A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

the corner about 1930, adding another boy to the gang and opening marvelous sledding on their back hillwhich, unfortunately, featured a few hawthorn trees which defined the slalom. There were a few housesdown Kirby, then a lane that ran into the woods where an eccentric ‘hermit’ lived. He was as friendly ashe was filthy and always had time to show us his collections: arrowheads, big old pennies, stamps, bottlecaps....all the things that boys loved. Sometimes he came to our back door with something to trade and, at14 or so, I traded my general stamp album to him for a fine Indian axe. I don’t remember seeing himagain.Coming back along Glenview, I was always glad to see Mrs. Stegner, who often, walked her Bostonbull terriers. More often than not, she’d ask me....or us....in for a bite or a glass of something. We kidsknew the many houses where we’d usually get some calories: Mrs. Benedict, out Belmont, known for hercakes; Mrs. Runck, not quite so far, whose children had a genuine horse as well as a pony and whoseblack cook made marvelous Virginia reels; an elderly couple on Cedar, near the school, who’d alwaysoffer their persimmons in the fall and, when turned down on those sour things, would proffer their ownwalnuts. It seems to me that we ate all the time! And, nearing home, there was the grape arbor around ouracre-size garden and the pear trees lining our back driveway.The business district was still quite small in the late 20’s. The Brighton Bank had built a ratherimposing building at Hamilton and Cedar, just before my memory begins. I went there regularly to putfifty cents into my Christmas Account. One of the Waldman boys sold newspapers on the corner; therewere still quite a few to choose from, the Post and the Times-Star in the afternoon, the CommercialTribune and Enquirer in the morning, and a German one. On the west side heading south, there was theCollege Hill Toggery, better known as ‘Gene’s’ whose pipeless furnace fascinated me. Then there was thepool hall, an absolute no-no to us, where - gossip said - one could buy real beer and girlie magazines.Across the street was the Buster Brown Shoe Shop, ‘featuring fine Blue Goose shoes,’ a slogan whichpuzzled me more than the picture of ‘Buster Brown’ in brown knickers walking with a blue goose as tallas himself!On the northern corners of the intersection were: west, Dow’s Drugs, where Hollywood’s later-to-beglamour king Tyrone Power had worked just before my memory. Its soda fountain did not get most of thekids trade: it was expensive! Fifteen cents for a chocolate soda and they put in only one scoop of icecream and one shot of syrup! And, when you bought a pack of ‘weeds’ (for your oldest brothers, ofcourse), THEY were fifteen cents straight, not two for a quarter as they were at Miller’s and Schneider’s.On the east side, there was a wonderfully messy hardware store in a former feed dealer’s big red brickbuilding. We weren’t too thrilled when it turned into a restaurant-cafe about 1932. Mr. Hoffman was thekind of old-fashioned store keeper who took as much time with a boy over a bag of nails needed to build anew shack as he was with an adult. Besides, he raised pigeons and, seasonally, had squabs to sell. Thetwo ladies who had the little sewing shop next to the ‘new’ theater (it opened just as sound was coming inand bravely resisted it long enough for me to see Douglas Fairbanks in THE GAUCHO in its silentversion and then, months later, with Vitaphone sound) were just the same way. They sold the makings ofvalentines and were known to offer a piece of maple candy to a kid accompanied by a buying adult.Dad told me about hunting birds’ eggs and catching passenger pigeons out of the trees in the areaaround the end of Marlowe, about 1890. Even in my childhood, in the 20’s, that street between Cedar andNorth Bend was little more than a track. ‘Doc.’ Schneider’s ‘ethical pharmacy’ opposite the end ofMarlowe, on Hamilton Avenue, was the only business building north of the Hollywood Theatre. How Iremember him! He was always immaculately dressed in a morning suit, grey and white cravat with astick-pin and wing collar. There were two counters in the tiny store, opposite the corner door: the longerone at a right angle with Hamilton Avenue and the shorter, containing cigars, parallel with it. A tiny gaslight burned constantly in a stand above that. A beautiful set of pharmaceutical jars stood on shelvesbehind both counters but, to me, the REAL magic was a glass dish of the most powerful peppermint‘cigarettes’ just about where the two counters came together. In person, he’d roll a couple in a bit of ‘pillpaper:’ when prescriptions were delivered to us on Belmont Avenue, there’d be four or five rolled up forwhichever of us got the dosage -- probably prescribed by Dr. ‘Shorty ‘Howard, who lived on Hillcrest.219