Williamsburg continued Part 2

Tenement House where I was born

The best part of Williamsburg to me were my cousin's

and my friends.I lived in a tenement house back then;

the apartment was called a “cold water flat”.

The heating system was a coal stove and when you

took a bath it was in a sink.You had to heat the water

on the coal stove to get the water hot.

My Dad was in the Navy at that time and I was able

to roam the street's. Very few car's were on the road in those

day's so it was pretty safe.Horse and wagon was still be used

and the vender's who sold fruit and veggie's would use them.

There were no local supermarket's or mall's as they have today.

Store's were called Mama and Papa and owned by a family.

If you went to a grocer he didn't use anadding machine; his

adding machine was a brown paper bag and a pencil.

He would write the prices very large on the bag and then

put the point of the pencil in his mouth and then proceed

to add the price's and write it down.

Many people didn't have enough money to pay for the

item's and the grocer would have a “book”.

He would write the amount owed in the book and trust

you for the debt until it was paid.It was a pretty thick book.

Because there was a war going on many item's had to be

purchased with ration stamps.The Government was

rationing food and in order to buy a particular product such

as sugar,you needed a stamp plus the fee to pay for it.

In many cases this caused what was called a black market

and unscrupulous store keeper's would only sell to those who paid

a higher price for the product. This was called selling “under the

counter”.

There was a deposit on milk and soda bottle's and if I wanted

to go to the movie all I had to do is bring a few bottle's to the

grocer and get the deposit money.This would allow me to get into

a local movie house and stay there for about four hour's.There

was more than one film playing and cartoon's and movie short's

and a newsreel.

My primary source of entertainment was radio.Television didn't

come into my life until 1947 and at that time I was ten years old.

The prior years were filled with radio shows.You had to use your

imagination and to me radio was wonderful. When television

came it was heartbreaking to see the show's I listened to go off the air.

They were wonderful show's and many years later the computer allowed

me to relive those day's I never forgot.All my radio shows were online.

To be continued.....