Red Burtts Storys

My Wife & Myself During The Corner Days

The Corner, Brookline St & Putnam Avenue:
Cambridge Massachsetts (Greasy Village)
Let’s go up the Corner.

My Corner:
You will notice that I say the word “Corner” many times in this little story, there is a reason for that, it is because this story is all about “A Corner”

During the Great Depression and all through WWII most big city neighborhoods in America had a street corner that would be the favorite meeting place for most of the area’s residents, young and old alike, we all called it “My Corner” “Our Corner” or simply “The Corner”.

If we happened to be somewhere in the City of Cambridge that was North of our neighborhood and we decided to head home we would say, “lets go down the corner” if we were South, we would say, “lets go up the corner”, if we were in Boston, we would say, “let’s go back to the corner” our corner was our security spot, we owned it, it was “our turf”, we knew everything that went on and everybody that lived within a ten block area of “Our Corner”.

The largest crowds I remember seeing on our corner were on Sunday mornings, there was a Catholic Church in our area, “The Blessed Sacrament” it was just recently closed to make room for the Condo’s, most all the people that hung around on our corner attended this church, after Mass they would all head for “the corner”, on a Sunday there would be guys from three generations of Village People congregated on this corner, our corner had two Variety Stores, The Brookline Spa and The Village Spa, both owned and operated by Greek people who also came from “the corner”.

After church both these stores would be packed with people of all ages, standing room only, they would be dressed in suit and tie and all wearing “Felt Hats” in those days you weren’t considered “dressed up” unless you had a Pearl Grey well shaped “Soft Hat” on.
On a Sunday morning between 8:00 AM and Noon everybody that lived in the Village would pass through these two stores, either having coffee, buying the paper or just hanging around, to people passing by in their cars that were not familiar with the Village it would appear that some big event was happening, maybe a murder or a parade, but in reality, it was just a typical Sunday Morning on “our corner”.

In the year 1999 I was visiting some old friends from the corner that are still living in the Neighborhood, we stayed up late that Saturday night, having a few drinks, laughing and talking of the old days.
We stayed overnight and the next morning I decided to walk up to “my corner”, I took my cane and headed out the door, my wife said, “where are you going”, I replied, “up the corner”, boy did it feel good to say that again after all these years, “I’M GOING UP THE CORNER”.

I slowly walked by all the old backyards and houses that I knew so well, in my mind I pictured all the people who have since passed on that used to live in these houses, my Grandmother and two of my Aunts lived in one of them.
I stopped and looked into the little park that used to be the Morse School Playground, I closed my eyes, I could hear all my old friends yelling and laughing, I remember some of the scraps we had in this school yard, whenever a dispute arose while we were in the Village Spa or standing on the corner and it came to the point of “fisticuffs” the schoolyard was were it was settled, I smiled as I passed this spot, the memories came flashing back of those long gone days and my old boyhood pals rolling around in the dirt then putting their arms around each other when it was all over, (with their fat lip and black eye).

Well, this is it, I have finally, with the help of my cane limped up to “My Corner”, I stand and look, Nelsons Drug Store is gone, Condo’s now stand there, all the other little stores are still there but they are no longer the same, the barber shop is gone, the Cobbler is gone, the little meat market is gone, and the little Chinese Laundry where we all had our shirts and khaki pants cleaned and starched is now gone.
The man and wife who operated this little Chinese Laundry were Bing Q Yee and his wife Ding Yee, Bing and his wife became “Village People” they were part of our family, their daughter still lives in the neighborhood.
Bing had a very impressive war record during WWII; he fought in “The Battle Of The Bulge” earning several medals. On rainy days or when there was nothing else to do we would come into “Bings Laundry” and sit in the back room, we would call Bings wife Ding in and sit her down and try teach her English, and of course the first thing we would do is teach her “dirty words”, Bing would be out front Ironing shirts and we could hear him laughing then he would tell his wife in Chinese what she had just said and she would put her apron up over her face and laugh. Ding passed away several years ago and Bing also died shortly after his wife.

