As most of you know, I was born and raised in Manville.  Born at home on Winter St. and raised in a 4th floor tenement on Railroad St., right there on the banks of what was then the very fragrant Blackstone River. Our house sat flush up against the sidewalk in front, with just enough room for a driveway on either side, and a cement yard edged with a row of garages out back. This was my immediate world and it shaped my perception of the world around me.  I knew, for example, that only rich people had grass, and only the very rich had bathtubs. Our bathroom, which back then was referred to simply as “the toilet,” was just that – a closet-size room in one corner of the kitchen that contained a toilet.  Period. No sink. No shower.…

We were at my mother’s not long after Mother’s Day when we spotted a vase of roses on the hearth. “Oh, is that that vase that Gerry peed in?” we asked, and then we all burst out laughing as the memory resurfaced. Here’s the story. When I was a child we lived in a four-decker tenement house in Manville.  Since our apartment was on the top floor, our hallway was relatively large and spacious, running a good 12 to 15 feet from front to back and maybe 6 feet across, with our door at one end, a window at the rear, and the open stairwell occupying a chunk of space along one side. For reasons I’ve never understood (or given much thought to, truth be told) our old white icebox sat at the far end of the hall.  Replaced by…