Interview 5: Charlie Mike

We ice skated down in the park between the piers. In the cold winters, the Susquehanna Hose Company would put a ring of railroad ties in the parking lot and fill it with water. It would freeze and we’d play hockey in there. They didn’t want us out on the water, but we did. In the real, real cold winters, you could often skate from the park down the back channel all the way to Swan Creek and back! We were chance-y. But we never did it alone. If something happened it would have been a tragedy. But we were lucky that never happened.

You know where the nursing home is? Citizens Care Center used to be a big open field. The lower end would get swampy towards the water. We made a baseball field out of it. We played the kids from the Project (that’s what we called it), kids from up on the hill. We had neighborhood teams – like a regular league. It was a lot of fun!

We rode our bikes and walked everywhere! And we never locked our bikes then.
We shoveled snow. We had to go out and take care of any elderly neighbor; we’d shovel and not expect to get paid. It just got done.

from Charlie Mike’s interview