I stepped into the convenience store that was once the Village Spa, the Indian behind the counter just gave me a dirty look, I ordered a cup of coffee, he grunted and then pointed to a “serve yourself” coffee carafe, I poured my coffee and paid this ignorant jerk, he grunted again and gave me another dirty look, I walked out, everything was changed, there were no booths in the store, no Jukebox, and no noisy laughing teenagers, just an Indian from India with an attitude.
I spent maybe twenty minutes standing on the corner sipping coffee, cars were speeding by, funny looking people were walking around without so much as a nod to each other, I was in another world, I haven’t been back since and probably never will go back.

When my sons were growing up I secretly wished they had a “Corner” but I realized times were changing, people were leaving the city, they were headed for the suburbs to live in those little houses that sprang up overnight all across America in the Post WWII era, they called them “Ranch Houses” and “Colonials”, as soon as they moved in they built a room in the cellar and put in a Bar with Stools and colored lights on the wall, they had a new “Hi Fi Set” (record player) put in, then they called it a “Playroom” it was a Playroom for grown ups, they would invite all their new neighbors and some of their old neighbors over on a Saturday Night and they would drink, sing, dance and raise hell until the sun came up, they played all night in their new playrooms.

The next day though when they were all through playing, something was missing, they probably didn’t even realize it, they were thinking about mowing their “new lawn” or finding some rocks to paint white and put all around their new mail box that had their name stuck on it with big black letters they had bought in the hardware store when they purchased their first new “garden hose”.
When I had my first new garden hose I sat in my new yard for over an hour watering a Pine Tree, I had never had a garden hose before.

No More:
Yup, no more tenements for us, no more going down three flights of stairs and into the dark cold cellar to fill a big three gallon glass jug full of range oil for the kitchen stove, no more wonderful odors on a Sunday morning of Ham and Cabbage drifting up from the women on the first floor cooking dinner, no more Horse and Wagons clip clopping down the street, no more Fire Engine Bells ringing in the middle of the night, no more sitting on a curb stone with friends laughing and telling story’s, no more walking to the movies, no more window shopping in Central Square on a hot summer night, no more jumping fences and racing through backyards, no more prowling the railroad tracks, nope, now we were buying “bird feeders”, we used to feed birds in the city too, we just used to throw some stale bread out the window into the street for the pigeons, now we had a pretty little glass feeder with pretty little seeds in it for pretty little birds that we had never seen before, where the hell were the pigeons?

The New World:
Now we had a Refrigerator, “Jesus” when we bought our first refrigerator I sat in the kitchen that night until 3:00 AM, just looking at it, I kept opening the door so I could watch the little light come on.
I can remember “our refrigerator” when we lived in the tenements, it was an “orange crate” during the winter my father would nail an old orange crate on the outside of a window and put the perishables in it, of course everything froze up but my mother would bring what she needed in and it would thaw out, this saved about 50 cents a week. When WWII came along all that stuff changed, there were plenty of jobs and all were working again, then we could afford an Ice Box with a pan under it to catch the melted water.

That first night that I sat looking at my new refrigerator I thought about Orange Crates and Frozen Bologna, I wanted to put an orange crate outside our Ranch House Kitchen Window for our new neighbors to see as they rode by but my wife wouldn’t let me. (I might still do it someday) I want people to say to me, “what the hell is that”?

Back To The Ranch and the thing that is missing:
After a few weeks of watering the lawn and trying to find out what the hell Crab Grass was we suddenly started to feel funny and have “flashbacks”, after supper we would step outside and look up the street, all we could see was little “ranch houses” with “little lawns and little bird feeders” why were we looking up the street, then one evening while looking up the street it hit, the thing that was missing, now we knew, oh dear God, “OUR CORNER” we miss our Corner, we no longer could yell in to our wives, “hey, I’ll be right back, I’m going up the corner”, oh Jesus, our corner was twenty or thirty miles away, we panic, we look around, then we smell the air, all we can smell is grass and trees, where are the factory’s, the curbstones, the sewers, the subways, where are the Cops, the staggering drunks, the fist fights in the street, where are the dogs “stuck together” in the street, where is the guy downstairs that used to come home drunk and throw his kitchen chairs through the window, where is the horseshit in the street, where is the pigeon shit on the window sill, where’s the dead cat in the backyard, there’s no sound of screeching brakes, no sound of two cars crashing into each other just as your going to sleep, where are the busses, the sirens, the horns, people yelling, you even miss the “winos” going through your rubbish barrels at dawn, you start crying, “oh God what have I done”, “I WANT MY CORNER”, you start to feel sick, a big part of your security in this world is suddenly gone, you can’t open your door and walk “up the corner” then sit on a milk case with twenty or thirty other guys that have been just like family ever since you were a little kid, your all alone, with your lawn mower and your bird feeder, you wave at your new neighbor but you don’t know them, you can’t tell them your secrets, you can’t trust these new people, these new people with their station wagons and lawn mowers and little bar-rooms in their cellar, oh Jesus H Christ almighty help me.

