Euclid High School Online Directory

The Euclid 'Wonder Years'

A look back at growing up in Euclid during the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.

If you grew up in Euclid, Ohio during the baby boom after WWII, chances are you were either Slovenian, Italian, or at least knew a bunch of people that were.  My father liked to tell me that a former Euclid Police Chief once said the reason the city had such a low crime rate in those days was because of all of the Slovenian and Italian fathers that weren't afraid to discipline their kids.  Many of our parents were first-generation Americans, with our grandparents having come over from Europe in the early 1900's.  Because these grandparents either lived near or with you, your ethnicity was important.  You were proud of your nationality and maybe even had to fight over it a time or two.  When you would meet somebody, as soon as you would learn their name, the next thing you wanted to know was their nationality.  After you would learn who they were, you wanted to know 'what' they were.  Some of our names made it pretty easy to figure out! 

I can remember a couple of houses on my Plain Dealer route where there were people that did not speak English.  Even though she was born here, my mom didn't learn English until she started school.  Both of my parents could speak Slovenian.  I remember them speaking it mostly around Christmas time so that us kids wouldn't know what we were getting.  Most of what I remember these days are the words for food, and the curse words.  Slovenian music played from the record player every Sunday morning.  My grandmother lived next door to us, in a house with a coal burning furnace and a fruit cellar.  I have vivid memories of the days the coal truck would come, or of the times she would make sauerkraut in a big wooden barrel in her fruit cellar.  Every Christmas, she would give each of her grandchildren a plastic bag containing walnuts and oranges.  I would always run over to her house first thing New Years Day because tradition was that the first male to cross your doorstep would bring you luck, and that you were to cross his palm with silver.  I usually got a Franklin half-dollar.

DO YOU REMEMBER ...

Star Bakery trucks (how much better can it get than having doughnuts and pastries delivered right to your house?) ... Milk trucks and milk chutes?  In the summer, did you ever ask the milkman for one of those hollow ice rings they used to keep the milk cold?

An old man that shouted "pep-a-rex" as he drove an old truck through your neighborhood collecting paper and rags?  He was actually shouting 'paper & rags' but his accent made it sound like pep-a-rex.

When the sewer cleaning truck would come to your street and they would give you all of the rubber balls and tennis balls they pulled up?  

Your dad or some other male growing a beard to celebrate Euclid's 150th birthday?  

When Euclid Glenville Hospital would have all the kids born there in a particular year back for a "Baby Days" party?

Royal Castle hamburgers?  How about drive-in restaurants and car hops at Manners and Kenny King's?  Remember the Kenny King's steak burgers?  I also remember the little toys Kenny King's used to give kids after the meal. 

Going to the Drive-In on Euclid Ave?  In your younger days, you may have been in the back seat in your pajamas while your parents watched the movie.  When you were older, you probably went for different reasons ... quite possibly the same reasons you went down to Neff Road!

When the flag changed from 48 to 50 stars?

Mayor Sims reviewing the Memorial Day Parade from the balcony of City Hall?

4th of July Fireworks at Memorial Park?  Or the ones at Euclid Beach?

Standing in line with your family at Euclid High School for the Salk vaccine?.

Blowing a dollar on 20 packs of baseball cards?  You still probably didn't get any Indians!

Ten-cent ice cream cones at Dairy Queen?  The mechanical chewing cow at Euclid Race Dairy?

'Laughing Sal' at Euclid Beach?  Humphrey's popcorn and popcorn balls?  

Wishing you went to Catholic school just so that you could get all of those Holy days off?  Did you know anyone who went to "Sankersteen" which is how the natives pronounced St Christine?

Where you were when you first heard the news about JFK?

Before the railroad underpasses on Babbit Road, the old guy that would come out of the little shack and hold the lantern when the New York Central trains went by?  Those were the tracks closer to the Marginal.  The tracks closer to Euclid Avenue were the Nickel Plate Railroad.   

Blue Laws? 

Girls having to kneel down on the floor for 'skirt check' and sometimes being sent home for wearing those illegal culottes?

Spending a weekend afternoon seeing a couple of movies at the Lake, Shore or LaSalle theaters?

When we only had channels 3, 5 and 8 but there seemed like there was more on TV then than there is now?  

Ice skating at Memorial Park when it was just an outdoor rink?

Going to see Santa Claus at Bailey's Department Store?

Here are a few more thoughts, sounds and memories of growing up as a Baby Boomer in Euclid, Ohio ... 

TELEVISION


RADIO & MUSIC

SPORTS

 

Pre-EHS    1950's    1960's    1970's    1980's    1990's    2000's

Back to the Euclid High School Online Directory

Last Revised: October 11, 2007