Growing Up in Blue Island, IL
I had a wonderful childhood. I had several friends that lived right on my block. We lived at 2208 W. 120th Pl. in Blue Island, an older suburb with lots of hills.
I can remember walking to the general store (to me it was a candy store) at a very young age. Candy was a penny a piece back then and they had a big selection. Some items were 2 for 1 cent.
There was a playground I played at and when I was about 10 I met a family that was renting a house across the street. I had a best friend I will never forget and wished I could have found her later in life. Her name was Patty Mangan and she had a brother Ralph and a younger sister Beth. I hung out with her and her family all the time.
In fact, we both moved to different places around the same time. I think she moved somewhere in Chicago and we moved to Oak Lawn. My Mom took me to her house in Chicago a couple of times but then we didn't see each other anymore. I've thought about her and her family over the years. I always liked her brother Ralph - he was cute.
Besides playing in the park and at her house, I believe we all watched the Beatles first performance in the U.S. on a TV show called The Ed Sullivan Show. I think we even put our money together to buy our first Beatles record.
One of my other best friends, a chubby kid that lived just a couple of houses down, was a boy named Ricky Koehler. There was red-headed Shelly and cute Kim who had a neat playhouse in her backyard. There were the older granddaughters of one of our neighbors who lived in Indiana but would come for extended visits and I'd hang out with them. A few good friends lived a bit farther away - Lynn Mueller lived in a big, custom, modern house that I remember much about today. Her Dad worked for a vending company (or owned it) and one time we visited and it was like a dream - boxes and boxes of candy in a huge warehouse. My other friend was Barb and my Mom would drive me to her house.
Winter in Blue Island
IL is a flat state. You wouldn't know that living in Blue Island with it's hills. And that was perfect for winter fun. The teenage boys would build a snowy/icy slide ramp starting at Ricky Koehler's house (he had an older brother, I think Jeff), curving across the sidewalk and going down as far as they could make it across neighbor's front yards.Every morning they would water and ice it down. The start of the "slide" was a mound of snow that they even carved out a little igloo like space in for the little kids. We'd be helped up to the top (or they might have had a ladder against it - I can't remember) and we'd be on our disk type sled (the round ones) and down we'd go. Sometimes you'd go off the side and have to start over, but most of the rides were all the way to the bottom.
My Dad (your great-grandfather Bud) would take us to Memorial Park. It had a pool for the summer and great snowy hills for sledding. We'd use the round sleds or the regular sleds. Lots of fun!
In the old days when I was a kid, laws were pretty lax. I remember Dad tying our sled to the back of his car and actually driving us slowly through Blue Island streets. He couldn't have gotten away with that in these times!
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