CHRISTMAS , THE EARLY DAYS

I will eventually get to describing the house but, since today is christmas i thought i would describe that magical time, at least till I got a little older. First of all Christmas did not start till the day after Thanksgiving, Period, No Christmas in July or holiday greed decorations set up in the stores by August.  The first thing I absolutely loved were the light bulbs pit up by the borough-yes, Brackenridge was not a town or city but a borough, if I spelled it write,  Shortly before Thanksgiving, workers would string  light bulbs, as in full size light bulbs of different colors from the top of a telephone pole on one side of the street , across the street to a telephone pole on the other side.  Probably every third or forth telephone pole.  AND THIS WAS DONE ON ONLY ONE STREET-Brackenridge Avenue.  I would watch the workmen shimmy up the pole by stepping on rusted steel large nails which started about ten feet from the ground.  Below that was a fixture where a temporary step could be snapped in place to reach the permanent one's.  This no doubt, to keep us kids from reaching that first permanent step-which we tried to many times to count!  The workman also had a thick leather belt which went around his body and pole and hooked in place.  He would move this up a foot or so at a time as the climbed to the top.  Remember: these were the days before cherry pickers or ladder trucks.  One string of lights was right in front of my grandparent's house.  They were not lite until Thanksgiving day.  The lights plus the Macy Department Store Parade in New York, and which ALL of us kids watched in glorious black and white on TV (if we has access to one) was the start of the Christmas season and not a moment before.  Perio.  Also: there were ONLY the string of lights-no tinsel, banners or anything else. The lights were flashy enough for us.  Why Brackenridge Avenue?  I was the "Business District"  "stores" really dydn't begin until you got close to the steel mill  Within a three block area, if I can remember all of them, there was a bank(the kind from "Mary Poppins"),the post office, where grandma would occasionally have me get a roll of 3cent(everyone roared, when they went to 4 and five cent's)stamps, to mail out her to many holiday cards, sent from Catholic charities around the world-for a donation, of course.  As she became an aged widow, they were exhausting her income.  anyway, a drug store, with a soda fountain, stools and all, a shoe store where you got 1 pair of dress or church shoues that always hurt, plus either a pair of Keds or PF Fliers sneekers/sport shoe's, which when place on your feet, you could run faster than a cheetah! There was also two grocery/butcher shops, and a newstand that sold more than paper's and magazines; like REAL M-80 firecracker's, which Bill and I conned our Mom into buying for us-a gross at a time.  I remember my mom asking the owner how powerful they were and he said 2 would blow your hand off and 4 was the same as a stick if dynamite.  Stupid owner.  She got them for us anyway because we were such angelic boys:)  There was also the borough building where you paid your water bill and which house the police force-the chief and his deputy.  My uncle Steve(my dad's middle brother was a deputy at one time and wanted to be a state policeman but his wife feared for his safety and made him go back to being an electrician at the glass factory.  Ironic: his son is an officer with the PA. State Police.  That was pretty much the business district, until, on the very opposite end of the street, the Acne super market opened-the beginning of the modern day grocery store where you went up and down the aisles and put stuff in your cart instead of the owner(like Buba) would get the item for you, even if it meant going up a ladder! I will finish this latter and tell you how Bill and I waited for Santa-never could catch him, no matter how hard we tried to stay awake.  By the way: 2 M-80 taped to a rock(the fuses were water proof) was an interesting way to fish:  you heard a muffled thud after you threw the lite bomb in the water, and a handful of stunned fish floated to the top.  Also, to our dismay, the police fined and made the newsstand owner quit selling fireworks! Later