Day 52 - 9/3/20 - Howard St Days

In a world gone crazy in so many ways,
To harken back to those simpler, Howard St Days.
When the only ganges that roamed our mean streets,
where the “big kids” and “little kids” engaging in feats.
These gangs battled nightly in contests of will,
But the “big kids” would win by overwhelming “hill”!
”Little kids are poison”, you would hear them shout!
The outcome of the night’s game was never in doubt!

Remember, on Howard St. Baseball was always our sport!
Nothing was more important except, on occasion, building fort.
Oh, to hear “beat ‘em Bucs” echo all over our street,
”We had ‘em all the way”, these pirates were rarely beat!
There were only two teams that mattered on our block,
Our pirates and our team that would clean your clock!
Our team had eat players which was always the case,
From a permanent batter to a dog that played second base.

We never had money to do things kids find common today,
We had to get creative about the things we would play.
From building great structutres, with Mrs Davis’ toy bricks,
To putting on magic shows, complete with our own tricks.
To make money, we would charge to watch movies we had,
Our top feature, The Pin Cushion Man, was really pretty bad.
5 cent lemonade, $1 grass cutting and 25 cents for his picture,
were some of great money making ideas in the mixture.

One day, Dad taught us a new game to play “Duck on a Rock”
We called it “kick the can”, whatever its name it was hard to knock!
Baseball by day and kick the can by night both had something same.
The loser always had the painful “Raspberry bushes” to blame.
On rainy days or when it got dark, we moved our games onto the street.
For baseball, kick the can or just riding bikes, a safety rule was setup to meet.
To keep from getting hit by a car, the cry “C-A-R, C-A-R” became our warning,
You could hear our cry, “C-A-R, C-A-R” no matter if it’s day, night or morning!

There were many things, some not mentioned, that made Howard St unique!
There were problems and sad times but they never made things look bleak.
Things that happened, both funny and sad, that won’t happen anymore:
”Little’s” birthday parties, the driveway wall, the first step out the back door,
Dad’s birthday Christmas eve, Mom being chauffeured by the garbage man,
Our backyard pool, Our family booth at St Bart’s fair, Vacations with all the clan,
A game of pit, Tippy with a hole in his head, How we got by with one bathroom,
11 of us and Tori, living in a three bedroom house, Never that plight with gloom!

Howard St taught us what matters; Mom and Dad used that to get us ready for life.
I may be the luckiest because Howard St gave me something extra, a beautiful wife!

At a family reunion 7 or 8 years ago my Uncle Tom handed me these lyrics and invited me to put them to music. Here I am, years later, to celebrate Uncle Tom and Aunt Susie’s 50th wedding anniversary… putting these to music!