handball anyone?

Today while I was walking the track in the gym, I noticed a nice big area where a person could actually play handball! Something totally foreign to the population of Bethlehem Pa.

When I grew up, East 10th was a one-way street lined with red brick apartments on one side and tiny pastel single and double story homes on the other. On a warm day, windows would be open, lace curtains swaying in the breeze. The Police Athletic League would close the street to traffic in the summer. They would set up volley ball, hopscotch and shuffleboard, and put a sprinkler device on the hydrant. People would sit on the stoop or in the areaway, watching the children play in the sprinkler. Aromas would mingle and settle, almost permanently, of mostly corned beef and cabbage and garlic and tomato sauce. You could also smell cigars, incinerator smoke, and wet laundry hanging from the many clotheslines strung from building to building or from a building to a clothes pole. Certainly the odor of beer, wine and whisky would also drift around, not just from open windows, but the corner bars with their doors open most of the time. One could hear the strong brogues of the Irish, the many dialects of Italian spoken or more likely, shouted! Every few years someone would paint the brick buildings and if they were ambitious, paint all of the mortar too. Perhaps the trim on the little frame homes would be freshly painted or shingled. A few luckier ones could afford aluminum siding. Most of the small homes had wood picket fences. Ours was a metal cyclone fence, all around the front yard. When Halloween came, we'd fill an old sock with flour to whack each other, and wore old clothes. We would also buy fat chalk and scribble on everything. For Thanksgiving we'd dress up like beggars and go to homes asking "Anything for Thanksgiving?" We would receive plump, ripe tangerines, walnuts and sometimes a few cents if we were lucky. At Easter time, one would see everyone parading up and down in their new finery bought just for the occasion. Hats in every imaginable design and color, most with flowers could be seen all over. When there was a wedding, most of the neighbors would turn out to see the bride leave for church. There would be much oohing and ahhing and picture-taking. Stickball was a great pasttime. Boys and girls played together using sewers for bases. You used a Spalding ball and I was always welcome to play since my house, was always open to anyone needing medical assistance from the block's favorite nurse. Moms weren't too happy when the broom-handle "bats" got broken. Trucks with rides would delight the younger children. There were bumper cars and a giant swing called the "Halfmoon" and lots of squealing when the truck owner would push it higher and higher. There were pie, soda and ragman trucks that came around, as well as a vegetable and fruit truck. Bungalow Bar, Good Humor and Mr. Softie fortold the end of the school year, the coming of summertime and swimming every day in our huge Hendon pool in the backyard. There was all that begging to be allowed out after dinner. There was stoopball, boxball, hit the penny and there was handball...

Life was less complicated then and sometimes I miss that.