The "COOL" Streets of Detroit, tponetom

The Cool Streets of Detroit, circa1938!

Phoenix: Elevation: 1100' - 114 degrees
Tucson: Elevation: 2500' - 109 degrees. The higher elevation makes Tucson much cooler. Like 5 degrees.
My old Detroit neighborhood encompassed many COOL streets.

Holcomb became a roller skating venue, non-pareil, when it received a shiny new, blacktopped surface.
Pennsylvania was tree shaded and quiet. A gentle lane to stroll and meditate.
McClellan had a ‘candy store’ on every block, or so it seemed.
Cooper kids were sometimes allied with our gang.
Murray was the gravel/dirt road that began at McClellan and terminated at Cooper.
It was our athletic field and the center of the web of alleys and streets that we haunted, day and night. The front porch of the four family flat on Murray was our emporium, our meeting place, our resting place, and the steps served as a playing field for ‘rubber ball baseball.’
On every Saturday afternoon, Cadillac became the "Street of Dreams."
The Rivola Theater was the exciting stage of imagination, but you had to have a dime, or two nickels, or ten pennies to enter the portal.
Most feature films ran between 80 and 100 minutes. Then a 30 minute cowboy picture. Then a 20 minute Serial chapter. Interspersed were the March of Times newsreel, 3 cartoons, 4 previews of coming attraction and sometimes, a Pete Smith Novelty short.
Five Hours plus, of pure mesmerization
Technicolor movies had wowed the audience with the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Robin Hood and Technicolor was a match made in,,?,,Sherwood Forest, of course.
At the end of the matinee, the rollicking exodus of the adolescent audience, mimicking the incredible ballet, choreographed and performed as only Errol Flynn could do, overflowed the sidewalks, their minds still in a vaporous state of derring-do. An immediate search for weapons began. A skinny twig from a tree was a sleek and deadly rapier. A few sheets of tightly rolled newspaper became a ‘mace.’ Imaginary bows and arrows were mostly employed as were valiant steeds that carried these warriors. Slapping one’s right or left hand against his own buttock was the signal that he was mounted and somewhat above the fray.
With the panache that only the young can generate, the war was replayed
And while the amateur jousting went on, many of the youthful Merry Men on the street, were keeping an eye out for their own personal version of Marion amongst the cherubic and virginal ten year old darlings that had finally tweaked the curiosity of the stunted Merry Men!
Visions of Venison danced in our heads!


Now, in my dithering old age, I made a most egregious mistake/ I accessed the following URL:

http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com...?ID=747&type=5


Crapola. Some things are best left unsaid.
The lower left hand, vacant, patch of greenery is incorrect. The Drug store is supposed to be on the corner and the Rivola , next to it.
My ‘Field of Dreams’ has been razed, once again.
Sans everything

I will have to get the names of the places my step dad was running around back in 38. Have to laugh about what you could do for 10 cents back then. Cable TV and Video games are the norm for the kids these days.

Thank you for another great memory story Tp. :)

Good morning, Tponetom. We've not met but I read your essays and I think I like you... if my father had lived past his mid-50s [[died 1982), I suspect he'd sound a lot like you, in writing. With the 20/20 hindsight of adulthood, I often wished I knew more about his growing-up years but of course had never thought to ask while he was here. I wonder if he spent time on the some of the same streets as you, at around the same time. Sometimes when I read your entries, I feel like it.

Thanks for sharing. Even if my thoughts are in the wrong neighborhood, I enjoy your writing a lot.

Nice essay, as usual.....
But, what about Canton?

At least you can go home again in your dreams. My old Brightmoor neighborhood is still there, where I lived until I was seven. The sign of the Flying Red Horse, where Mr.Ted would air up my bike tires for me, is now a closed convenience store. I think it is amazing I was allowed to take my bike down there by myself at 6 or 7 years old, three whole blocks. Scotty Simpson's up on Fenkell is still there and we love to go there every other week or so. The market where Mr. Save-U would give me a sucker after we checked out is long gone, as is the Five and Dime where I spent 40 cents pilfered from the sofa cushions. I had to cross Fenkell to go there, too, what an adventure. I still feel guilty over my nefarious expedition. Crime really does not pay. Olga's market on DaCosta and Acacia with its front yard full of flowers is a house now. The neighborhood used to teem with kids anxious to play tag, hide and seek, jumprope, hopscotch, cowboys and Indians. I was always the soon-to-be-killed Indian. Every capgun shot hit me dead center, or so I was informed, while my arrows always went wide of target. Just like on TV.

BOBI: Just remember, "We will always have Canton!" Yes, I was watching Casablanca, again.

Gaz: Every single one of those fantastic exeriences you had, is the rockbed foundation of all my memories.

Still, one of my favorite films, ever!
:)