If I could go back in time and had the power to make one cange in our lives, I would ask that we remain close in our adult years.

We have all made new friends, but can they ever replace childhood friendships? The closeness that Barbara, Ginger, Tricia and I shared as children helped shape our values as adults.

LIFE ON FIRST STREET IN SHINGLEHOUSE, PA.

When I was about four years of age, Gertrude Press told my rother that I should be in Sunday School. I went - and that's how I became a Methodist! This was my first experience in the shaping of my religious beliefs. Dad drove me to Sunday School in the wintertime. If I was a little late and heard the others singing, I would turn around and go home. One time I was so embarrassed at being late that I cried all the way home. I remember getting new patent leather shoes every Easter. And I remember how they hurt!

In the corner of an upstairs window ledge, a robin laid her little blue eggs. In the weeks that followed, we watched the baby robins emerge from their shells.

One time I found a dead baby bird with but a few feathers. I took an empty Crisco can from the trash barrel and rolled the dead bird in the Crisco still in the can. Then I wrapped it in a little cloth, put it in the can and buried it right next to Press's garage.

Remember when Orson Welles had his famous broadcast in the late 1930's about our being invaded by aliens? My Dad had tuned in to the program after it started, so he thought there really was an invasion. While Mom dressed me for the getaway trip, Dad went to Press's gas station to fill up. Because this was an emergency Dad didn't think it was necessary to pay. And when Ike asked where we were going, Dad said, "I don't know - we're just getting out of here." Fortunately, Gertrude had heard the program from the beginning and told Mom it was just a story. My Dad really got kidded thereafter when the story got around town. Dad told me about this incident just shortly before he died. He said he thought we were probably going to Buffalo to be with my Aunt Rita and her family.

I remember sledding down "the hill" by "Bammy's" house. Her real name was Lena Kuhn but Ginger always called her grandmother "Bammy". So, for years I thought her name was "Bammy" Kuhn.

One time "Bammy" drove us all around town in the rumble seat of their coupe.

While visiting "Bammy' one day, we told her we were building a clubhouse or something. "Bammy" asked Ginger if she wasn't afraid she would hit her fingers with the hammer. Ginger replied, "Oh no, Jeannie is holding the nails!"

Ginger got her vaccination in her leg instead of her arm. Bernice did not want the scar to show.

We played school in a neighbors barn. Ginger, Barbara and I argued many times over who would be the teacher. Mr. Press had some old fashioned school desks which were set up like a classroom.

We played in the hayloft and, one time, we opened the loft door - which we were not supposed to do. We tied a rope to a bushel basket and chose Sherry to be lowered in the basket. The basket was almost to the ground when the rope broke, came loose - or was let go on purpose - who knows. Fortunately, Sherry didn't get hurt.

One spring Sherry and I were going to pick strawberries in a field across from the cemetery. Barbara wanted to go, too, but we didn't want her to come. She followed us, so to punish her we convinced her to let us hide her new hair ribbon and she would try to find it. I pushed the ribbon into the bed of a little stream on the property and put a little rock on top of it. I hid it too good - none of us could find it. Barbara went home crying and Sherry and I were confronted by my mother in our kitchen. We swore up and down that we did not do it. When I told my mother the truth 30 years later, she said, "- - and I BELIEVED you!"

At age 7 or 8, Diane and I were playing in her grandfather's barn. As he left he told us not to touch a particular switch. Curiosity got the best of me and I flipped the switch. The barn began to flood and I ran home and hid under my bed. When He told Dad what had happened, Dad offered to pay for any damages. Then Mom came upstairs and dragged me out from under the bed.

In second grade Wayne and I sat in the same seat at a fund-raising movie in the Shinglehouse theater sponsored by a school class. He gave me a diamond ring which he had taken from his mother's dresser. I had to keep my hand closed to keep the "engagement" ring on. Later when Ginger and I were playing in a neighbors yard, I pretended I lost the ring and hid it under several leaves. We crawled on all fours and couldn't find the ring. For all I know it's still there.

In the winter when the river behind a neighbors barn froze over, I would venture out on the ice until I saw the water trickling toward me as the ice sagged. Then I would turn around and RUN! I always had a flair for the dramatic -spelled S-T-U-P-I-D!