After laying awake all night because it is so quiet you can’t sleep, you get up, and then you suddenly realize why this terrible thing has happened, you have grown a little older, you have just made another turn in your life, you have moved on nothing will ever be the same, the Corner Days have just ended soon to be just a memory that you and your friends can now only talk and reminisce over as you all gather on the green grass of your new little Ranch House and eat hot dogs cooked on a New Charcoal Burner (we used to cook over a 55 gal drum on the railroad tracks) then when darkness falls and the mosquitoes find us we all head for our little “Playrooms” with balloons hanging from the ceiling, then we play, all night, we have just crossed over into a brand new life.

There are times every so often that you still visit your corner when you are in the city, you walk into the “Village Spa” this is the Variety Store that used to be your second home, the owner sees you and smiles, he greets you, his eyes light up, and you can see that he too knows the change has been made, it seems like yesterday that he was yelling at you and chasing you out the door on a snowy night for some crazy thing you did to him or to one of his customers, when he did this we would all stand in the snow and cold and stare in the big window at him, after a short while he would wave us back in, he knew we had nowhere to go but back to our cold lonely tenement house with an old oil burner that only worked on warm nights.

The owner of this store was a good man, a decent hard working man his name was George, now as you sit on your stool and order your coffee he asks about your family and your life, he has that look that says “it’s all over isn’t it”.
As you sit and sip your coffee a women comes in and buys a can of chicken soup, you don’t recognize her, a few years back you knew every person that ever set foot in this store, the change is setting in very rapidly, new people, “the others” “the strangers” are now coming to “Our Corner”.

George knows in a few moments you will finish your coffee and walk out, when you do his store will be quiet, the booths that all the noisy laughing teenagers once filled are now empty, he wishes he could yell at you again or maybe kick you in the ass and throw you out but he just smiles when you leave, he never knows when he will see you again, if ever, you see, he too has his memories, this is also, His Corner.

George passed away many years ago, neither I nor any of the people from “our corner” ever forgot him, George is buried in the “Cambridge Cemetery” along with most all the others from “The Corner”.

Back to the Ranch:
Well, now you have a bird feeder and your own little Bar Room in your cellar, little by little your Corner will start to be a part of your past, you don’t know it but you have just started your journey into the journey that will bring you to the end of your journey in this life.

The big move has been made, you have left “Your Corner” you are raising a family, the years are flying by, many times you will see your old Corner Friends as you age, you will visit their homes, little trips into Boston for dinner will be arranged with these old friends and their wives, many of our wives came from “the corner”, they didn’t have the feelings for the corner that we did though, they never swam naked under the trestle that crosses the Charles River, they never hopped trucks with us or raised hell on the subways with us but it was also their Corner, they were “Village People”.

Now something new was beginning to happen, you have been busy these last few years mowing your lawn and keeping your bird feeder full, but while you were doing this time was passing, the birthdays were coming and going your children were now asking you if they could go out and “start the car”, then one day while you were trying to figure out which piece of grass was crab grass (they’re all green) you get a phone call, it is an old friend from the corner, he has called to tell you that an old friend from the corner has just died.

Death was nothing new to us, when you live in a large neighborhood you know many people that die, we had two Funeral Parlors that most Village Corner People were buried from, one was Watson’s and the other was Donahue’s, most of the wakes and funerals we attended when we were younger were for some of the parents or some of the older generation that came before us, another generation who also called that corner “our corner”.

