A Kids Life in the 1940s, Part 2

There was a pedestrian that captured our attention. Every kid on the block called him “Leatherlegs”. He walked by the house every morning going toward downtown, and returned, like clockwork, every evening. He always wore the same clothing, the most pronounced being his leather boots. They were tight laced and rose to his knees with his pants tucked into the tops. I’m not certain about the rest of his ensemble, some may be a figment of my aged imagination, but I remember he walked very fast, and never said a word to anyone. I remember a cane clicking along in cadence, though he did not seem to need it. I think he wore a vest, maybe of leather, and a surveyor’s hat with a wide brim. He was a curiosity wrapped in a mystery. We never knew where he came from or where he went.

Our little gang ranged between seven and eleven years of age, and as many as five of us might be tramping along in a pack. We made frequent excursions downtown, usually to the Fox theater for a double feature Western, or to the City Building on Washington and Walnut to attend Boy Scout meetings. The troop meetings consisted entirely of playing “Hot Butter Blue Beans” in the court room. The game didn’t seem very Scoutly because it encouraged barbaric behavior. A belt was hidden in the room, and the one lucky enough to finding it would commence chasing everyone else, and thrashing the ones not fast or agile enough to get away. The troop disbanded after a few meetings.

These days parents might be cautious about letting their children go downtown unattended, but no one thought much about it back then. Sometimes we’d follow Broadway west to Main and then on south, We took that route regularly for a while immediately after the war. The train depot was at the corner of Main and Broadway, and there were many open train cars full of surplus war materials on the side tracks for a while. Some had small cannon shell casings, others were full of helmets’ there were ammunition belts and canteens. For a few months war items were ubiquitous - every kid wore a helmet, had ammunition pockets, and a canteen hanging from his military belt.

Our main route to downtown was usually south on Lafountain to Monroe, jog west a block to Market, on south to Taylor and west to Main Street - about ten blocks total. The Negro section (Blacks and/or African-Americans became the norm some years later) of town started on Lafountain just south of Broadway. It ran south to about Monroe and east six or eight blocks . We never thought anything about going through it. The Keystone Club sat on the west side of Lafountain Street somewhere around Havens or Richmond Streets. It was a Negro fraternal lodge. Music and laughter would often be coming from its open front door, and sometimes a few guys would be sitting on the porch.

There was an open field next to their lodge. Several big tanks, propane I think, sat near the back of the lot. They were big cylinders, six feet in diameter, lying on their sides, and held above ground on big cement pedestals (somewhat like the one in the photo). A gravel berm circled them forming a small basin under the tanks. Water accumulated forming a pool a foot or so deep. We found it frozen one winter day on our way home. The ice rink was quite modest in size, but was adequate for advanced rug rats such as we. There was a dusting of snow and the ice was smooth as glass. At first we were contented to run and slide along the space between the tanks and the berm. Someone got the idea of running toward the tanks and falling on their backs and sliding under them. There was maybe two feet between the ice and the bottom of the tank - plenty of clearance, and shortly everybody was sliding. I was probably the last to go and I tried to imitate their style. As soon as I landed on my back my head whipped down, and bang the back of my head hit hard. It hurt. I studied their technique a second time. Yep, they were doing that way. I just had to hold my neck stiffer. Bang, I hit my head again. I might have tried it one more time, but decided I wasn’t having any fun. We went back another time with the same results. I conclude that either I was not doing it right or they didn’t mind banging their heads.

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