Ted would come bursting through the back door, sprint up the three steps to the kitchen, and exclaim “PenDot”! If no one answered, he would wander through the house, looking for one of us.
PenDot. Penny. Dottie. Shortened. PenDot. It didn’t matter. If he could find one of us, he would have someone to play with. Ted is our cousin. He and his brother, Louie, lived next door. My sister and I were closer in age to Teddy than Louie was. In fact, he and I were the same age, give or take 26 days. We spent our toddling years in the same house, playing with puzzles, reading books, washing the back porch with the dog’s water and drinking out of the toilet bowl. Family lore has it that someone heard us giggling and there we were with our special cups having a super bowl party of our own. Ted liked to tease that I was the older one. He still does. By the time we were in grade school, we lived next door to each other. Life was good.
If my dad was sitting in the kitchen when Teddy came over, usually just under the birdcage teaching Christo, the parakeet, phrases in Greek, he would chuckle at Ted, whom he loved like a son, and say something to the effect of “Teddy, you come in all the time and say PenDot. Who do you want?” and off Ted would go, laughing, in search of whoever was home.
A long, cement sidewalk separated our houses from back door to back door. Didn’t everyone have such conveniences? Our back doors were rarely locked during the day. We never used a doorbell or knocked. A cursory hello would announce our arrival. Our neighborhood friends always came to the back door and knew to check the house next door if we weren’t home. A long, loud yodeling “Yo Penny” was all that was needed to announce one’s arrival. A polite “hello” through the screen from an adult was accepted in our neighborhood. PenDot, however, meant Teddy had entered the premises.
My childhood was filled love and the security of knowing that there was someone always nearby to play with, to laugh with, to learn from and to be in the protective arms of family. When I returned home from school and opened the door, more often than not there was a visitor at our kitchen table. The aroma of pastries would be emanating, coffee brewing, and activity filling the house. Some days, I would walk past Teddy’s house, down the long sidewalk of their corner house, past their back door and on to our own. Other days, I would walk past their house then down our long driveway to my back door.
One crisp autumn day, I came home by way of the back of Ted’s house. It wasn’t until I passed his back door that I could see a car in
our driveway, parked, almost touching the connecting sidewalk. I didn’t recognize the vehicle. My dad was the only one who ever pulled up that far. Anxious to find who was visiting, I hurried inside, said hello to Daddy, sitting in his spot, underneath Christo’s chattering, and to Yia Yia, who was at the stove. “Who’s here?” I said, quietly, so as not to be rude if someone was in another room.
Daddy liked to play games, to make us think, and to tease. He was such a tease. “Don’t you know? Didn’t you look at the car?” Out I went, looked at the bluish car, new, pretty nice, even from my girlish perspective. “Come on. Who is it?”. “Go look again, Penny. Look at the license plate.”
PenDot. There, on a ’63 Chevy Impala, a bright and shiny new license plate that said PenDot.
After supper, Daddy took us for a spin around the block in our sparkling new car, PenDot. Teddy came with.
I love this story. You have captured so many wonderful memories. I grew up in a similar fashion, in a small town in Pennsylvania where the doors were never locked and we ran back and forth between our house and the houses of our friends. It was very exciting for us as well when our Dad brought home a new car. I remember it vividly. We would all pile in and go for ice cream. Simple, lovely days.
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Thank you, Sunday. A simpler time, I know. I’m glad you have that to look back on, and, oh that excitement of a new car and a trip for ice cream. It still seems special to go out for an ice cream cone.
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It’s a wonderful read for me too 🙂 That must have been a landmark moment, Penny, reading that numberplate…
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I still remember that moment of realizing the car was ours, Kate. My dad could have just told me it was outs, but, he let the excitement build and prodded me on to look for clues. It made the discovery all the more special.
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Penny, what a beautiful story. You had so much goodness, love & security in your childhood, & I can tell, because it pours out of you now in your loving, humorous & generous spirit. Thank you for the richness of your posts.
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Thank you, Juliet. I was fortunate, I know, to have had the childhood I had. We had little money, but, so many memories. That is such a kind thing to say. Thank you. I will take those thoughts with me the rest of the day.
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The love in your home comes shining through in your writing. what a wonderful story. It has all the gentleness and goodness that childhood should have. And a new car with personal plates. What a great dad and aren’t close cousins growing up with you just the best? I had one named Mark.
This is a really nice read. Thanks, Penny.
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Thank you, Teresa. I was so fortunate to grow up as I did. It is such a gift to have cousins close. I didn’t realize it until I grew older. Ted and I were the same age and actually lived in the same house until we were almost 5, then, lived next door to each other. I’m sure Mark and you had some nifty adventures (nifty? where did that word pop out from?) and memories.
Thank you, so much.
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I love it when you share your memories! Our daughter and sil moved next door to an elderly couple who, for the longest time, I thought was named Mr and Mrs Bobindot. Instead Bob and Dot were their first names and our pre-school age grandkids heard it as just the one name (the two were interchangeable in their minds).
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The Bobindots! I love it. I imagine that little story being told over and over as time went on. Thank you for sharing this.
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Penny, I have always loved your stories of you, Dottie and Teddy. I too grew up in a house where the doors were never locked. After all, you never knew who might want to come in. We grew up in a wonderful time. Even though there were only two in our family, I felt like I grew up in a large family. There were always children coming and going in our house. There was even a dog from down the street who dropped in occasionally.
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You should hear their sides of the stories. tee hee
I think you are right, Janet. It was a wonderful time, filled with fun and hope and lots of neighborhood kids to play with our imaginations the closest thing at hand to distract us.
Ha! You reminded me of our neighbor’s dog in Elmhurst who would, on occasion, jump through our back screen door and say hello. She would wag her tail, smile (I swear she smiled) and jump back out.
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I have to add this Penny. The dog who came to visit most often was a basset hound named Rosebud. She would bark at our front door until we let her in. Then she would bark at the stairway door. She would run up the stairs, run the length of the long attic room and back again. Then she would slide bumpity-bump down those steep stairs (Which I know you remember well.) Rosebud would be finished with her visit and go back out the front door. This was repeated about every two weeks. Her family thought it helped her back.
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Oh, I, and my tailbone, remember those stairs quite well. I will need to tell that story someday soon. In-the-meantime, I am laughing out loud at the thought of Rosebud bumpity-bumping down those stairs. How it helped her back I cannot imagine, but, then again . . . Janet, this is such a humorous story. Thank you for adding it on.
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[…] loved to ride into the City in our Chevy Impala with our PenDot license plate. Off we went, onto the Congress Expressway, for it was still the Congress back then, renamed the […]
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[…] was always visiting – sat in lawn chairs or at the picnic table. Our car, the one with the Pen Dot license plate, was in the narrow drive, our house on one side, my aunt’s house on the other. A perfect […]
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[…] we would go, the glass jars with their handles safely positioned in PenDot’s interior; homeward bound as dusk thought of settling […]
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[…] Saturday’s supper, we would pile into the Chevy Impala, aka PenDot, and Daddy would take us out for ice cream. Each week it was a different excursion to yet another […]
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[…] the walls of the house, and who always came in our back door on Harrison Street proclaiming “where’s PenDot?”. I’ll tag him back on New Year’s Eve, when he’s […]
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