The Old Minbro

By Jim Martin

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 2, 2008
• ISBN: 9781450080095

Book preview

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction: The Old Minbro

Part I: People And Places

Shazam!

True, As With A Lathe

A Grand Old Man

More Than Just Ice Cream

Paint Your Wagon

Frozen Buckets

The Camp In Philadelphia

Part II: Special Times

Postcards And Pinwheels

Christmas In The Old Minbro

Epilogue

Epilogue II

To the Iveys and the Kings

FOREWORD

My husband, James David (Jim) Martin, wrote the essays in this book over a period of several years. He could have written much more, but was unable to do so before Alzheimer’s disease took his mind and illness took his body. Some of the essays were dictated to me while he was in the early stage of Alzheimer’s. He may have forgotten many things, but he never forgot his old neighborhood and its people.

It was always his dream to have these reminiscences in print as a book. Although he will not be able to see them, I wanted to have them published, not only as a memorial to him, but to give prospective readers a chance to enjoy his unique style and sense of humor.

He was an excellent photographer in his youth, and he took the pictures used in this book.

I am profoundly grateful to Xlibris for giving me the opportunity to make Jim’s dream come true. He lives again as his whimsical personality comes through in these pages.

Jim, honey, here it is.

Jessica Martin

INTRODUCTION: THE OLD MINBRO

(MINBRO means neighborhood, but I won’t tell you why . . . yet.)

The old neighborhood was 50% Irish Catholic, 50% colored. (We didn’t have blacks or African Americans in the old neighborhood, just colored people, as in National Association for the Advancement of . . . . Of course, there was a guy from the Deep South who used to say, I’m colored too. I’m colored white. There’s one in every crowd.) About 20% Jews, mostly Lancaster Avenue businessmen and the proprietors of many Mom and Pop stores on scattered corners throughout the area. About 5% were the well-off, mostly older WASPs who hadn’t gone west with the Paoli Local. Then there were about 5 or 10% (definitely a minority) who, like myself, were neither colored nor Catholic, and perhaps 2% Republicans, a real odd piece of change in those poor early Roosevelt years. It didn’t matter. We all got along.

Somehow there are too many percents here, but that would be only one of the charming peculiarities about

THE OLD MINBRO.

Someone once said, Characters, always characters! Never just plain people. This was not altogether true. In the OLD MINBRO, there were many plain people, but by contrast they just emphasized the rest of us.

And where is it? Philadelphia. Fortieth Street, Lancaster Avenue, and environs. That is the OLD MINBRO. How did I come to be there? We had lived in southwest Philadelphia, about 68th and Woodland. Why the family decided to move I don’t know, and I had no say in the matter.