Yesterday, after we left Harry’s, we drove downtown to State St. It was hot! We did a tour down memory lane through Nickel’s Arcade. Our first stop was the Caravan Shop, purveyor of small porcelain animals and Advent calendars. This store like Harry is celebrating its 99th birthday.
Today, we toured Gallup Park in the morning, before heading over to Harry’s. There we were treated to another journey down memory lane. Harry grew up in the Bronx, in an apartment on Homes Street. He lived a few blocks west of the Bronx River, which he called the creek. Sandwiched between the Hudson and the East River it really was just a creek. Homes lies about a mile south of the Bronx Zoo, which was free to visit every day except Tuesday, when the rich people had the place to themselves. Growing up there in the forties, he referred to his neighborhood as the Four-One. 41 being its police precinct number. A favorite pastime was stickball. It was played by neighborhood boys in the street with a Spaulding ball and an old broom stick for a bat. Occasionally, a hit ball would break a window. When that happened everyone would scatter, because the police would be sure to arrive soon and if they caught anyone with a broom stick, they would take it away and snap it by looping it through a fire hydrant’s chain and twisting it around until it broke in half.
Later today, Anne and I had dinner at Homes, the west Ann Arbor microbrewery. Anne and Bill joined us for a drink. Wherever you go there is no place like Homes.
