ON THE STREETS WHERE I LIVED

being the new girl in town…

… was kind of a recurring theme; oft repeated and mostly neighborly. Why they practically rolled out the red carpet for me at my first apartment on East End Avenue in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood! “So I was told.”

It must be confessed that I don’t remember much about the place (like anything at all) on account of the fact that I was a baby. But my parents loved to talk about the time my dad closed up the murphy bed while my mom was still on it. Although that sounds like it was fun times, mom and dad decided it was time to get a move on and a move into a place with actual sleeping quarters.

So we packed our bags…

… and settled into our newly rented apartment where, for the second time, I was the new kid on the block. The landlord did her utmost to make me feel welcome by insisting I refer to her as Grandma Lee. She lived on the third floor with her daughter Lolly and their Great Dane. Prior to the time he bit me I loved him.

It was lovely to be received with open arms, but I could have done without the incisors.

I set up camp, first in my crib and then my big girl bed with its white coverlet and raised chenille flowers. Pulling on those protruding tufts was impossible to resist… ergo I did so strand by strand. I assure you it was not appreciated.

The far end of the apartment held an enclosed porch with a swing. And when I said the S-word my mom sent me there to ‘reflect’. The requirement? To shout, murmur, sing “shut up” over and over… presumably to get it all out of my system. Despite the fact that I swung that porch swing at full tilt and “shutted-up”with every inflection I could come up with, I have a sneaking suspicion it was not the end of my uttering that S-word. Or perhaps I just upgraded to a more terribler turn of phrase.

I did attempt to make a run for it and head to my Nonnie’s a few blocks away. I was certain she’d let me do whatever I wanted. However, it was the realization that I had no idea which direction to go once I left the entrance to our building that made me reconsider and hightail it back on home. Not to mention the fact that since we were on the first floor, roller skating up and down our hallway was fully endorsed. I was four.

One evening my dad insisted my mom enter the apartment ahead of us in case there was a robber. (Oh dad) And with humorous indignation she complied. A few steps inside and lo and behold a burglar there was! Eyes locked, followed by much screaming and scramming… my mom, dad and me out the front and the bad guy out the back. I guess it was time to say our goodbyes

and be on our way…

… to lease an apartment on the second floor of a six unit building kitty-corner from my new grammar school; walking home at lunchtime was a piece of cake (with a bologna sandwich and potato chips)! I was heading into second grade.

Oh how I looked forward to the tin tub my mom would fill with warm water for my frozen toes when the schoolyard was flooded for ice skating during winter months. And those summers on the bleachers for amateur baseball league games where my dad and I would root for our favorite player, “Go Tush!!”

Just like the previously leased digs, my parents did a bunch of fixer-upping’s – retiling the bathroom and kitchen, painting and applying wallpaper. My mom was especially proud of the mirrored closet doors along the hallway she painted some sort of flecked, faux effect. I guess the landlord embraced, “you do you”.

They did hire a pro to tackle the living room – a painter who had been a professional dancer and would tango with me and regale us all with stories of night club engagements and Jimmy Durante.

There was a Parisian cafe mural painted on the wall behind our table and a walk-thru pantry area that led to our den where I watched Bozo’s circus at lunchtime and Lawrence Welk with my grandma on Saturday nights. Birthday parties (the simple pin the tail on the donkey kinda soirees) took place in both.

My bedroom held my cherished glass animal collection, my Shirley Temple doll and for some reason a taxidermy alligator I either got from my Uncle Chuck or as a Florida souvenir from my cuz.

A quick walk to 71^st Street held both the Hamilton and Jeffery movie theatres where I saw West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, and A Hard Day’s Night. And the bestest, creamiest ice cream ever from Mitchell’s.

From what I remember, friends were easily made… except for the time Tyrone W. expressed the desire to beat me up after school and the discovery that Laurel M. was making faces at me behind my back. What the heck?!

The gentlemen in the apartment above held much fascination. Their deep crimson velvety drapes enveloped the living room housing a baby grand piano and over-flowing with ornate furniture and knick-knacks. This was where I was first introduced to the music of Duke Ellington and listened to Nat King Cole on their hi fi.

A wood floor was installed in the space directly above my parents’ bedroom, turning it into a party room; complete with bamboo tiki bar. We could hear the scuffing of footsteps and clatter of high-heels from below… sounds I thought so glamorous. I was dazzled by these handsome men. In retrospect, how very kind of them to pay me any attention at all.

I loved this apartment and my neighbors. I was witness to many gatherings my parents had with their dear friends… much hilarity, the sound of ice-tinkling in cocktails and yes, eventually, a conga line. I read all the Nancy Drew books I could get my hands on while hanging out in the little sunroom in the back, learned how to play craps from my dad sitting on the floor in the den and played many rounds of jacks in the hallway.

I remember that hallway, leading from the living room in the front to the bedrooms in the back, as being quite long …. yet again, perfect for roller skating.

A second attempt to run away was made. This time, all the way to our wonderful friends and neighbors on the third floor. Unlike my previous attempt I knew how to get where I was going… yet amscrayed back to my parents when only halfway up the stairway.

then we got going, making great strides…

… just about twelve blocks south… where we bought a house! I had nothing to do with the purchase and lived there rent-free.

It was a two-story situation and we had two bathrooms! But the best was the FINISHED basement with its built-in curved bar and paneled walls. SLUMBER PARTIES WERE EPIC. My dad would wait for the perfect moment to tiptoe down the stairs, while hiding under a sheet, or voice an eerie “booooo” that would reverberate down the laundry chute to scare us pre-teen girls into a pile of screaming adolescents.