The first party I remember was for Barbara's birthday. I was 5 years old. Mom gave me a wrapped gift for Barbara and sent me next door. When Barbara had opened her gifts and the party was over, I picked up the gift I had given her to take home with me. Gertrude calmly explained to me that the gift was to be left for Barbara. I didn't understand exactly what gifts or parties were - but I wanted my gift back. I went home bawling my eyes out.

One time when Ginger, Barbara and I were going swimming at Sandy Bottom, we had to crawl under a fence. For some reason, maybe tall grass, Ginger said, "Jeannie, you hold the wire so Barbara and I can crawl under the fence." In my eyes Ginger was the "high authority" because she was bigger and she was a year old than I. So I held the fence - until I felt an electric shock - and I dropped it. But I took hold of it again because that was what I was supposed to do. But a second jolt made me let go again. We all knew it was an electrically charged fence but I didn't know what "shock" meant - until that day.

Do you remember Andy Trushel, Dr. Trushel's big grey Persian cat?

When I was eight years old, Ginger and I were playing in my front yard when Barbara came back from a marshmallow roast at Tricia's. Not knowing that the white stuff in Barbara's hair was marshmallow, Ginger exclaimed, "You've got bird 'poop' in your hair!" Barbara burst into tears and ran screaming into her house. We heard Gertrude coming out so we scurried into the bed of phlox in our yard and hid. She knew we were hiding and said, "You've got to come out and say you're sorry to Barbara." We held our breath and didn't come out. Gertrude returned home - and Ginger and I crawled to safety.

Christmas at the Methodist church meant sitting in the first four pews waiting your turn to recite your little Christmas verse - only mine wasn't little, not for a four- or five-year-old. Gertude told Mom she gave me a longer verse because I had such a good memory and asked Mom to help me with it. I still remember part of it and wonder if it was written by a well-known poet:

Hang up the baby's stocking,
Be sure you don't forget.
The dear little dimpled darling
Hasn't seen Christmas yet.
I told her all about it
And she opened her big blue eyes.
I'm sure she understood me,
She looked so cunning and wise.

When the program was over, everyone looked toward the door in the left corner of the room for the arrival of - Santa Claus carrying a big pack on his back filled with little boxes of Christmas hard candies for everyone!

Mom told me that when I was two or three years old and we lived on Pearl Street, my first playmate was Jackie Kapp. We would play in a dirt pile in front of our house with my toy shovels and bucket. Whenever he took something away from me, I would begin to scream and cry. Mom always watched out for me and said that when I did start wailing, Jackie would say, "I think I hear my mother calling" and run lickety-split for home.

Betty Morton lived across the street from us on Pearl Street.She baby-sat me on a few occasions when Mom and Dad went for groceries. One time when I was taking a nap, Mom went next door for a few minutes. I woke up while she was gone and couldn't find her, so I walked across the street to Betty, crying, "I can't find my momma!" Betty picked me up and quieted me. Within minutes Mom returned home, found I was gone - and thought I had been kidnapped. Betty took me home and saved the day.

Dad was instrumental in having a tennis court built between The Grove and what is now the cemetery. I remember his parking the car at the edge of the court, putting a blanket on the fender (so I wouldn't burn my bottom from the heat of the hot sun) and watching others enjoy the fruits of his efforts. Dad was known as an excellent tennis player. I wish now that I had learned to play tennis. Who knows - I might have been another Monica Seles!

I was probably five years old when Mom took me to see "Gone With the Wind" in the Shinglehouse Theater. I thought everything happening was live behind that big screen. In one scene where there was a fire and a horse reared up, I thought he was going to get burned and I began screaming. Dr. Kapp and his wife were sitting in front of us and Mom said, "Shhh - you don't want Dr. Kapp to hear you." He and his wife did turn around and look at me - but I didn't care if there WAS a doctor in the house!

Leah Cooper, a neighbor on Pearl Street, was active in local and Olean theater productions as was Dad. One time they were discussing a play they were rehearsing. I was sitting in my little rocking chair and felt ignored. So I began rocking back and forth more enthusiastically, so much so that -whoops! - I flipped over backwards. Dad sat me back up but I was so humiliated and embarrassed that through my tears, I looked at Leah and said, "You bad! You damn!" Mom was mortified and had to explain that the only occasions I must have heard the words were on the church programs on the radio from the Churchill Tabernacle in Buffalo which we listened to on Sunday. I heard about "hell" and "damnation" and I guess I thought it was time to let out the feeling!

