I was born and raised almost 66 years ago in Norristown, Pennsylvania, into a loving Italian American family, the grandson of a brave Italian immigrant whom I never saw or knew, and the son of hard 
working Frank & Rachael Gaspari...!!!
A 3 story row house (the 'town home' of the 1940s and 1950s), across from the Reading Railroad, served as the 'castle' my younger sister and I knew as babies and toddlers...We lived there until our parents moved to the immigrant's dream...a single home in the suburbs...what my co-blogger friend Brian Brady would refer to as 'holy ground'...
MEMORIES...of walking to school, church, butcher shop, the barber shop, the corner deli, the Italian bakery, a locally owned department store, the shoemaker (who fixed anything and everything), and the 'East End Lemonade Stand'...a good pair of sneakers were the only means of transportation needed...The organ grinder, the umbrella man, the coffeeman, the ragman, the huckster, the accordion player, would all make their regular rounds through the poor blue collar neighborhood...some on horse and buggy, some in old converted school buses, some in panel trucks, and some in gayly decorated station wagons...oh, and by the way, some on foot...!!!
PLAYGROUNDS...we had plenty...but not the kind we see today...ours were vacant parking lots (paved with gravel with some broken glass thrown in for good measure), empty lots between houses that were torn down, empty space between billboards, and of course the street on which we lived when no cars were coming...
ACTIVITIES??? Of course there was always 'wall ball', 'stick ball', jumping rope, hopscotch, jacks, pen knife baseball, marbles, comic books, 'clamp on' sidewalk roller skates, embroidering doilies, weaving pot holders, Duncan & Cheerio YoYos, and helping Grandma 
prepare dinner that kept us off the playgrounds, out of the streets, too busy to get into trouble, and safe within the walls of our home...which I never remember having a locked door...!!!
Serving as an altar boy at 6 AM Mass meant getting up at 5 in the morning, walking in the dark with neatly ironed cassock and surplice over arm, while whistling a happy tune, and never feeling fearful or alone...
Everyone watched out for everyone...The good old days...!!!
Of course we lived there only shortly before we moved to our suburban single all brick home which I previously mentioned was what Brian Brady refers to as 'holy ground'...
Now, don't misunderstand, my sister and I both enjoyed our new surroundings and our spacious new accommodations, but we would both gladly trade it all in for the memories and good times we enjoyed in that nondescript humble 12 foot row home in Norristown, Pennsylvania...!!!
