Volunteers are the heart and soul of the DeSoto Arts Council, and they have worked very hard and joyfully to hold an Open House on November 13, just a few days ago, to introduce the public to the arts group’s new headquarters in Hernando, MS.
In my blog of November 15, 2011, I was using the wrong name of “The Art Museum Collection” and “Art Museum” – I am very sorry.
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In the 1940s, we lived in a few places in Larksville, a coal town adjacent to Plymouth, in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania. Two small apartments on Buttonwood Street, and a bigger place on Poplar Street, one street north of Buttonwood Street. It was a coalmining area, with culm banks in the neighborhood, in several places. Some homes were right at the very edges of the culm banks.
The streets and alleys were dusty with coal dust: porches and steps, porch railings, everything was layered with coal dust. We children would get very dirty from playing outdoors.
Sometimes we would even play at the edges of the culm banks, and we would look like the miners, somewhat dirty, but not as black.
Our Dad would come home from the mines all dirty, clothes almost black from the grime of the coal. He would take a bath in the kitchen, in a round galvanized bath tub. He would take off his shirt and undershirt, and kneel down on the floor by the tub, and lean over the warm water in the tub to wash his face, then arms, and then his torso. I remember how he would wash his hair. Fascinating, to a child.
Then we would have to go into the other room or outdoors to play, while he washed the rest of his body.
A memory of him, walking home from work, comes to mind – he was carrying his lunch pail, with almost black hands, his cap was so dirty, his pants and shoes, shirt, and his jacket, and his face, everything, being grimy black, truly as black as coal.
I was playing outside and saw him coming up the alley. As I came closer to him, I could see his eyes and nostrils and lips. His eyelids were dirty but the whites of his eyes shone white and there was a very thin pink line on the insides of his eyelids. His nose was as dirty as his cheeks, with the nostrils black as coal from breathing in all that coal dust. His lips, face, chin, were black – all except the pink inside of his lips. His ears were black, and the inner parts of his ears were even blacker.
He came home from work always looking very tired.
On Poplar Street, we lived in a duplex: one side was ours, with basement, first floor, and second floor, with a yard on one side, our side, to play in. The duplex did not face Poplar Street, although our address was Poplar Street. The front of our house faced an alley parallel to both Poplar Street and Buttonwood Street. We lived between the two main streets, with the alley between the two streets.
The people on the other side were the Durkesh family. There were Mike and Alvina, the parents, and their three sons Tommy, Mickey, and Vincey. There was a space of a few years between the older boys and Vincey. He was just about my age, I think. Their dad worked in the mines, too. I remember that Alvina (Mrs. Durkesh) had red hair and lots of freckles. She was a lovely woman, and kind.
At Christmas time, people would invite their friends to come to their homes to see the Christmas Tree and the usual layout beneath the Christmas Tree. Almost everyone would have some decorations under the tree, most of the time it was a miniature village or two with trees, little model railroad sets, some with mirror ‘ponds’ and ‘lakes’, houses, school, fire station, and miniature people.
It was always so lovely to see the different layouts, different styles, at all these homes. There was a large, and I mean it took up almost all of the room... layout at the home of the Akromis family, and a medium-size layout at the Durkesh house.
There was the Griscavage family, too, we were friendly with them. They had a girl named Dorothy and she and I would put on a show for each other for entertainment, usually in the summertime. Their house was situated on a little incline, with the first floor at the Poplar Street level on the front of the house, and the basement level at the back of the house. They used the basement door as their usual entrance to their house. In that area, there was a porch swing where Dorothy would sit and I would sing or dance, and she would clap her hands when the “performance” was over.
Then we would switch places and there would be another ‘act’, of singing, dancing, or a game of some kind. Sometimes we would try to name automobiles by saying a name beginning with A, then B, and so on. Or movie stars, using the alphabet again. I remember Sonja Henie, and some other of the movie stars of the time. I think I remember that Dorothy’s dad was Stanley, and her mom was Helen. Dorothy’s house and my house were back-to-back with a little bit of yard for both houses, with a fence separating the yards. You might say that our little neighborhood was a bit crowded.
Elaine Mock was another friend in my neighborhood, on Poplar Street. Her dad was Joe Mock. He had a brother named John Mock who lived one or two doors up the hill on Poplar Street, from the Griscavages. I think Mr. John Mock was a policeman or police chief.
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