We lost Eleven Friends from the Corner to WWII and the Korean War we had adjusted to that, we often spoke of them and recalled the stories and the memories we had of them, we sometimes helped their parents if they should need us but time passes swiftly and soon their parents were gone but some of them left brothers and sisters among us and they are all part of our family, our family from the corner.

Now, today, you have received the first of many calls that will come to you informing you of the passing of another old boyhood friend, when you get dressed up in your suit and tie and your wife wears her silk stockings and high heels and you drive back to the old familiar streets of your youth, you pass all the houses where all your friends used to live, you pass the backyards that you used to race through at night when you were playing a game of “Relieavo” or sometime if a Cop was after you, everything looks the same, but it isn’t, those days have come and gone in the blinking of an eye but in a few moments you will see many of those old friends, we have once more come together to say goodbye to another old friend, from the corner.

The Funeral Parlor is on Magazine Street, there are parked cars lined up on both sides of the street for two blocks down, this friend that has just died is among one of the first to go, there are many of us still here and we are all attending his wake, the Chapel is mobbed, young people and old people, all from The Corner, you see, this guy “hung on the corner” he was one of us, we are now all gathered together again, this time to say “goodbye”.

When members of our crowd first started passing away another tradition was born, we would all attend the funeral and go to the Cemetery, then without saying a word (we all knew what to do) when the service ended we would get into our automobiles and drive to Central Square, we would all meet in The Irish Whip or The Brookline Tavern there to spend the rest of the day and well into the evening drinking beer, laughing and telling stories about all those wonderful happy days we had just hanging around “Our Corner”, then at the end of the night we would say our “so longs” and “see ya laters” and head back to our “Bird Feeders”, we would think of our old friend that we had just buried though, and we would think of him for many weeks to come and more than likely we still do today, at times.

They were coming in fast now, the birthdays and the funerals; our kids were in high school and driving cars, the grey hairs were popping up and for some the hair was disappearing altogether, the wakes were getting smaller, now after the funerals when we headed back to Central Sq we could all sit in two booths, not to long ago we would fill every booth in the room and the whole length of the bar, some didn’t come back to the bar at all now, they went directly home, they said they were getting to old to make the long drive after a few beers, we understood and when we said so long to them we wondered, would we ever see them again.
In a few more years this tradition also would pass, we grew old, at times we couldn’t go to the funerals, we had our own problems, the Bars in Central Sq were torn down, the Condos were going up, now we didn’t know anybody in Central Sq and nobody in Central Sq knew us, we drove by our “old corner” with our grandchildren in the car, nobody waved at us, nobody knew us, it’s all over.

Those Days:
Whenever we needed something, whenever we were lonely, whenever we were sad, whenever we craved security, whenever we were excited with some good news, whenever as young impressionable teenagers we thought the world was crashing down around us do you know what we did, you must know by now, yes that’s right, WE WEN’T UP THE CORNER.

As I write, the year now is 2006, there are probably five old friends left who are my age and maybe five or six of the generation right behind me. I recently posted a small story on here with the names of those who have passed on that called That Corner, “My Corner”, there were Ninety some odd names, I am sure there are a few more that have drifted away and we have no way of knowing if they are gone, if they are still with us maybe they will read this and say, “Hey, that’s my corner”, I hope so.

If this is “your corner” drop me a Comment at the bottom of this story, I am “Red Burtt” you must remember me, I am the Red Head that used to drive my 32 Ford with the rumble seat up and down the sidewalk on Brookiline St with Eddie McMann (Cop) shaking his fist at me.

(Speaking of Eddie McMann the Village Beat Cop, he yelled at us, he slapped us around, he threw his nightstick at us, he kicked us in the ass, but he never arrested one of us, we bought him a watch and a gold police whistle when he retired) Eddie is also gone now.

If there is an afterlife they must have “Street Corners”, they have to, where would we hang.

Our Corner That I Speak Of Is Located At The Intersection Of Brookline Street And Putnam Avenue Cambridge Massachusetts. (The Old Greasy Village)

I Know A Tear Would Glisten
If Once More I Could Listen
To That Gang That Sang Heart Of My Heart.

Author: Red Burtt.