At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem. This is a real life recollection.
The prompt for February 2026 was BOOKS.
My friends know I love to read and when they visit there is often a comment. “Where are all your books?” Except for a few children’s and reference books, my books are stored at the library. Checking out a book to take home and read is a pleasure, knowing that later I will be nestled in my overstuffed chair with a few ginger snaps and a warm mug of chai, moving the bookmark forward between the pages. When I finish reading, I return it to the library to store.
It was when I was in
fourth grade that Mr. DiPetro took our class to the small elementary school
library. Bookshelves were lined with the colorful vertical stripes of book
spines; there were no plastic or paper covers. After we learned about the
library and how to check out books – books we could take back to our class to
read, we wandered around the room to choose one.
The first one I pulled
from the shelf was a mystery. I remember it because it was about a lost
lunchbox and my friend Kathy had lost her lunchbox on the way to school. I sat
down and looked through the pages. There was only one picture and lots of
words. I wanted more pictures. We were not allowed to return books to the shelves,
so I took the book to the return pile.
I recall that I was in a
section of books that were mysteries and certainly there were appealing titles
to explore; however, nothing looked interesting to me. Most of my classmates
quickly chose a book to sign out and were sitting and reading.
On one of my trips to the
return pile, I caught sight of a book propped up by the front desk. On the
front cover was a girl wearing roller skates. The book title was “Roller
Skates,” written by Ruth Sawyer. The librarian came over and pointed out the
gold seal on the front of the book. The seal represented an award the author
received.
My interest was the roller skates that were not like mine. They looked like boots and laced up the side. The skates I used were flat plates that clamped onto the soles on my shoes with straps that wrapped around my foot. There was a special metal key that tightened, or loosened, the clamps. It was a critical tool to have.
Leafing through the pages I saw that each chapter had an illustration and title. I wanted to read more about this girl with the fancy skates, so I checked the book out.
It was a story written
by a young girl. Here’s what I remember about it.
The setting of the book
is New York City in the early 1900’s, a place and time I was not familiar with,
and which were quite different from my life in the 1950’s. The girl was Lucinda*
who wasn’t quite a teenager. Her family was rich and her parents went on a trip
leaving her with two lady caretakers. While her parents were quite strict with
her the caretakers were not.
I lived in a small town
and my friends, and I were afforded much freedom. It was typical to “go out and
play” with no destination assigned or activity planned; however, for Lucinda
the new unlimited freedom presented a summer full of adventures. She roller
skated throughout the city day and night. The descriptions of what she sees,
hears, smells, and sometimes tastes presented me with a picture of life at that
time.
There were horse drawn
carriages for people to ride in There was a deep smell of horse manure and the
clip-clop of hooves as they moved around the city and through Central Park. I
knew the sound and smell of the horses as a-rabbers** came through our
neighborhood pulling open carts with summer produce but couldn’t imagine people
riding with them.
A-rabbers would call out what produce they
had for sale as they walked through the streets.
Some of the a-rabbers had bins of wrapped penny candy but Lucinda saw and smelled the sweet scent of candy as it was being made through the open windows of the penny candy stores. And sometimes, when I got a piece of candy, I remember wondering how some of the candy I ate was made – licorice, peanut butter cups, M & M’s.
When the big ships
carrying iron ore arrived at our town, sailors would visit and we would hear a
foreign language. Very rarely did we hear other languages spoken except when we
visited the homes of some of our friends. At Rosanna’s house her mother was
berated in Italian by her grandmother for “runny sauce” or at Paulina’s her father
talked to his brothers in what was probably Polish. But Lucinda, on her
adventures through all kinds or neighborhoods in New York, heard lots of
various languages and saw different ways people lived.
The playground around
the one-block long elementary school was paved with asphalt and offered a great
place to skate. There were no cracks like on the sidewalks, and the fencing
saved us from wheeling out into the street when we got going too fast. Kathy
and I skated around the elementary school almost every day. We made up games
and invented dangerous tricks on the second story steps.
1963 Sparrows Point Elementary School
No great adventures
except when we lost a skate key. That took us on a trip down the street, across
the streetcar tracks, around the corner to the alleyway behind Kaplan’s
department store. Clinging to the handrail we went down the cement steps to the
door of the basement hardware section. We were allowed inside with skates on to
get a replacement key and, if we did not have the 5¢ price, we could bring it
back later.
When we went to skate on
long summer days after dinner we were expected to head home when the
streetlights came on. There would be a quick flash of bright white lights on
tall metal poles that dipped out over the street. But I remember Lucinda saw
the lamplighters walking through the streets as daylight died out. The
gaslights gave a warm, soft glow next to the walkways making it easy for her to
skate after dark. Really quite different.
Perhaps Mr. DiPetro
asked us to include in our book report why we chose the book and did we learn
anything. It was the girl on roller skates that interested me because I roller
skated a lot. I liked that Lucinda was able to experience the kind of freedom
that my friends and I had after her parents were so strict and restrictive. As
you may have figured out, for me this book made me think about how things were
different long ago from what I had had then.
*An a-rabber
is a street vendor selling fruits and vegetables from a horse-drawn cart, often
calling what he has for sale.
** I
looked up her name in the book.
~ ~ ~ ~
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more as – Easter, teacher appreciation, hostess gifts, housewarming.
Copies available locally at the Hip Gypsy Emporium in Duffield, Franklin Co, PA.
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