How Far Back Can I Remember

We lived on the second floor of a tenement. We were only a family of four, mom, dad, me and brother Ronnie. I was very young but impressions of that time are still vivid in my mind. I remember there was a lady that lived upstairs and who stayed in a wheel chair. She had suffered from Polio. She never left her apartment. Her name was Nellie and she had hair as white as the sand dunes in Massachusetts. She wore glasses and was very kind. She liked to look out her picture window facing the street and watch the world skate by.

Every couple of days the milk man would deliver milk in glass bottles with rich, thick cream on top. When the milkman would pull up to the corner my brother and I would rush down and with other neighborhood kids beg for ice. We loved the way it tingled on our tongues. He would scoop into his silver colored bins and give us a handful. That felt like a wondrous treat. He wore a striped uniform and a cap that looked like he was a train conductor. He was our milkman.

There was a black man who would drive a cart pulled by an old, tired out horse. Clop, clop on the pavement and we knew the ‘Ragman” was coming. “Rags, rags,” he would bellow. I wondered why anyone would want rags but later learned he collected them and sold them. I am told he put a family through college on his income from those treks throughout the streets of Providence.

We were not attending school yet and our time was spent making up games, playing hop scotch, all within the confines of our little yard, which was mostly cement. My biggest pleasure came from exploring the basement; musty smelling, but neat as a pin, I would peruse all the books that had been stored away on shelves. I was always looking at books. They fascinated me and it was the beginning of a life long love of books. I would pull them off the shelves and look for pictures. I was not yet reading. There was a coal bin at the corner of the basement and sometimes when I was down there the coal delivery man would come. I would hear the tumbling of the black, shinny spheres of earth fill up the bin. I could smell the unique smell of coal, mixed in with the damp musty smell of the basement and the unique fragrance of old books. I was always one to use all my senses whenever possible.

I don’t remember how long we lived there but it is the smells, and impressions and routines of days gone by that are with me until today.