Wheatfield Street, North Tonawanda, NY

It’s hard to provide a place for a family with 5 children, but my parents did the best they could and we ended up in the upstairs apartment at the corner of Wheatfield and Simson Streets in North Tonawanda., NY.

The building was almost falling down, but with hard work, my parents made it clean and livable. It was on the “other side of the tracks” literally, with the tracks only a block away, and River Road a block away in the other direction. I could not imagine that the house was still there after 50 years, but Googlemaps street view allowed me to see today that it is still standing, though greatly renovated by necessity.

The neighborhood was interesting, and I have always imagined it to be like West Side Story. There were no gangs, but Puerto Ricans lived downstairs. They kept to themselves, not understanding English, and we didn’t know any Spanish. We really didn’t know they were there except for the days they fried plaintains. Our house reeked, and we didn’t like the smell, but it was a part of life on Wheatfield Street.

A beautiful ditzy brunette, Sophie Stroud (Maria), lived a few houses away and I had a crush on her, though I never let anyone know. We used to sit on the steps and talk all evening until she had to go home. I was super shy around girls, but I enjoyed spending time with her.

An older cousin lived with us for a while and he fit the West Side story cast, too. He loved Elvis Presley and tried to look like him. He always wore jeans and a T shirt. Jimmy Acord also had a “car” - I mean a real car. It was a customized 57 Ford. It was black with gold scallops on the hood and on other parts of the car. It had fenderskirts and a continental kit and a beautiful sounding, powerful engine. He was so cool to a junior higher like me!

A block away, at the corner of River Road and Wheatfield was Molnar’s Restaurant and Bar. I was not allowed to go down there, (we are Baptists, you know), but Pauley Molnar was a younger friend. He had an older sister my age, Gail, who I felt was a little uppity and was very proud of her status at school as one of the most intelligent students. I, of course, was recently from West Virginia and it took a full two weeks for the school to move me from the remedial class (dumb hillbilly) into the honors class. Bluefield, West Virginia does have a good school system. I don’t think Gail ever accepted me being in honors classes with her.

Pauley, on the other hand, loved me. I was a couple of years older and he was always trying to impress me. The main thing I remember about him was that he was allowed to get a soft drink at the restaurant any time he wanted, (I was so jealous), but all he ever wanted was Koolaid at my house. He thought it was such a treat.

Across the street was Snopkowski’s Junk Yard; not cars, but very similar to Fred Sanford’s place on TV. I suppose you could find just about any used item in the world at that place. Buddy Snopkowski was really my buddy and we spent summer days together playing in a field beside his house, and roller skating. My cousin Jackie Saunders lived about 5 blocks away and he came over to skate with us.

And that leads me to my reason for reminiscing about Wheatfield Street. Today, I heard part of a hit song from 1971-72 by “Melanie” Safka about roller skates and a key, and I remembered those old metal wheeled skates we had. You had to clamp them to your shoes and tighten them with a special key. Of course, the song came much later than my memories, for I was in 7th grade. That was 1960-61.

Does anyone else remember skating like that? Certainly not young people with nylon and rubber wheeled rollerblades. We actually wore those metal wheels off playing “skate tag” on the cement parking lot at Buddy’s house on Wheatfield Street.