I really can identify with (a recent) reminiscence, since we grew up in the West End, didn’t have very much in the way of the worldly possessions, and my father, like your mother, worked at the Chester Lace Mill for 25 cents an hour, at least that’s what I seem to recall. We lived on Ninth Street, two different houses, just about the corner of Harwick, with our sandlot baseball field and Clayton School at our back door.

Like you, we ate Tastykakes, Breyer’s Ice Cream and hoagies, and were very fortunate to live in a mixed bag of cultures, so shared pirogues, stuffed cabbage, and many other dishes with our Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and Irish neighbors.

Just like you, we never had to go very far from the immediate neighborhood to find anything we needed, as most was available at Ninth and Highland: The butcher shop, grocery, barber shop, drug store, and the corner beer garden (which my father frequented every now and then).

Our longest trip on a regular basis was to Third and Highland, to the Lyric theater for the Saturday movie, which was a real treat for 10 cents plus 5 cents for candy.

I remember World War II, the air-raid wardens, the blackout curtains and special light bulbs that were sort of yellow and brown, the scrap drives (the collections were piled around the flag pole at Clayton School), and the chevrons we earned for collecting a certain number of pounds of scrap. I remember the resultant influx of displaced persons (D.P.s we called them) from the European war zones. We never really understood what they had gone through and some of the native Chesterites were a little distressed at the influx, but you know what - they came, they worked, they blended in, and to this day I can remember their hand-painted Easter eggs, beautiful Christmas decorations, wonderful new foods, and view them all as a value added to my life experiences.

Although we were too young to appreciate the many sacrifices made during that war time, we do remember sugar, meat and gasoline rationing, and the fun activity of squeezing the red button which turned lard (I think) into margarine.

We had to turn in old toothpaste tubes and razor blades in order to get new ones. We got along pretty well, except for the families that lost sons, daughters and fathers in the battles. We knew them personally and those we didn’t know, we couldn’t miss the Gold Star banners in the front windows of so many homes.

I imagine most of us remember the Warner Pathe newsreels at the movies, mostly stories of Allied victories, but at the end, the concentration-camp newsreels were indelibly etched in our minds.

After receiving and reading one of your articles, I’m driven to reflect on those days when my friends, like yours, were known as "Punk" Kowac, "Tarp" Michaelwicz, "Apples" Najmola, "Hawk" Diamond, "Noodles" Fulmer, "The Greek" Grieco (an Italian), "Lefty" Miller, "Stiff" Towson, and of course "Dutch," my brother, who died four years ago.

I remember all of my schools, Clayton, Horace Mann, Dewey Mann, Smedley (after we moved from the West End to Elsinore Place - Sun Village we called it), and of course Chester High. Except for attending a couple of CHS reunions, I’ve only seen two of my friends in 50 years, Gus Christopolus and John Smedley (met him walking across the flight deck of the USS Randolph, didn’t even know he was on the ship - aircraft carriers are pretty big places).

The U.S. Navy was the best school, taught me most of the things I needed to know about myself, and people in general, I didn’t enlist to "see the world" - hell, I hadn’t even seen all of Pennsylvania. I went to get an education and the guarantee of post service education.

Many of my teachers are still permanently etched in my mind, Mrs. Klewens and Miss High from Clayton, Ms. Ruffini and Mr. Edwards from CHS and Ms. Eachus from Smedley.

Ms. Eachus was assigned to Clayton for the summer programs for recreation, the swings, the softball, etc., and she and I didn’t get along too well, not too sure why. When we moved and I entered Smedley, guess who I had for homeroom? Well, the very first day, instead of welcoming me to a new school, she basically told my new classmates that I was sort of a troublemaker and suggested that I go back to the "West End," as if that were a penal colony.

Well, Ms. Eachus, you made me understand the playing field wasn’t flat, and that people from the West Ends all over the world had to try a little harder to be successful in the minds of others. Thanks to Ms. Eachus’ negative views, which I turned into a positive, I haven’t done that badly, IBM V.P. at age 39, retired at age 54, eight grandkids, a nice home, couple of cars in the driveway, single-digit golf handicap, graduated Harvard Business School (AMP77).

Every trip back to Chester I go to the West End. It has changed drastically, but it is home to me. I can walk or drive around and reflect on a different time and place. I can see myself hauling spring water from the Buckman Village Spring, making sure the gallon jugs had old pieces of innertube around them to prevent breaking. I visualize the "rag man’s horse-drawn wagon," the milk man and the bottles with the cream frozen, the ‘coal man’ carrying canvas bags and dropping the coal down a chute into our basement.

But most of all I remember the neighbors, teachers, and many friends we had, and in between trips, I count on Ed Gebhart and my sister to keep things fresh in my mind. A person has simply got to have some roots somewhere, and God knows I’ve been too many places to have them everywhere -- so Chester’s West End is stuck with me.

In Georgia, where I’ve lived for best part of 20 years now, we had a gentleman named Lewis Grizzard, who wrote of his childhood days in the same style that Ed writes about his, and down here he is a "classic." I can attest that Ed’s writings are equal to Lewis’ and only hope that all the people in "metropolitan Chester" appreciate his talents and reflections as much as I do.

Thanks for listening.

ROBERT P. (Bob) SAKERS

Marietta, Georgia