an onion, a coat, or a dollar or two. Doors were often left unlocked even though we had our fill of robberies. Thievery is, after all, the poor man's fight for survival. The poverty of East Siders then had no bottom. Along the curb, a heap of old sticks of furniture — rickety tables, sofas with stuffing poking out, scuffed dressers with cracked mirrors — was the sign of an eviction. You learned not to stare because members of the homeless family hovered nearby. It was a sin to shame them. Even people with jobs hung over the edge of starvation — pay was so miserable. Sick- ness abounded. Children died of measles, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio. Pneu- monia and tuberculosis (or consumption, as it was called then) carried off grownups. We had to escape the grim- ness. A happy make-believe world waited for us at the movies. We went whenever we came by a nickel but the sum- mer vacation was a 10-week film festival. A couple of mornings a week my mother would load a brown paper grocery bag with thick slices of buttered rye bread, bana- nas, apples, peaches and plums, and off I went. The movie houses' original names — The Waco, The Odeon and The Cannon — were lost in the far past. Kids called them all one generic name — The Dump. The movies we saw were westerns, Keystone Kop and Mack Sennett comedies, and serials which always broke off at the point where a train or a herd of stampeding cattle was about to run over the hero or heroine. The piano player, who was also the sound effects technician, fired off blanks whenever a gun showed on the screen. Peach pit and apple core fights among the moviegoers added to the excitement. As the afternoon raced on, we gasped through a cloud of acrid gun powder mingled with the pungent aroma of urine. We dug our hungry fingers into crumpled, greasy brown bags for stray crumbs. The entire show took four hours, after which the lights went on. We were supposed to leave then to make room for the fresh horde clamoring at the front door. We refused to go silent into the afternoon. We were prepared to hold on until nightfall and beyond. The manager came on stage and yelled, "All out!" Such Chutzpah! We responded by ducking under the seats. The manager and his stooge, the usher, would come down the aisles, kicking under the seats. The task was beyond them. With a great roar the thundering herd at the gates would burst through the bar- Hers and sweep manager and usher away. Triumphantly we came out of hiding and joined the newcomers. We were generous in victory. We didn't stay long afterwards. Ironically, since I was destined to spend my working years in a classroom, I found school depressingly dull. Once I discovered joy in the printed word, I drove my lesson for me about how unre- liable the natural order of things was! Rats were sup- posed to run from cats, but nothing was fixed forever. With talent and determina- tion the rats had changed things. Not that I could have described it that way then. Kids learn lots of things they can't express. I never studied Talmud, but I often hung around syna- gogue at sunset. The voices of men bent over ponderous leather-bound books drew me there. I couldn't follow the sharp exchange of thought in Yiddish, even though I had learned that tongue at my Don't walk in pain! We take care of painful cams, bunions, callouses, diabetic foot, arthritis and hammer toes. House calls, transportation available at no extra charge. FREE GIFT on First Visit DR. CRAIG BROD FOOT SPECIALIST - 5755 W. Maple, Suite 111 West Bloomfield We accept most insurance as full payment. No out of pocket expense to you. Call for an appointment. 855-FEET (855-3338) Carmen's I ► den's Clothing "Fine Quality European Men's Fashions" • Principle by Marzotto • Mondo • Perry Ellis • Enrico Vanni elementary school teachers mad by constantly reading on the sly in class. The smart teachers let me go my way. Apart from what I picked up from library books, the streets gave me my schooling. We lived two floors above a poolroom and bakery. The bakery was the scene of a neverending war. The bakery was run by the Basskowitz family. Mrs. Basskowitz and her three children, Mae, Louie and Minnie, tended the store. Mr. Basskowitz spent 18 hours a day down in the cellar baking several kinds of bread and rolls. A squad of over- sized cats kept constant guard on the piles of flour sacks stored in the cellar. The cats should have kept away all bakery-bound ro- dents. Not so. They handled mice all right, but the rats were something else alto- gether. Regularly, rats, regiments of them, swarmed into the bakery basement. They came up from the river, down from roofs, from push- carts, and cheese and pickle works. They were almost as big as the cats but much more ferocious. Every day, cats streaked from the basements into the streets, bleeding and yowling like frightened kids, with fat, sleek-furred, squealing rats close on their torn and tat- tered tails. What a gripping mother's breast. The sing- song and the sweep and dip of thumbs pushing the point of an argument were like operas in foreign languages, beauti- ful and moving without being understood. Where else could I have audited a course in "Marxism for the Masses:' Its poverty made the East Side a favorite target for impassioned street- corner speakers making a pitch for their vision of a new and more just world. Years before "social consciousness" became the in thing for de- pression-era college students, I heard about the evils of Capitalism and the glories of Socialism. I heard phrases like class conflict, production for use not profit, vanguard of the working class, reform and revolution. I understood just enough to be more cautious and skeptical than my peers when I entered college years later. Who gave Charles Dickens a copyright on contradiction? I had a gruesome childhood, I had a marvelous early life. I was disadvantaged, the streets gave me the equiva- lent of a college degree by the time I turned twelve. The ugliness and decay scarred me forever, I packed my memory with image and hap- pening enough to last my life- time. Sugar Tree 6251 Orchard Lake Road West Bloomfield, MI AUTO multi-car AARP member over 55 years old clean record save 851-1994 rHOME 15% 18% 9% 10% 39% save 20% (last 3 years) you save 63% you save 58% FOR MORE INFO — OR A FREE QUOTE save • safety • non-smoker • Over 50 (AARP) save 10% Michael Mostyn Marc Tamassi save save save Call 471 - 0970 Griffin-Smalley, Inc. INSURANCE AND BONDS •Bloom aid Bloom • • Registered Electrologists • Come and let us remove your unwanted hair problem and improve your appearance. Near 12 Mile Rd. bet. 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