Speaking of rocking chairs, Dad was in a production called "Here Comes Charlie". In one scene when he was off stage his "acting" was to pull on a string attached to a rocking chair to make it look like some invisible force was making the chair rock. Mom and I were seated at the very front of the Shinglehouse Theater. When I saw Dad behind the curtains, I stood up and exclaimed, "Look! There's Daddy making the chair rock!" So much for my contribution to "the theatah".
 
 

LIFE ON SECOND STREET IN SHINGLEHOUSE, PA.

We moved to Second Street when I was nine years old. We were moving up in the world! I remember that Dad paid three thousand dollars for it.

Ginger and I were swinging on my front porch swing, you know, the old fashioned kind that hung suspended from the ceiling, when she made two startling statements - startling to me, anyway. The first was that the earth is round and you can't fall off an edge. I said it wasn't true because someplace there is a big hole and you can look down it and you can see a Chinaman. The other startling statement was that there is no Santa Claus. She said it was my mother and dad who bought the toys. I was so upset. I ran around the house and in the back door to tell my mother that Ginger Kuhn said THERE'S NO SANTA CLAUS! Mom confessed that Ginger was right on both counts.

It was on the same porch that a group of neighborhood kids were discussing things and I heard the word "Catholic" for the first time. I didn't know if it was a disease or what.. This was all news to me because I thought the whole world was Methodist.

I received a new tricycle for my birthday. Mom warned me never to leave it on the sidewalk. One time I forgot the rule. After dark Dad got in the car to go to the grocery and backed over my new bike. The next day Ginger and I dragged the bike down to the scrap metal pile at the school. Scrap metal was collected and donated for use in World War II. Once again I was bawling my eyes out as we struggled to get my contribution to the war effort to the scrap heap.

The war was evident in other ways, too. Ginger and I were walking toward her house. We heard an airplane and Ginger exclaimed, "There are zeros on that airplane! The Japs are going to bomb us!" We ran to her front yard and flopped face down under a tree. We waited until we could no longer hear the plane before getting up. I remember I was waiting for the bombs to drop on us.

I remember the blackouts. When the warning siren would sound, the window shades came down and the lights went out. Dad put a blanket over the radio and put his head underneath the blanket to listen to the radio. Mom and I sat on the couch. I thought it was exciting to sit in the dark, not allowed to even peek around a window shade. That's how real World War II was to many of our people, especially those who lived near the east and west coasts.

Ginger and I both wanted to be nurses. Her Grandmother Lena Kuhn made white uniforms for us including white hood-like caps which fell down below our shoulders and had a Red Cross emblem on the front. Our dresses also had Red Crosses on the sleeve and on the front of the belt. There was no mistaking our identity; we were Red Cross nurses! We wore our uniforms in the Fourth of July parade and carried a three-by-four-foot banner with a large Red Cross.

We were playing softball behind MacDonalds' house - the Mac-Donald kids, Barbara, Ginger, me and others. I was on third base when Mrs. MacDonald called to us from the porch to say that President Roosevelt had died. I ran home as fast as I could to tell Mom and Dad the news and he turned on the radio, fearing the truth. Dad thought that, with President Roosevelt dead, the war surely would come to our shores. Then came President Truman, the atomic bomb and the end of the war.

Ginger's house had a piano room. Her mother, Bernice, would play some of songs popular during World War II. She motivated me to try harder when I practiced for my piano lessons. She taught me two songs from that war time - "The White Cliffs of Dover" and "The Shrine of Saint Cecelia". I liked the second one so much that Bernice let me take the sheet music home. I lined some paper free-hand and copied the music, note for note, free-hand. Those two songs remain among my favorites and I play them on the piano to this day.

Ginger's house was the largest and finest in the neighborhood - lovely white exterior, beautiful yard, large front porch, morning glories growing up a string on the back porch, fine quality furnishings, spacious rooms, high ceilings - and I remember it was always so cool when I walked in on a hot day. Usually there was a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table, filled especially with oranges. That's probably why so many times Ginger would come to my house eating an orange. Bernice introduced me to iced tea! I and the other kids were always made to feel welcome by Ginger and her mother.

