Frankford native Jon Barrett fondly and vividly remembers growing up and playing all the street games of the day.
“I remember like it happened today,” he said.
Barrett decided to write a book about the good old days on Fillmore Street. And while his memories are fresh, he wanted to publish the best book possible, so it took him a while. Twenty-five years, in fact.
“I did it little by little,” he said.
The finished product is Catch Your Fall, As the Streets Teach All: Street Knowledge from Philadelphia’s Northeast.
The book is available on the websites of BookBaby, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
The cover features an image of the author, his brother, cousins and friends playing Skully, riding bikes and holding skateboards and a Hula-Hoop, as a Mister Softee truck approaches.
Barrett, 55, grew up on the 1300 block of Fillmore St., a one-way block of rowhomes. He lived there through sixth grade, attending the old H.R. Edmunds Elementary School before his family moved to Hatboro.
The book is filled with stories of games played during the mid-1970s to early ‘80s. The names of the kids and the adult neighbors were changed.
Barrett enjoyed recounting the good times and experiences.
“I wanted to keep the positive elements and positive memories,” he said. “I was happy to be able to remember these good events.”
Barrett and his relatives and friends spent many days and nights playing on the street, the games interrupted only when somebody hollered, “Car.” The street was their arena.
The youngsters played games such as Skully (bottle caps); Red Light, Green Light; Step Ball; Knock Knock, Zoom Zoom; stickball/wiffle ball; tag; Who Kicked the Can?; and hide-and-seek.
These were the days without technology to keep kids in the house, other than maybe a game of Atari.
“We were just happy to have fun and play games on the fly,” Barrett said.
The author recalls the neighborhood kids being inventive, intuitive and creative with making the rules for the games. A lot of his family lived close. Some blocks had up to 100 kids on them, and the kids who went to Catholic and public school all played together.
“Some families had almost 10 family members in a rowhouse,” Barrett said.
The book tells all kinds of stories of childhood: getting mosquito bites; catching lightning bugs; drinking out of a garden hose on hot days; cooling off under a fire hydrant; having fun at recess; and using sparklers and firecrackers.
One time, the kids used a rear garage to stage a play.
As most of these activities took place during the warm months, the kids knew the arrival of St. Patrick’s Day and Easter on the calendar brought hope for nice weather.
On some of those nice days, Barrett’s family gathered in the large backyard garden of his aunt, who lived a couple of blocks away. The corner property had an above-ground pool and was a good spot for wiffle ball.
“It was like a resort when I went to my aunt’s house,” Barrett said. “It was almost like a playground resort.”
While most of the stories in the book are about innocent fun, Barrett recounted a scary episode at Edmunds, when students and staff were evacuated following a chemical accident. Those monthly fire drills came in handy, as the evacuation was relatively calm.
“We were running out of school as fast as we could,” Barrett said. “We were grateful nobody got hurt or had to go to the hospital.”
Barrett said he most enjoyed writing Chapter 10, which recounted the times he and his brother worked in the produce section of a mini mart at Oakland and Fillmore streets.
His favorite game to write about was wiffle ball, since his brother and cousins were involved in the games.
“It was family oriented,” he said.
Today, Barrett lives in North Carolina. His book was chosen to be included into the Written by Owls listicle that celebrates published works by Temple University alumni, and it has received some positive online reviews,
“It resonates with a lot of people from that era,” he said. “We all played together. There were so many good times.” ••
Buy the book at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/catch-your-fall-as-the-streets-teach-all?srsltid=AfmBOoql4LqlyuMW8LVYL92dkgkvtf5U8KJjKWIIXJrwnN8ZzcN3Q2cg
