Their Entitlement To America, Part Six
Moving Through The Neighborhood
In 1960, a traumatic event occurred in my life…we moved! Tired of the floods and the associated rats they brought,* my parents decided to move several blocks further north to an area not so prone to flooding or to rats…ah, at least not the four-legged kind. My maternal grandparents lived just a little over a block away, and the school I attended was just one street over to the east. My mother actually had spent a good deal of time living just one block west, as that’s where my grandparents lived for quite some time prior to my mother’s marriage in 1937. My paternal grandmother was their neighbor at some point in those times.** The friends I’d grown up with were now several blocks away, which was quite a distance for a kid. Gradually I made new friends, but I’ve still not forgotten my old playmates from all those years ago.
Our new part of the overall neighborhood still had lots of folks of German descent, but we also had a bar and rental apartments across the street owned by Italian immigrants. The husband was much, much older than the wife. From all the stories I heard, it had been an “arranged” marriage, perhaps to get her over here where things were better economically. She was from Taranto in southern Italy, and I’m not sure where he was from in Italy originally, but he had been in the United States for quite some time, although until his dying day, his accent was so heavy, it was difficult to understand him. It was just a few years after World War Two ended that she came over to America. She was a little woman, and the couple had two daughters. Unfortunately one had a type of leukemia that later claimed her life quite a few years later. Whatever the marriage arrangement, she eventually learned the ropes, filed for divorce and got just about everything the man had, including all that property!!! Later, she remarried another Italian immigrant (from northern Italy, but I just forget which city), who must have been in America from youth, as he had just a bit of an accent. They had a son.
A few years later we moved again, a couple of more blocks northward and one street over. By this time, the state was preparing a major, multi-year highway project that would cut through much of the neighborhood, taking a large part of the newer homes along the hillside, which I had mentioned in an earlier segment. Some folks literally had their homes moved to new locations on large trucks, but a chunk of the neighborhood was gone.
* I’m not an expert on rats (the four legged kind), but we always called them “river rats,” as they liked water and they could swim better than Johnny Weissmuller, the former Olympic swimmer of Tarzan fame. Most times, these large rats roamed the banks of the Ohio River, but when the floods came, they moved right along with the water, bringing them to basements all over the neighborhood as they searched for food. This search often led them to enter the actual living quarters of many homes, scaring the hell out of the human inhabitants. Rattraps were a common site in all homes in the area, especially the lower lying, flood-prone sections.
** My dad lived with is father in Baltimore from 1932 until early 1937. My grandparents had divorced in 1930.
WORD HISTORY:
Soon-This goes back to West Germanic "saeno," but I cannot find its Old Germanic predecessor, but Gothic, had "suns." The West Germanic form gave Old English "sona," with a long "o" sound, and it meant "right now, immediately." Other West Germanic forms from Old English times were Old Frisian "son" (long "o"), Old Saxon "sana," and Old High German "san." Apparently these forms all died out, as I can find no forms in the other modern Germanic languages. Gradually the meaning shifted to "in a short time."
In 1960, a traumatic event occurred in my life…we moved! Tired of the floods and the associated rats they brought,* my parents decided to move several blocks further north to an area not so prone to flooding or to rats…ah, at least not the four-legged kind. My maternal grandparents lived just a little over a block away, and the school I attended was just one street over to the east. My mother actually had spent a good deal of time living just one block west, as that’s where my grandparents lived for quite some time prior to my mother’s marriage in 1937. My paternal grandmother was their neighbor at some point in those times.** The friends I’d grown up with were now several blocks away, which was quite a distance for a kid. Gradually I made new friends, but I’ve still not forgotten my old playmates from all those years ago.
Our new part of the overall neighborhood still had lots of folks of German descent, but we also had a bar and rental apartments across the street owned by Italian immigrants. The husband was much, much older than the wife. From all the stories I heard, it had been an “arranged” marriage, perhaps to get her over here where things were better economically. She was from Taranto in southern Italy, and I’m not sure where he was from in Italy originally, but he had been in the United States for quite some time, although until his dying day, his accent was so heavy, it was difficult to understand him. It was just a few years after World War Two ended that she came over to America. She was a little woman, and the couple had two daughters. Unfortunately one had a type of leukemia that later claimed her life quite a few years later. Whatever the marriage arrangement, she eventually learned the ropes, filed for divorce and got just about everything the man had, including all that property!!! Later, she remarried another Italian immigrant (from northern Italy, but I just forget which city), who must have been in America from youth, as he had just a bit of an accent. They had a son.
A few years later we moved again, a couple of more blocks northward and one street over. By this time, the state was preparing a major, multi-year highway project that would cut through much of the neighborhood, taking a large part of the newer homes along the hillside, which I had mentioned in an earlier segment. Some folks literally had their homes moved to new locations on large trucks, but a chunk of the neighborhood was gone.
* I’m not an expert on rats (the four legged kind), but we always called them “river rats,” as they liked water and they could swim better than Johnny Weissmuller, the former Olympic swimmer of Tarzan fame. Most times, these large rats roamed the banks of the Ohio River, but when the floods came, they moved right along with the water, bringing them to basements all over the neighborhood as they searched for food. This search often led them to enter the actual living quarters of many homes, scaring the hell out of the human inhabitants. Rattraps were a common site in all homes in the area, especially the lower lying, flood-prone sections.
** My dad lived with is father in Baltimore from 1932 until early 1937. My grandparents had divorced in 1930.
WORD HISTORY:
Soon-This goes back to West Germanic "saeno," but I cannot find its Old Germanic predecessor, but Gothic, had "suns." The West Germanic form gave Old English "sona," with a long "o" sound, and it meant "right now, immediately." Other West Germanic forms from Old English times were Old Frisian "son" (long "o"), Old Saxon "sana," and Old High German "san." Apparently these forms all died out, as I can find no forms in the other modern Germanic languages. Gradually the meaning shifted to "in a short time."
Labels: English, etymology, Ohio Valley, personal story, rats
posted by Randy at 4:27 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Randy - I just tripped onto your blog and since I could identify many of the old neighborhood places, I found it very interesting. So far I have just skimmed the posts, but I'll be back to read it in further depth later. Love the etymology tidbits as well.
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