Hi Karen, Yes, Mom kept a tight hold onto me, also, until I was 12. Then I met my friends across Schuylkill Avenue, and spent a lot of time there, where it was much safer fpr kids. By the time you moved to the housing project, things started to change a lot. When I was ages 4 thru 10, it was such a GREAT place to live. It was extremely safe no matter where you went in the project. After that, you had to be VERY careful at certain times of the day, in certain areas; but Glenside was one of the last, of the projects in Reading, to get really bad. It was around the time that you moved there, that it wasn't safe to go trick or treating anymore, unless you knew the people. That would have been around the time that the first razor blade was found in an apple, which was given out by someone living on Avenue A, which was the same Avenue you lived on, only you lived at the other end of that Avenue, and where it was figured it was given out was on Avenue A, between, Avenue C and D. We kids, who lived on Avenue B, weren't allowed to go to Avenue A much at all, after that. I think all of our parents just felt better having us in our own neighborhoods. And we all met at the main playground at the Reading Housing Authority Building, or the Good News Club, and 4H Club held in the basement of that building...probably in the exact same area where your mother helped with the Head Start program. I vaguely remember that. That must have been when I started working my summers in the office at the Housing Authority, when I was 14. And, the same place we held church, when our church, Christ Lutheran, where you went to Brownies, was expanding. The Housing Authority had a very nice building, didn't they!!! I loved working there. Did you live near the Fairchilds? I was a friend of Sandy's, and all the girls had a crush on her brother Chip :o) I had a lot of friends who lived on Avenue A, around the time you and your family did. Yes, when we visited "Grammom" and "Grampop" Rothenberger on the farm, near Jacksonwald, I would run out as far as I could in the fields!!! It was like that movie "Born Free" ! My second cousin now has the farm, and it is a preserved farm. We still go there on the 4th of July for their McCoy reunion. Yes, the mildweed pods, bull-rushes, spit bugs :o) LOL!!!! Back swimmers in the water trough, all GREAT memories. :o) Lynn PS You know how hard it was to spell Skoo-kul the correct way, don't you :o) Karen wrote: I was quite young when I lived in Glenside...we were never allowed to wander down by the Tully or the Schuylkill, even though we had older friends who would adventure down there, especially to go swimming. In 1939, when she was seven years old, my mother's 5 year old brother drowned while he & a friend were playing near the Black River, across the road from their home in upstate NY. The boys were not allowed to cross the road and get close to the river, but they snuck out and did anyway. The rapids in the springtime were just too strong and fast...he was pulled out about 200 yards downstream, but could not be revived. So my mother was adament that we were NEVER to go to the Tully without an adult. My boundaries where I was allowed to wander were the Glenside side of Schuylkill Ave, The NE library branch, the Glenside elementery school property and of course, the fence at the rear of the Hensler Homes. We would stand at that fence and watch the trains at Carpenter Steel. Anyw! here I went within those boundaries I need to have a friend along, I was to never wander by myself outside of our "front and back" home rows. Even when we walked to school, the kids in our block would walk together as a group. But when we visited at the farm, all those restrictions would be lifted! We could wander where we pleased, climb the trees and just run and be free. One of my favorite things was to come across a milkweed pod that was about to burst, popping it open and blowing the wisps into the breeze and imagining where the wind would take them. I remember often taking things I found at the farms (like milkweed pods, horse chesnuts, blown out guinea hen eggs) to show and tell. BTW, it cracks me up to hear non-natives try to pronounce Schuylkill for the first time. LOL we always just called it the SKOO-kul.

Oh, Karen, in case you are keeping this for your family research, that library where you were allowed to go was the North West Branch_if you are talking about the one across the Schuylkill Avenue bridge? We loved that library. And, did you know that our secret bushes were right where you went to the fence, to watch the trains at Carpenter Steel, at the Hensler Homes? They were Blackberry, Rasberry, and Black Rasberry bushes :o) We would go back there and eat our fill !!!! Did you ever find them? :o) Lynn Karen wrote: The NE library branch, the Glenside elementery school property and of course, the fence at the rear of the Hensler Homes. We would stand at that fence and watch the trains at Carpenter Steel.