My bedroom held my same furniture (repainted blue and white), my two Barbies, a Ken, a Midge, as well as a Jerry Mahoney doll I hid in my closet for safe keeping… or was it to keep me safe from it!?

This move brought me to my third elementary school where I entered sixth grade and once again endured new girl status – which meant standing up and being introduced to the class. Embarrassing. First day of school; tan corduroy skirt and vest, white long-sleeved button down shirt, brand new shiny penny loafers and white knee socks. I was quite proud of my snazzy outfit.

However, looking around the room I noticed that most of the girls were wearing nude stocking (at the time held up by garter belts). The kind my mom would not allow. Mooooommm!!

Once I got over the stocking situation I made lifelong friends there. We walked to 79^th street for our White Castle fix, Bon Ton’s restaurant for fries and a coke and scoured the bins of 45’s at Woolworth’s for our record collections. And there was a guy we referred to as “teeth” who got a thrill (??!) out of scaring us by contorting his face and sticking out his false teeth. Why???

We roamed the neighborhood (to be home when the streetlights came on), spun the bottle, relished water fights at the park, walked to school linking arms and home for lunch, churned out gum chains and plucked loops off of boys shirts we thought were cute… yearning to be entrusted with their id bracelets.

One of the very best parts of my years in the house on Kingston Avenue was the fluffy addition to our family – our a 4 ½ month old apricot poodle Bouche, AKA Count Bouche IV on his birth certificate. I was able to convince my parents to acquire him by my wherewithal to wrap someone (my dad) around my little finger.

We experienced the full-blown blizzard of ’67 in that house. Schools closed – yay – and kids had the best time in all the overflowing snow. Since those drifts completely covered our car we pulled our sled to the store. Bouche obliged by surrendering to his red boots, plaid snowsuit and matching babushka. Snow days for days.

Then we hit the trail

and moved onward to our forever home…

… the last house I would share with my parents. I had just turned fourteen.

It was a charmer of a white stone-faced, gable-roofed home with a single-car garage attached at the side; the dormer window above kept tabs on the neighborhood as I lounged about my bedroom. My cozy oasis. With its slanted ceiling paneled in a bleached wood, and its wall-to-wall orange and yellow shag carpeting… it was the coolest.

There was step down into that space, like a 70s sunken living room, and my mom painted my previous color schemed blue and white furniture all yellow-orange-yellow-orange and hung some yellow-orange-yellow-orange flower power fabric to drape over my bed like a little canopy. What’s not to love?

Yet again I was the new girl, a freshman, attending a high school filled with hundreds of students and not knowing a soul. My vast experience as a newbie served me well until I approached a fellow student in the lunchroom in hopes that I could join her for the meal. My chirpy, cheery, chummy, “Hi, I’m Karen Frankel and I’m a freshman – will you have lunch with me?”, was met with, “I’m a Junior”.

Once I found my people… oh man, the hours spent giggling with my girlfriends under that makeshift canopy and performing my one-woman show for nobody but me. OUTSTANDING.

Or positioned on my wall-to-wall, legs bent at the knee and ankles crossed, listening to much worshipped music. My albums! Staring in reverence and ecstasy at the superstars I worshipped,  I read those liner notes over and over – like I was preparing for the California Bar Exam.

And I memorized every word, every downbeat, every ooh and yeah, every turn of phrase. They sang – and my mind was blown. I swooned. I practiced kissing. I indulged in my teenage angst and mulled over unrequited love… it was inspirational and arousing. Those weighty covers of provocation and desire. The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Cream, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Moody Blues, the Monkees and musicals, musicals, musicals.

It was heaven and my haven.

This house had a dungeon basement as well where my Polk-a-Lay-Lee hung on the paneled wall. But unlike my previous basement, I wasn’t a big fan and rarely went down there alone. If I had to head down for laundry or to grab something from our second frig I made my mom talk to me the entire time from upstairs. However, I must have enjoyed the make-out sessions that occurred on the mocha and gold plaid couch when I was in the company of another and being sociable.   

Our kitchen, with its built-in booth, was where we ate dinner every night, unless it was Sunday when Chinese food was ordered in and we sat with TV trays in the den watching Ed Sullivan and The Smothers Brothers.

We had a lovely yard where my mom discovered her green thumb and her gorgeous garden thrived. With colorful varietals blooming and pots stuffed to the brim it was a happy place where birthday parties, surprise parties, just because parties and our annual family July party took place. We grilled, hung out in the hammock, played badminton and enjoyed the fruits of my mother’s labor.

I returned home, to my room over the garage, once I left college. We repainted my furniture, this time more of a rust/burnt orange; toning down the orange yellow orange yellow. And swapped out my bedding and window coverings for a more adult-ish vibe. I insisted on paying some sort of rent… although it was eventually returned to me as an unexpected bonus at the end of my stay. Thanks mom and dad for that fringe benefit and the much-loved creature comforts –  but mostly for your loving ways, openness, our closeness, your sacrifices and examples of kindness.

But it was time to make myself scarce and

take the next step…

… and yes I went directly from my parental abode to my husbands’ bachelor pad (don’t judge). Or as he likes to say, “I saved you from living your entire life above a garage”.

He really doesn’t get how much I loved those living quarters.

Shag carpeting, hovering above (yes the garage) – inferior? below standard? low-rent? C’MON, it was a great return on an investment… AND ALL MINE.

I loved all those streets I lived on and the neighborhoods that shaped me. I mostly enjoyed being the newbie but enthusiastically embraced the wonderful friendships I gained while on the move.

Where did you grow up? Would love to hear all about it!

cover aerial photo of South Shore credit: John Chuckman website