Not very often do I read a book that brings tears to my eyes. I just finished one, and as I turned the last page, I ran out of tissues. The book carries the strange name of “The Witch of 3 Melchet Street”. And I remember clearly that the title stroke a chord. This neighborhood was where I spent my childhood. I lived in a small street right off Melchet street. My family and I moved there in 1967, just a few months before the Six Days War. The times were different. And we were young. I was barely five and my sister was less than one year old. My kid brother was on the road map but not yet in plan.
Horses were still walking the streets, and milkmen were still delivering fresh bottles of milk to people’s doorsteps. Children were playing downstairs. And the games were different.
We were playing “Corners”, standing on both sides of the street, throwing a beaten down football, aiming at the edge of the sidewalk. If you aimed well, the ball would bounce off the edge and get back to you. That was worth one point. If you got really lucky (and I swear it happened to me at least once), the ball would bounce again on your side, and if it crossed the middle of the street, well then, that would be worth two points. The occasional car would respect the game and blow the horn to warn the children playing. I remember clearly, that if Tali, who was later killed in the First Lebanon War played, there would be a large audience as well, cheering him and jeering his opponent.
We were playing “Stanga”. A game which required accuracy in kicking a foot ball. The goal was not to score by getting the ball into the goal, but to actually hit one of the beams that created the goal. We played with little glass balls, the goal was simple, win as many as possible. We also played with dried up apricot pits. When my parents finally threw away the collection, years after my brother and I graduated with Masters degrees, it had a few thousand items. I suspect, though, that my parents still buy apricots for the pits, and that they still collect it for the grandchildren. I doubt that any of the grandchildren has any interest in playing with old dried apricot pits…
We rode bicycles around town, visiting friends, going to remote playgrounds and construction sites. We were doing things that kids today aren’t interested in doing and are not allowed to either. We had lots of friends. True friends. The kind of friends who would have given you their last sandwich, or give you a ride across town if you had a flat, and would lie to their parents as well as yours, only so you don’t get in trouble. A bunch of us could show up for dinner at a friend’s house, and his or her mother wouldn’t flinch. By the way, TV was introduced in Israel around 1967. Obviously, people were reading more and talking more. Dinner with the family was different back then. It was an event. A mandatory event.
We had a park not too far from where we lived. It was called Jacob’s Park, named after one Jacob Sorasky, whose significance I once knew. This park was very special. It was walking distance from home, but it had all the elements to make it adventurous for kids of all ages. It had a playground for toddlers, a meeting place for parents, a huge jungle-like garden with plenty of places for hide and seek. It had a second floor, but I was never there, it was for the older children who were already kissing. I was at least a decade away at the time. We were still at the phase where boys play with boys. The park had two small hills on top of each grew an old, really old, Sycamore trees. One of them was a little hollow, providing a perfect place to hide. Unfortunately, everyone knew this hiding place. Later in life, while attending State University of New York at Stony Brook, I would actually live on Sycamore Circle. But that would be a couple of decades away. Funny, but I would have qualified for the second floor then, if only I would have been around.
Once, at dusk, we were playing with a striped red ball at the park. Someone threw it real hard, and it disappeared into the thick bush. We never found it that day, or the next. In fact we never found it, even though we were looking for it every time we visited the park.
At the other side of the park there was a small water pool with a fountain. Hundreds of dragonflies would use this pool for reproduction in the summer time. Providing a great arena for training in catching dragonflies at rest. Individuals, but also couples and triples. We never thought at the time that interfering poor dragonflies while mating was rude…
And we had the gangs of course. No, not even close to what you think. It was completely innocent. The gangs were kids who lived around each other in the same neighborhood, a few blocks at most apart from each other. The kids from the next few blocks were outsiders, and were not welcome usually. In order to relate of even understand the next story, you have to have some background. It was the late sixties. Most of the Jews living in Israel came from somewhere else, mainly Europe. The people were not rich, some still suffered some anxieties related to the attempt made by the Germans to annihilate them. My mother was most certainly one of them. She still is. Anyhow. Games, were scarce. Books were to be borrowed at libraries. Bicycles were inherited from older relatives who grew out of them or found other things to do. I got a tricycle from my mother’s cousin Hanna who lived not too far from us. I used them, and so did the gang. Every child in the neighborhood could come and borrow the tricycle and use it as he pleased. As long as it was returned to its place behind my house. One day the tricycle was gone. The gang went looking, but we simply couldn’t find it. One day, a kid came back from the next neighborhood and reported that he caught a glimpse of the tricycle. The gang went to investigate. We must have been two dozen children if not more. Sure enough, we found the tricycle parked a few blocks away. It was returned without a fight. But you should have seen the parade bringing it back home. It was like our neighborhood’s Independence Day…
There are countless other stories. The book was taking place in my old neighborhood. But it was also describing old games, and old feelings. Friendship, brotherhood, camaraderie. It was talking about an old time. It was not a better or worse time, it was different. We were different. And there was at least one thing going for us all at the time. We were young.
So why the tears? For the years, for the lost friends, for the closed doors. Mostly, I would say, the realization that while the alternative is much worse, we are, after all, getting older…
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