Bernice always made me feel good about myself. I loved to talk to her as a teenager and share the gossip - excuse me -share the news about Shinglehouse residents. Before I entered my teens, Bernice began greeting me with, "Hi, Jeannie Mareanee", and that greeting stuck with me until my graduation from high school.

I remember when Ginger got her winter "pea jacket". No one else had one and I thought she was the classiest looking girl in Shinglehouse.

The only time I saw Ginger cry - was when we were playing croquet in my back yard. Ginger was swinging her mallet and accidentally hit me on the forehead. I fell to the ground, stunned, and a large lump formed on my forehead. Ginger dropped the mallet and ran home sobbing because she had hurt me. Mom called Bernice to say I had a lump and a headache but I was OK.

When I was about nine years old, Ginger received a jewelry-making kit for Christmas. It had one large oval crystal stone that sparkled like a diamond among the smaller colored stones. I wanted that stone - and I slipped it into my pocket. But Ginger caught me and told her mother. I was so embarrassed. But that didn't stop me from deciding as a young adult to start collecting as many diamond rings as I could from suitors - and turquoise - and two pearl rings -and - - oh well!

We never talked about sex. But one time when we were walking home, Jimmy Pearsall asked Ginger and me if we wanted to hear a dirty joke. It goes: what did the mama typewriter say to the papa typewriter? I think we're going to have a little portable. I'm missing a period.

It was about this time that I noticed Tricia's mother, Martha, had gained weight in the stomach area. I asked Tricia what was wrong with her mother. Tricia said, "I think she has a tumor." A few months later she gave birth to Tricia's brother, Steve.

Ginger came after me to go swimming at Sandy Bottom. Mom rummaged through a bag in the attic and pulled out an old bathing suit of hers, an ugly wool mustard-colored monstrosity. Moths had made some holes in the crotch but Mom said, "Just keep your legs together and no one will notice." Ginger, Stub Ball and a couple of other boys were lying on their backs on the ground when I came out of the water. I stood dripping - and Ginger started laughing and announced to the world, "Jeannie's got holes in her bottom!" I was so embarrassed; I quickly dressed behind the trees and went home.

Bernice took some other girls and me to The Castle in Olean for dinner for Ginger's sixteenth birthday. With the shape of the building and the coolness inside, I thought I was in a real castle. There were real cloth napkins on top of the plate, a large appointment of flatware and other things which were very impressive to a young girl like me.

I was playing hop-scotch across the street with Nelia Haynes and some other kids when Ginger came up and stopped the game. She had a big secret to tell me - and nobody else. She whispered into my ear, "Rita Hayworth is going to have a baby and she isn't even married. The father is Ali Khan." She swore me to secrecy because if word got out, it would ruin Rita's career. Do you know, I took it so seriously that I never said a word to anyone about that big secret.
 
 

My physical "development" came to the forefront when I was ten or eleven years old. I was at Perkins's, sitting on the front porch and wearing a sundress with straps and bare shoulders. Tricia, her brother, Edgar, and her mother were on the porch, too, when Tricia's six-year-old sister, Carolyn, walked up on the porch. She came right over to me, put her hands on my barely-developed no-bra breasts and said, "What are these?" I probably left immediately and went home to tell Mom what had happened. I was desperately embarrassed. In the past Mom had said that I probably could not be fitted. But this episode changed her mind. She took me to Olean to The Darling Shop where the clerk said it would be difficult to fit me. I returned home with a tiny strip of cloth which became my first "boob-holder".

Ginger, Barbara and I were playing at Tricia's house on a Sunday afternoon. The others decided to go to the Shinglehouse Theater to see a movie with Jeanne Cram. When I asked Mom for permission to go, she replied, "What do you think Jesus would think if He came and you were at a movie on God's day?" I didn't go.

By the time we moved to Second Street, Tricia and I were into dolls, paper dolls and my invented game, "Bakery". We would set up caps from bottles, mix water and food coloring, take orders by toy telephone and write on a note pad, mix the appropriate coloring for various cakes and use the names of neighborhood mothers and grandmothers for "delivery". We played this game on a blanket in my back yard. At the end of the game we dumped everything out and started over the next day.

Sometimes during the summer months Tricia and I would talk at bedtime from our upstairs windows, planning the next day's activities and enjoying "girl talk". I thought we were having a private conversation, but thinking of this as an adult, we probably had no secrets what with neighbors having windows and doors open to cool off.

