Living on the Right Side

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In Those Days, my father was in the Army. Like clock work, he was transferred every three years, and we followed him where ever he went. Usually that meant moving to a new town, finding a temporary place to live while the Army looked for lodging, and enrolling in a new school. Over the course of his career, our family lived in at least 30 different houses and some 20 different cities in the U.S. and abroad.

We lived in the areas on the Left side, the Central area, and the Right side of America. Only absent was the South side, like Houma, Louisiana. Only later in life did I get to travel to the South side.

At that time, America was vastly different depending on where you live. With social engineering during the past 40 years, it seems only the weather is different now. We all have the opportunity to eat what ever food we want, dress however we like, drive whatever we want, live where ever we choose, and select whatever spouse we fall in love with. Gone are most of the things that distinguish us from one another, and some like it like that.

I never really cared much for living on the Right side. It seemed like it was always cold, and in the city, steam vented from beneath the streets as it was circulated to heat the public buildings. We lived in a row house once where our home used coal for heat. Every few weeks, a coal truck would arrive at the curb and fill our bin through a chute extending from the truck to a trap door into the basement. It made such a roar as it filled the bin and it was really filthy. Each night my father would have to shovel the coal into a boiler that would then provide hot water and heat for the old radiators. In the dead of winter, he would have to do that both morning and evening. Many times I would watch him so that I would know what to do when I became a man. Little did anyone know that Those Days would end long before I would mature.

We went calling then. Literally. I'd walk to my friend's house, stand at the sidewalk, cup my hands around my mouth and yell, "Calling on Jimmy" over and over until some one came to a window and answered my call. That was the custom then, and I've never really figured out why we never just knocked on the door to get him to come out and play.

I guess we did the same things as kids across the nation did. We just did them a bit different. And I never realized how different we did things until we move away from Living on the Right side. I wonder if they ever changed or has it just been me?
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