I remember staring at a huge painting in their hallway. It was an image of God, arms and wings spread wide from edge-to-edge, enfolding mankind. I use to look at that picture, knowing it had to be somebody’s imagination sensing my own perplex- ing ideas. I believe at some point, regardless of your religion, everyone has to grapple with the concept of God. I don’t know why this picture made such an impression on me. Maybe it was just a hope on my part that there really was that kind of a protecting force. With WWII looming and the coming knowl- edge of the Nazi Holocaust, my beliefs were seriously tested. But I can tell you today, in my advanced years, I have found comfort in saying the Sh’ma every night before I go to bed. EPILOGUE OF A TIME GONE BY Imagine this world as it was in those long-ago years when I was still a boy, before Kleenex™, television, air conditioning, paper towels, disposable diapers, jet airplanes, suburbs, school buses, zippers, ball-point pens, tubeless tires, refrigerators, supermar- kets, interstate highways, fast-foods, micro- wave ovens and, of course, computers. Those things just did not exist. In school, some of us were taught to use a ‘slide rule’ for complex math problems. If you were lucky enough to have a telephone in your home, it was usually a party line, a phone line shared with many neighbors. I seem to remember our telephone number at home was 133. There was no such thing as push-but- ton phones; it was all done with a dial. In the station, we wouldn’t have thought of installing a regular phone, but we did have a payphone. To avoid the toll when calling home, we would use a code, dial 133, wait for two rings, and hang up. Mother would call us back for free. Life was simple, but for many, short. Most people did not live long enough to get cancer or heart disease.
Harry and Herman Shooster at the Station
If you re-read the first sentence of this section and stop at each word, contemplate it slowly, you will really be shocked. No suburbs? No television? It truly was a different world I lived in. This was the world before World War II. TEEN YEARS During the height of the depression in 1932, my parents somehow scraped together enough money to buy a small gas station on a poor corner of the busiest street in Chester. We always referred to this place simply as, ‘the station.’ The address was 9th and Edwards. By 1934, the economy was still flat. I was ten. My dad must have been troubled. I choose this word carefully. Considering my dad’s challenges, he always seemed optimistic to me. I don’t know if it was because his own upbringing was so difficult, or if he just gener- ally could take things in stride. Most likely it was all of this and more. Either way, to get through the economic turmoil, we all had to buckle down on expenses and find new ways to earn money. There was no other choice.
Shooster Family First Phone Number
123
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease