ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVED©

ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVED©

By Linda Lee Greene, February 3, 2019

 

On West Second Avenue between Oregon and Perry Streets in Columbus, Ohio where I lived as a kid, many of its people were still connected closely to their immigrant roots. They wore their forebears like an extra coat of skin. It was undeniable in their eyes, their hair, their body movements, and in their language. While the broken English of their first-generation immigrant ancestors had been replaced with second- and third-generation, Americanized English, still there remained a not-quite-faded-away influence of their old country’s native tongue, especially in their usage of colloquialisms and idioms characteristic of their foreign origins.

“Mama Mia,” sailed almost hourly through the open summer windows from the house on the corner of the alley across the way from us. Like ours, it was a tall, white, multi-storied, frame house, but unlike ours, it was bursting at the seams with three generations of beautiful olive-skinned and brunette persons of Italian lineage. Immediately following his high school graduation, the oldest male-child of the family disappeared one day into a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood. My naïve Protestant eyes watched agog from my bedroom window that overlooked the roof of our front porch when on some weekends he was home to visit in his crisp, black clerical-garb and newly-acquired bent-headed air.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” was more commonly heard on the nimble lips of our Irish neighbors. In them I saw fragments of my mother and much of her kin: red hair, pale skin, rugged individualism. Not only did our Italian and our Irish friends share the same religion, but they also increased the city’s population year upon year upon year. Rather than outdoor chairs and tables like those on our front porch, theirs overflowed with baby carriages and strollers that bloomed seasonally like flowers in a perennial garden. Saint Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, a comfortable walk from us, was their anchor to our neighborhood. Its religious services still draw worshippers to it from both near and far. Those people with their strong sense of family and connection to their church left a profound mark on me, one that shapes me to this day.

An enormous brick monstrosity on the corner of my street one block west of us housed a beer bottling operation and was a mooring of the German people among us, those historical brewers of beer who in large part had created Columbus. We were reminded of just how oppressive living in the air-space of a brewery can be as minute-by-minute it spewed its noxious fumes into the atmosphere. The sound I most identify with my German friends-of-old is the “Oom pah pah,” of their folk music that pumped aggressively through the airwaves of our neighborhood. When I hear that sound now, I want to jump to my feet and dance, as I did back then on the sidewalks fronting their houses.

Across the back alley from us lived a family in which the mother and father were deaf and therefore unable to speak, while all of their many children had perfect hearing and speech. That phenomenon of biology fascinated me, and bewildered me at the same time. I just couldn’t reconcile in my mind how offspring could emerge so unlike their parents. While their life was underpinned by silence in many ways, they were a joyous and yes, a chatty group, their quick fingers flicking noisily in the parent’s mysterious sign language.

On the street where I lived, mystery abounded in the diversity of its people. There was always some intrigue to unravel, a weird and wonderful culture to experience, a fascinating tradition to appreciate, and never was there discrimination of any kind among us. We were just people living among people, and it was a good thing!       

http://booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/

Columbus, Oho, USA, and multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene has authored and published four books. All of them are available worldwide in eBook and soft cover at online booksellers. Her latest novel, CRADLE OF THE SERPENT (goo.gl/i3UkAV)  was designated as a finalist in the 2018 American Fiction Awards Competition. It was also awarded a 5 Star Review by Readers’ Favorites. In addition, she was the winner of the 2018 Peter Hills Memorial Writing Competition. Scheduled for release in early 2019 is her novel, A CHANCE AT THE MOON. It will be available in soft cover and eBook at Amazon.com. An extensive exhibition of Greene’s artwork can be viewed at www.gallery-llgreene.com.