Page 20 - Boca Club News - March '25

Page 20, Boca Club News
Essays on Life:

The Neighborhood

By Sonia E. Ravech. Sonia is a Within one mile from my street there were three smashing his head on the linoleum floor. An ambulance
native of Massachusetts and a Orthodox synagogues where the boys attended Hebrew came, whisked Sheldon away, and he returned home from
resident of Broken Sound for more School, but the girls were not allowed. Instead, we walked the hospital a few hours later with his head swathed in
than 30 years. She is the mother on Sunday mornings to the Community School of Religion bandages.
of four, grandmother of seven at the Hecht House, the local Jewish Community Center. That night, I awoke to the sound of what I thought was
and great-grandmother of four. Every Wednesday night some of the men on the street an animal howling and screeching, but then Leah came
She has been the facilitator of the got together to sit around the kitchen table, smoke cigars, running upstairs crying hysterically. Mama brought her
Broken Sound Memoir Writers’ drink Moxie and play poker. On Monday nights the women into my room to sleep with me, and then went rushing back
Workshop for the past seven years. walked two blocks to the Morton theatre, where for a quarter downstairs. Mama found Mrs. Schwartz lying prostrate
In 1942 my mother, father, two younger siblings they could watch a newsreel, see a feature film and receive across Sheldon’s body, wailing and rocking him in her arms.
and I moved to Havelock Street located in the blue their choice of a plate, soup bowl or cup and saucer. Mama She tried to comfort her, but it was apparent Sheldon was
collar, primarily Jewish neighborhood of Dorchester, collected her set of Passover dishes by attending Dish Night dead. Mama didn’t return to our apartment that night. The
Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. It was a short street at the movies. next morning the undertaker came to take Sheldon’s little
with only eight multi-family houses on one side and ten Unless it was raining or freezing cold, kids in the body to the funeral home.
on the other. Our apartment was on the second floor of neighborhood played outside. Some had bikes or roller Leah stayed with us all week as throngs of people flowed
the first house, number seven, which abutted an alley skates, but mostly the boys played tag or stick ball in the in and out of the Schwartz’s apartment. Mama said that
that backed up to the rear of the Twin Pharmacy and the street and the girls jumped rope or played hopscotch on the they were sitting “shiva” and that neighbors, friends and
Sunlight Bakery. The street faced Blue Hill Avenue, a sidewalk. Our fathers were always working and rarely home family members were visiting to bring food, express their
main thoroughfare dotted on either side with small family- until suppertime, but our mothers were always home. After sympathy and try to comfort Sheldon’s parents.
owned shops and divided down the middle by the trolley. World War II began, some kids’ fathers were away serving For several weeks Mrs. Schwartz stayed cooped up in
Our first-floor neighbors were Sam and Harriet in the military, and the neighbors were especially attentive the house. When she did venture outside to get the mail
Schwartz and their four children, Sonny, 16, who worked to these kids. or call for Leah to come home she wore a long-sleeved
as a soda jerk at the corner drug store; Margie, 11, the In the summer, when it was sweltering inside, we ran black dress and black stockings. Her hair was matted and
drama queen who wanted to be a famous singer and movie around outside in our underwear cooling off under the water uncombed and her face was puffy with red bloodshot eyes.
star; Leah, 7, only a year older than me, and Sheldon, 2, gushing from the hydrant that one of the older boys forced Mama told us not to bother her, she was still grieving.
the baby of the family. open. Our mothers sat on the front stoops gossiping and When we played outside we played further down the
Every neighbor knew each other by name. No one ever fanning themselves with newspaper. Occasionally, Mama street away from our house. When we were in our own
locked their apartment doors, and kids meandered freely or Mrs. Schwartz or Mrs. Bornstein from across the street apartment we tried not to run around or make too much
from one household to another. Neighbors were close-knit, went inside to make a pitcher of Kool-Aid. Sometimes, on noise. The whole neighborhood seemed different. Everyone
often more so than family. If one neighbor got sick another the weekend, one of the neighbors, who drove a pick-up was mourning the loss of a little boy, one of our own.
offered to watch the children while another brought over truck, would pile us all into the back of the truck and haul One day, about three months later, when we got home
chicken soup. us off to Revere or Wollaston beach. from school, Leah’s mother was waiting outside. Her hair
Leah’s father worked in a fish market, and he and her In the winter, when the streets where laden with snow, was combed into a bun, she was wearing lipstick and was
apartment always smelled like fish; none of the kids wanted we built snow forts and snow men and had snowball fights. dressed in a flowered, print cotton dress. She took Leah by
to play there. My mother was always cleaning and our Some boys played ice hockey in the street. Our mothers the hand and told her they were going to buy her new shoes.
apartment usually smelled like Pine Sol and bleach. My always had hot chocolate or Ovaltine waiting when we Shortly later, that afternoon, there was laughter in
friend Irene’s mother was always baking and her apartment returned home. our apartments again. The women returned to sitting on
smelled like chocolate cake and cinnamon rolls. When I When Sheldon was five years old he pulled a chair over the front stoops. The kids whooped and hollered as they
asked Mama why she didn’t bake cake she told me she to the counter in his kitchen to climb up to reach a bowl played. Life returned to normal in my neighborhood on
needed to save her sack of flour for chale. of apples. The chair toppled from under him and he fell, Havelock Street.

OUTSMART

COLON

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