Leonard Pennington owned the barbershop. He and his wife, Bernice, lived in the middle of the block on Lafountain (#4), three houses south of ours. His small shop, a one room shed, sat between his and the McEntee’s place (#3). He placed a big propane tank on the edge of the curb in front of his shop, and painted it with barber pole strips to indicate the location of his business. The walk that lead to his shop is still visible in the photo. He gave me my first haircut and was my barber as long as I lived in Kokomo. Pennington once told brother Don to let Mom and Dad know that he had ringworm. They took Don to a doctor, and sure enough, he had ringworm. Pennington was able to diagnose it without the ultra-violet light used by doctors, and he knew more about hair, the scalp, etc. than most barbers.
Mom told the story about Pennington once telling Dad that his scalp was too tight, and he could loosen it up for him. Dad was skeptical so Pennington began at the back of his head working and messaging forward. He had a fold of Dad’s scalp in his hand, waving it back and forth, by the time he got to the front.
I think Pennington was the free-thinker on the block. I was too young to know much about politics, but from what Mom said, he was probably a socialist. She once speculated whether he was a communist. He might have flirted with the idea during the Great Depression - a lot of people did - it was a time of stress. But we were entering a new period when any talk that hinted of socialism was suspect and met with mistrust. The era of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the witch hunts he conducted in his Senate Un-American hearings in the early fifties was in the coming. A communist was behind every tree during that paranoid period. The Pennington house is gone, and a new ranch style now sits on the site. Leonard died in 1965 at 62 years of age. Bernice passed in 1981 at 79 years.
It was the kids on the block that Don and I focused our attention. There were ten in our age range, four girls and six boys. Three of the girls were of the same family, the McEntees. They lived in the house (#3) between Pennington and Milner. Charles and Martha McEntee had four daughters, but I only remember three. Ruth, the oldest of the three, never much played with us. She was several years older, and being nearly a teenage, was not really in our group. Ruth became a nun and the administrator of St. Joseph Hospital in Kokomo. Barbara and Rita were one and two years younger than me, and I was the youngest boy, so they were a bit too young - not much more than babies. Besides, we attended Riley Elementary, and they went to the Catholic school so we did not see much of them.
I think Pennington was the free-thinker on the block. I was too young to know much about politics, but from what Mom said, he was probably a socialist. She once speculated whether he was a communist. He might have flirted with the idea during the Great Depression - a lot of people did - it was a time of stress. But we were entering a new period when any talk that hinted of socialism was suspect and met with mistrust. The era of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the witch hunts he conducted in his Senate Un-American hearings in the early fifties was in the coming. A communist was behind every tree during that paranoid period. The Pennington house is gone, and a new ranch style now sits on the site. Leonard died in 1965 at 62 years of age. Bernice passed in 1981 at 79 years.
It was the kids on the block that Don and I focused our attention. There were ten in our age range, four girls and six boys. Three of the girls were of the same family, the McEntees. They lived in the house (#3) between Pennington and Milner. Charles and Martha McEntee had four daughters, but I only remember three. Ruth, the oldest of the three, never much played with us. She was several years older, and being nearly a teenage, was not really in our group. Ruth became a nun and the administrator of St. Joseph Hospital in Kokomo. Barbara and Rita were one and two years younger than me, and I was the youngest boy, so they were a bit too young - not much more than babies. Besides, we attended Riley Elementary, and they went to the Catholic school so we did not see much of them.
There was an old playhouse in Mr. Milner’s backyard. It had been pretty neat in its day, but original tenants were long grown, and the passing years had been unkind to it. The playhouise's windows were missing. We boys found a girly magazine stuffed in a wall section where the window had been removed. The contents would be considered tame by today’s standards. Mostly I remember sepia colored photos of women in lingerie making slightly provocative poses, but it was hot stuff to our innocent eyes.
Barbara, Rita and I played in the house a couple times when I was about six or seven. I lost contact with them after we moved. We were in high school together, but I don’t recall seeing much of them. I remember meeting Rita downtown in the early 1960s. She introduced me to her future husband. That’s the last time I saw any of the McEntees. Charles McEntee died in 1967 at 61 years of age. His wife, Martha, lived to be 96 - not passing till 2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment