I lived on the main street of my little town - even though it was called a city. There were two houses in my block and during one summer night, the other burned down. This was before air conditioners - so the window in my bedroom was open and the fan was running. Probably the reason I can fall asleep to white noise. I told my mom not to leave the window open because there was going to be a fire on this night. Now you see, I also lived diagonally away from the fire house. When the siren went off, it would jolt you to consciousness and not in a good way! My mother told me I was silly (I believe this was the beginning of the nickname “Silly Billy” which was later changed to “Spilly Billy.” but I digress.
I am languishing in my hot room with the fan blowing lukewarm humid air on me. My only cover was a thin sheet, and I was wearing my “summer weight” pajamas. I would have never thought of sleeping in the nude or my undershorts. I always got a new set of pajamas for Christmas or my Birthday. Suddenly, as if by design, the fire siren began to honk. It used to honk in a code and we had the code breaker so if it were four honks, then it might be on Hall Street. I think back then fires were the only thing that happened in the twin - boroughs that made life exciting.
Even with all my complaining about being awakened by the fire siren; I was not. My mother came into my room and shook me into consciousness and asked me if I had not heard the fire siren? Then she tolod me to, “Look out your window.” I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and all I could see were the colors of red, orange, and yellow - the colors of fire. I got out of bed, and we moved the fan so I could get a better look. Now this house belonged to one of the only friends I had on my block - Craig Stoudt. His father worked at the foundry and he lived in a house on the foundry’s land. I was really sad for my friend and frightened that someday this could happen to me. I am not sure how long I stayed up; I know it was long enough to get a glass of water.
The next day I met up with Craig, whom we called “Eggie.” I have no idea why we called him that - we just did. He was obviously sad; his house had burned to the ground. When I talked to him about what he and his family were going to do, he said he was not sure, but they would probably move away. As Craig and I frequently road our bikes together to go to Pennypacker’s to get Penny Candy - and as he was a bit bigger than me - I had some built in protection from the rough tough kids that lived near the store. It was also called the Cigar Store because they sold cigarettes and cigars. I recall a small soda fountain in the back where you could get really good food and milk shakes.
It appeared that those journeys were going to be more solo soon and made me very sad and a bit scared. The price you pay for being 4’ tall is that you are the very easy target of any and all bullies - though we did not call them that then. Oddly enough my father told me that if I would stop twirling “that damn baton” in front of the house maybe people wouldn’t beat up on me. It was a sad situation. You seen in just a few short days my friend Craig had lost his home and everything in it, and I had lost a friend.
The top picture is really pretty close to what Craig's house looked like when I first saw it
This picture looks like a bit later
And this is what happened before it collapsed on itself.
These are not actually pictures of Craig's house - I am not even sure we had color cameras at that point. But these are the images as I recall them or pretty close - as you see they were "burned" into my memory! RRRRR Sorry I went for the cheap laugh -
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