became godfathers or “koma” to each other as the years went by. Later, after the war, Frank built a new barbershop on Fort Street in what eventfully became Southgate.

Driving into Delray from Pleasant Street after the War ended, I remember there was a gas station on Fort Street that sold “JOY” gasoline. My dad remarked, “Look 10 gallons of gas for $1.00.” Why this stuck in my mind I don’t know, but I think he was happy that gasoline was no longer being rationed. Compare the 10 cents per gallon for what we pay now!