Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson for June 14, 2012

They sat in the hot sun and listened to the idiot adults tell them how good they have it and how the idiot adults have signed them up for activities they cannot stand.

I agree with you, but none of the kids I knew were “kicked out”. We all had too much fun being ouside, doing whatever, to need to be told to go outside. When it rained, we were allowed to stay inside and we colored or played board games. Some of us read comic books.

Hey I haven’t seen Gabby in her swimsuit in years!

We either suffered the heat playing at the local park, went to the local public pool, or went to the beach when dad had the day off.

My husband and I went through Pittsburgh in 2000. I had lived there 1940 – 44, and remembered going to a fantastic park with an Olympic-size pool (Dormont). The park and pool were still there, more fantastic than I remembered. Hillsdale Elementary was in great shape, but was now some kind of government building. The streetcar tracks in back of our apartment building were still there, with streetcars still plying their way. The only thing missing was the store across the tracks (converted into apartments by 2000) where I’d walk daily with my penny to get a piece of maple-sugar candy with a prize (once a tiny magnetized horseshoe with its bar, another time teeny scissors that would “scissor” for you). Good times, at least for some of us.