Except at Halloween when we got invaded by kids from Bridgeport and East Wheeling, there didn't seem to be a lot of strangers in our neighborhood. If someone new moved in EVERYONE couldn't wait to see what ages their kids were, etc. Though we didn't have any block parties, parents seemed to know each other and everyone was respectful of each other's privacy.

I remember being asked to go over to Rubenstein's to light their stove on the Sabbath as they were Orthodox and unable. Stuart Rubenstein had the biggest comic collection in the area so it was good to stay on his good side. He was afraid to stay alone in the house and used to give one of my sisters his allowance to stay with him when his parents went out. By all reports his only interest was reading every volume of the encyclopedia.

Another memory that popped into my head today was making dolls out of the hollyhocks that grew in the alley...the flowers made a beautiful skirt for a clothespin with a drawn-on face. Also nipping off the ends of the honeysuckle and tasting the nectar was a treat...I liked the smell of it. But I was NOT a fan of pulling wings off lightning bugs and making necklaces and rings....that was too yucky for me....now putting them in a jar with holes in the top and bringing them inside to watch from your bed was a different thing. The sound of cicadas so loud you could hardly hear each other talking on the front porch was weird and if they stopped it was a bad omen.

I learned early that bugs always bite more when there is going to be a big storm. This came in handy one summer when my sister Amy and I were working in a souvenier shop on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. The shop was open on two sides and and the ocean was within 60 ft of us. When the bugs started biting we warned the owner that we were about to have a really big storm and he laughed it off with a comment about "you West Virginia girls don't know anything". A few minutes later a wind storm blew all his souvenier hats down the boardwalk and we were laughing so hard we did not even try to help him retrieve them. Seeing lightning over the ocean is spectacular and I remember how it looked even to this day.

There were secrets in our neighborhood too. Who knew that the popsicle man sold fireworks....not me! What secrets did you learn about Woodsdale only after you moved away or grew up?