By Ricky Rieckert
This week, I’m taking you west on East New York Street in remembrances of Aurora to Broadway, from my old homestead.
But first, I wanted to tell you about, Harold O’Brien, who lived across the street from me.
When we were 7 and 8 years old, we would swap baseball cards.
Neither one of us was allowed to cross New York street because of the traffic.
So, he would take the ones he wanted to swap, and I, mine, put rubber bands around them, and throw them across the street to each other, when there was no traffic.
He would take what he wanted from mine, and I did the same.
It worked well.
Heading west on my side, off the street, four houses down, was a landmark for us kids.
It was a buckeye tree.
In the Fall, you would peel the nuts from the ones on the ground, that would fall from the tree.
They were pretty, with wood-grain tones and a beautiful buckeye in the center.
I would keep a couple on my dresser top at home, and give some to girls, as though they were precious stones.
(Some bought off, on it.)
The squirrels loved them.
Just past there, was an alley that went South and looped around to Union Street, parking for the two three-story apartment buildings that ran from alley to alley.
I was still 12 years old. Winter came in with a snowstorm of six inches of snow.
This wasn’t the Snowstorm of 1967 that dumped 21 inches in two days.
I had five or six customers for whom I shoveled snow, mowed grass, and raked leaves.
I was on my way back home from shoveling, when I came across a 70-year old man shoveling the city walks for those corner apartments.
I started shoveling circles around him, when he noticed me.
I always said, you lean down, like your facing off, in hockey, similar to Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1960s, bless his soul. I had the opportunity in life to meet Stan Mikita. What a true gentleman.
Then you let the snow fly.
The old man, asked me if I wanted the job of taking care of those sidewalks, when it snowed.
He asked me how much would I charge him.
I said $5.and he said, send a paper stating it, when you do it, send it to him
He lived on Garfield Avenue, on the West Side.
He would put the money in an envelope and stop at my house to pay me.
I found out, his name was Clifford Johnson and he owned the Johnson Drug Store.
Man, I took that five-year-old girl there for a chocolate sundae seven years earlier.
I raised my price to $10., the next year.
He said, now you’re going to shovel the sidewalks to each building.
That’s not was I figuring, but I said sure.
I continued for two more years.
Mr. Johnson passed away.
He was 90-something.
One day Jim Hannon from Hannon Real Estate stopped at my house, and asked me if I would continue shoveling the properties.
I said sure.
He found out about me through Mr. Johnson’s records.
He asked me, how much I was getting.
I said $20., and he said fine.
He said send the statement to his office on East New York Street near Hartman’s grocery store.
I did it until senior year at high school; always getting paid.
Old days.
Old ways.
Good times.
Have a wonderful week!