Many times on a Sunday afternoon after church, Dad, Mom and I would go on a picnic and take Tricia with us. At times we fought and made up. She was fun to be with.

I remember that, many times when I was naughty, Mom would say, "Why can't you be a sweet little girl like Patricia?" I was playing the piano one day when Tricia came in and asked if I would sing a duet with her for a summer amateur contest. I had developed stage fright by this time and said no. Tricia left and came back later in tears. Her mother was insisting that she sing a solo. Tricia asked me to accompany her on the piano. For the same reason I had to say no.

By the time we were twelve all of us had bicycles and played a game called "skip" or "chase". According to my diary it was a game like hide-and-seek except it was on bicycles.

In closing these reminiscences, I recall one very exciting moment - my first kiss! I was thirteen and it was the Fourth of July carnival week. Ginger and I met Bob Nichols on the carnival grounds and he introduced us to two young college men from Coudersport. The one I was attracted to was named Neil, tall, brown hair and eyes. Ginger was taken with the one named Bill (?). He was short. According to the six pages this story takes in my diary notebook, it was love at first sight for me. Ginger and I returned to the carnival grounds the next night, casually (hah!) looking for Neil and Bill. Lo and behold, there they were, walking toward us. My stomach flip-flopped. We talked a while, then watched the aerial act. Then they asked us if we would like to go for a ride in their car. As we left the carnival grounds we passed Mr. Stavisky, our history teacher. I felt tons of guilt. But we continued on to the Baptist Church where we got into their car. We drove to Ceres and returned home by way of the Horse Run Road. Ginger and Bill were necking up a storm in the back seat. I was sitting right next to 'the passenger-side door - at first. Neil put his arm on the top of the seat but didn't touch me. By the time we got to Horse Run Road I had discreetly edged myself over until our shoulders were touching. All the while I was thinking, "If my mother knew this, she would kill me." But - we were lucky. These young college men were nice guys, generally speaking, and didn't make drastic advances. We stopped in front of Ginger's house, Neil turned off the engine and immediately put his left arm around me. He said, "Let me kiss you goodnight." Wide-eyed, I stammered, "I've never been kissed before." And suddenly, there it was - a smackeroo! Bernice came out on the porch, we got out of the car and went into the house. She wasn't the least bit upset. Ginger told her mother that Neil kissed me goodnight. Bernice asked me what it felt like. I said, "It was like drinking a bottle of pop!" Then she told me Mom had called and Dad was looking for me on the carnival grounds. I was supposed to be home by eleven, but it was now almost midnight. The boys had left when Bernice called Mom and said I was going to spend the night with Ginger. Mom would have nothing of it and said to send me home. When I got home I got smacked across the face. I went up to my room and Mom followed, sending out a barrage of questions about what had gone on. I lied when I said, "He did not kiss me." The next day I couldn't go beyond the sidewalk - but I did. I went to Ginger's grandmother's house. Then Dad drove up and told me to get in the car or my mother would be after me. I went with him. To get me away from the carnival grounds Dad and Mom took me to my Aunt Rita's house in Holland, N.Y., the next day - a bittersweet ending to a thrilling event.

P.S. I made a mistake in high school. I took home economics because Tricia took it. I had no interest in it nor any exposure to it at home. In college I majored in family living and nutrition within the home economic curriculum. I had 30 credits, the minimum requirement. When I had to take sociology, I discovered my true interest. I took every undergraduate and graduate course available associated with sociology, including psychology, criminology, delinquency, anthropology and so on. I enjoyed teaching nutrition for the practical things teenagers had no knowledge of. The years of teaching sociology cushioned the disappointment and boredom I felt from teaching home economics. If I could do it over, I would get into sociology and the nitty-gritty of the down-and-out victims of domestic violence and homelessness.

During the summers of the 1970's and 1980's I lived in Buffalo and worked in child abuse and domestic violence. This type of work was rewarding and exciting for me and provided the adventures that I seemed to need since I was born. However, I did experience fulfillment in teaching due to the love shown by my wonderful, wonderful kids. They called me at home, they came to visit sometimes just to lay their problems on me. I don't think I ever turned them down. Some of them still keep in contact with me. They loved me and I loved them.

Claudia Jean Bentley Haberkorn