Bouncing Balls; The 5 and 10 Cents Store; Santa Claus and the Radio.

Bouncing Balls; The 5 and 10 Cents Store; Santa Claus and the Radio.

While we lived on Buttonwood Street, I was fascinated with balls. There was the game of Jacks, with the ball about only an inch in diameter, and balls of varying sizes larger than that, for different games. Many of them had stripes around them, stars, circles, and other figures, in red, white, and blue.

One day I was given some change to go to the Five and Ten Cents Store to buy a ball. I had to walk quite a distance down into the midst of Plymouth, almost to where the St. Stephen’s School was that I would attend for third and fourth grades.

What excitement that was for me! There were so many balls on display, in various compartments on the showcase, with heavy glass panes about three or four inches high, to separate the different sizes and uses.

I looked and looked, feeling the ball, turning it ‘round and ‘round, trying to decide which one I would buy. I think what I wanted was one that could be grasped with one hand. I was looking for one just right so I could play Bouncy-Bouncy-Bally.  What a pleasure to find and buy ‘just the right one’!

That was a very popular game. You bounced it in front of you and lifted one leg over the ball as it bounced up. We certainly got our exercise that way! You’d bounce and lift one leg up over the ball before it would bounce again, repeating this maneuver while you sang little ditties, as long as you didn’t make a mistake hitting the ball with your leg, or the ball bouncing away.

It is somewhat like Jumping Rope. At least you could play alone if you didn’t find a girl you could play with. You needed a trio of girls to play

Jump Rope: two to twirl the rope and one to jump, taking turns with each other. In Jump Rope you sing little ditties as in Bouncy-Bouncy-Bally.

Today when I think of this little trip downtown I am wondering if my Mom went with me, and I studied all those balls while she was busy buying something else. It could also have been when a young aunt of ours would come to visit and go along with us. I dislike thinking that a child would walk all that way alone. But I guess we were old enough by the time we had to go to St. Stephen’s School.

And there’s another thing – things were different in those days. There was a feeling of safety.

While living in the house on Poplar Street, we sometimes listened to the radio. There was a special program on the weekdays during the Christmas Season, and at the beginning of the program you would hear genuine sleigh bells ringing and sometimes during the program. Then ‘Santa Claus’ would call out the name of a child who wrote a letter to Santa Claus, with a kind and happy voice.  

(The children’s parents would mail the letter to the radio station, and the people there would have it taken to the North Pole to give to ‘Santa Claus’. Or perhaps ‘Santa Claus’ came by frequently to read the letters to get things for his list… ?)

Each letter would be read aloud, by ‘SANTA CLAUS’! We could listen attentively. He would tell what the letter was about, and the things that the child would like. Imagine the thrill of hearing your name on the radio and his reading what you wrote (or had Mom or Dad write for you), about what you would like Santa Claus to leave for you on Christmas Eve. Such joy to be had by listening to him in his “Ho-Ho-Ho”

voice! The program would last for fifteen minutes, and you would eagerly await the next day’s program.

I also liked the music that was played on the radio, and the announcer saying what the title of the song was. How I loved the sounds of the Big

Bands! There were so many well-loved bands and orchestras during that time period of the late 1930s and early 1940s.

I learned how to do the polka in the living room of that house, by doing the polka steps in the foot-wide border of the rug. My Dad helped me to learn. I remember dancing with him as he was showing me how to move my feet. To this day I love dancing and dance music.

Google Bouncy, Bouncy Bally, to hear and read the words. Nostalgia!

I'll see you at the Corner Post...