Introduction
Over time I will be posting a nostalgic series of vignettes exploring my youthful days in the Osceola Park neighborhood of Pittsfield, Massachusetts during the 1950s and early 1960s. Such tales will describe my adventures when I was seven to twelve years old.
These events described contain copious kernels of creative truth. As they say, “never let truth get in the way of a good story”.
I hope these stories appeal to the Pittsfield, Massachusetts area baby-boomers as well to others who, had they been lucky enough, would have grown up with us in those carefree days.
The Pittsfield, Mass., City Parks Department fostered outside play and social interactions in this pre-electronic era. We were more than fortunate, and I know that today’s youth are missing out on so much natural fun.
Background
I was born in Pittsfield in 1948 and grew up there when the General Electric Company was the king employer. The city was ranked as the second wealthiest community in all of Massachusetts on a per capita basis!
The city’s population peaked at 57,000 inhabitants and most anyone could get a well-paid job. Such wealth was the basis for most of my lower middle-class neighbors owning their homes. Pittsfield was at its socio-economic zenith.
I lived with my parents, my two brothers, one sister and one dog, Lady, in a modest two-story colonial home in West Pittsfield. My father was a mailman and my mother was a registered nurse.
Men were the main breadwinners, though, and women generally didn’t have to work.
During my childhood, Pittsfield was a friendly, safe place that was a blend of TV shows like “Father Knows Best,” “Leave It to Beaver” and “Happy Days.”
We knew our neighbors and we didn’t lock our doors, fear strangers or leash our dogs. Kids shoveled their own driveways and sidewalks.
No one had swimming pools, home gyms, Apple phones or drank bottled water.
Our household had one “black and white” Zenith television attached to a rooftop antenna which received the only available TV station-WRGB.
Retrospectively, we were mischievous and did things that may raise an eyebrow or two today.
Local crime did exist and scofflaws were mostly involved in fisticuffs, low-level theft or drinking and driving incidents. My neighborhood had its share of illustrious characters also, as you shall learn.
I’m paraphrasing what the inestimable Berkshire County Judge John Dwyer said in that “some of us may have been sinners, but surely not criminals.”
As the introduction to the TV show “Dragnet” proclaimed: “Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent”.
The statute of limitations law has expired for us and perhaps we were just “victims of our environment.” Nonetheless, you are now our judge and the jury.
My backyard was adjacent to a special nine-acre Nirvana called Osceola Park. It was one of 20 such public parks in the City of Pittsfield, all staffed with summertime park supervisors and, for us, even wintertime workers.
The park had big shady elm trees, swing sets, picnic tables, a water fountain, baseball fields, horseshoe pits, an archery area, and in the winter, there was a rope ski tow, a sledding area, an ice rink and a wood stove-heated shanty. Osceola Park was my childhood’s epi-center seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, rain or shine.
