Two brothers and a sister growing up together in a suburban neighborhood carved out of the farmlands East of Hempstead, NY.  Thirty-six houses built at the far end of an earlier established neighborhood on what were potato fields.  Wide open spaces, and a great big yard for three energetic children to run and play. Three different children learning and living and loving from the example of a loving and caring family--how lucky were we!

  Our parents had the property fenced in so we 'wouldn't get lost' and Dad built us a swing set.  Not too many years after we moved in to our brand new cape style home in East Meadow, our parents bought us a rabbit.  An Easter gift we named Thumper.  He was black and white, had his own hutch in the back yard and walked on a leash.  I remember the chore of taking care of him soon fell to our parents!  Typical kids--give them a pet they want desperately, have promised they would take care of, and low and behold Mom and Dad wind up doing it all.  Thumper's life was good though, after about a year of our parents taking care of him, and us playing less and less with him, our wonderful neighbor took Thumper upstate to relatives to live out his life on a farm.  Then there was Rusty the German Shepard mix--we didn't have him very long and really never got the chance to know him well, he got sick and had to be taken away.

Typical though, I don't really think so.  We weren't exactly typical kids of the 1950's.  Our parents had 'old world ideals' and although this was post WWII progressive America, those traditions our parents were raised with in Eastern Europe were how we were raised.  Our yard was fenced and we didn't wander outside those perimeters for many years.  One neighbor once remarked to our Mom when we were out on the street riding our bikes that 'you finally let them out of the yard.'  Not typical of the 1950's--we had no television until I was almost 9, and when we got it, it was amazing.  We loved watching Howdy Dowdy and all the wonderful kids shows on Saturday mornings:  "Plunk your magic twanger Froggy"--can not remember the name of the show,  Winky Dinks and the green screen my brother Eddie had so we could draw on the TV with a special crayon, Inky the Spot who came out of the inkwell, and The Mickey Mouse Club.  Amos and Andy with our parents, The 5-0'clock Movie, Beulah, Molly Goldwater,  Life With Father, Lawrence Welk, The Price is Right and all those other wonderful shows of the time.

Some other things that made our family "1950's un-typical" was that our Mom worked.  Grandma lived with us and she took care of us after school and cooked dinner for all six of us.  Unlike our friend's families we took 'family' vacations (for a month every summer) and never ever went away to Summer Camp to give our parents a break.  We drove down to Florida to visit Uncle Ed or out to St. Louis, Mo. to visit the rest of the our family. 

Johnny, Eddie and I were pretty close growing up.  We took care of each other and stood up for each other to bullies in school even though there was a age gap between Johnny and I (13 months) and Eddie (6 years).  Johnny and Eddie shared one of the two upstairs bedrooms, I had the other.  Their walls were covered in brownish-tan cowboy print, their twin beds covered with brown plaid coverlets.  Toy soldiers, plastic cowboys and Indians, Lincoln logs, wooden blocks and bricks were all over the floor.  We played for hours with those things, in there (then) huge bedroom.  Creating houses and towns and having a wonderful time.  I used to hear them talking during the night, making plans for the next day, discussing electrical things they were designing--thing was, the next morning they didn't remember any of it--they had been holding a conversation with each other in their sleep!

As we got older the age difference between Johnny and I made no difference anymore.  Our individual friends became our friends and we dated each other's friends.  Boy, I lost a lot of good girlfriends that way!  Even later, Eddie's best friend became like a brother to us, and will always remain so.

We rode bikes together, played stick-ball in the street together, roller skated, went to the park nearby and just had a lot of fun together.  To say we never had any fights would be a lie.  To say we were typical siblings, we sure were.  There were petty jealousies and verbal and even physical squabbles; but they never lasted long.  What lasted is the friendship and love we learned early in life, the acceptance of each other and our likes and differences.  We were lucky, and rich in love and family.