Early memories of Bellerose

A few random memories of our first house where we lived until I was almost 6.  It was in Bellerose, Queens, NY.  89-33 238th Street to be exact.  Basement, first floor with kitchen, dining room and living room, three bedrooms upstairs, somewhere a bathroom.  Attic too. Detached garage. Actually had a coal fired furnace when we first moved there, but I don't remember it or it being converted to an oil burner.  My Mom said we had milk delivered by a horse drawn wagon and if the milkman tarried too long talking to the customers, the horse would move on to the next house.  My sister's best friend Karen Masel lived down the end of the block on the corner.  She had a black cocker spaniel that I thought was the coolest animal.  I still like cockers..maybe that's why. 

Once, the vacant lot across the street went on fire.  The firemen came and quickly extinguished it.  My father's firehouse wasn't far from our house, so the responding engine may have even been from there, but either way, he would have known the responding company.  After it was out, we went across the street and the firemen let me work the nozzle on the hose.  My uncle Tom had bought me a metal model Mack fire engine that looked a lot like the Type L Mack that my father drove.  I could hook a tiny hydrant up to the garden hose and the water would come out the small hose that was attached to a reel on the engine.

Once my sister, her friend Karen, and I ran away from home.  I have no idea why, but we only made it  a couple blocks away to a candy store where we asked the owner for jobs.  Needless to say we didn't get jobs and went back home.  Seems to me that we carried a baby blanket like a hobo sack, but it only had some kiddie books in it.  Our parents were all waiting for us in front of our house.

The Meseroles lived next door.  They had these pedestals with round tops in their backyard made of concrete with what looked like marbles stuck in them.  My sister and I used to pick the marbles out of them.  There's also a story about my sister going into their garage and cashing in their soda bottles for the deposit money, but I don't remember the details. Behind us lived Farmer Stevenson.  He lost an arm in a farm equipment accident and had sold off most of his land, but kept enough to grow some vegetables.  He used to give my Mom fresh corn right off the stalks.  When we moved to East Meadow, his nephew, George Buck had a farm a few blocks from us.  What a coincidence.

Poppy and lightning

I only remember a few stories from Poppy, my father's father, Thomas Heeg.  He grew up on a dairy farm in Elmhurst, NY in the late 1800s.  There were a lot of dairies in Newtown and Elmhurst then.  He drove the milkwagon that was pulled by a horse to deliver the milk.  One time lightning struck and killed his horse and knocked my grandfather off the wagon.  Another time lightning hit the chimney of their barn and set the barn on fire.  Still whenever there was a lightning storm, my father and I would stand out on the stoop and watch the bolts.  Unrelated, but my mother's aunt, possible St. Clare, was holding one of my mother's brothers in her arms when he was a baby and either a bolt of lightning or St. Elmo's fire came through the kitchen near where she was standing.

Dad and Cats

My father hated cats.  He put up a bird feeder that was a square shallow box that he made out of plywood and fastened to a cutoff clothesline pole.  He put that in the clothesline sleeve in the ground when the real clothesline pole wasn't in it.  We had a collapsible clothesline contraption that only used one pole, that you could pull out of the sleeve in the ground and put away in the garage.  We stopped using it when we got an electric dryer, so the bird feeder was up all the time after that.  Anyway, Dad liked to watch the birds and we always had bird seed on hand and threw the stale bread out on the ground that we broke into pieces.  Dad kept a bunch of small rocks on the outside ledge of the bathroom window which was right next to the back door.  Whenever he saw a cat in the back yard, he'd fling open the door, grab a rock and try to nail the cat, giving a distintive, "Pffffshst" sound, and the cat would usually freeze for a second then bolt.  I don't remember him ever coming close to hitting any cat.  Some of his dislike for them may have been from being a fireman and seeing some victim cry, "My baby", sending a fireman rushing into the smoke and flames, risking his life, only to come out with a cat in his arms.  As a kid we didn't have any pets that we'd really stick our necks out for - goldfish, a turtles, parakeets, and a mouse my Mom hated.  All pretty disposable, which was a good thing because no one of them lasted very long. We went on vacation to Smallwood with e the O'Flaherty's and left my Dad home to work.  He decided to give Davy our first parakeet a bath. When we got home there was a little cross in the back yard. Davy probably got pneumonia, pretty common for parakeets.

First Story that comes to mind

Sometime in the early 60s, my parents took us on one of our typical road trip vacations in their 1954 powder blue '54 Chevy.  It was either in July or August and the particular area we were driving through - most likely update NY or Pennsylvania had a lot of gnats.  Of course the windows were open due to the heat, and the ubiquitous Camel and Winston smoke in the car, courtesy of my Dad and Mom, respectively. 

So we are on this two lane country road through some farmland with white horse fencing along the road, and a gnat flies into my father's eye.  He quickly reached to knock it out of his eye, but also in the process knocked the ash off his Camel.  That resulted in an ember burning a tiny hole in his shirt.  That really pissed him off and he hollers, "Jesus Christ, son of a bitch!" and started splattering every gnat he can find on the windshield with his thumb.  My sister and I had to hold our stomachs, we were laughing so hard in the backseat.  My Mom thought it was pretty funny too.  Dad finally calmed down, but I don't remember him ever thinking it was funny.