Brenner Box

Reading about Da'Shan Butler (WVU basketball player from Newark) clicked in another Newark memory.  After living briefly on Broadway, we moved to Brenner Street near 10th St and Springfield Ave.   Later this was the heart of the area for the Newark riots.   (oh yearh...also home of the Jewish ice cream story.)

A huge discovery, brought to me by neighborhood kids was the fun to be had with very large boxes.   The day a refrigerator or washer was delivered was a great day.   Cut out the ends, climb inside, roll....and roll....and roll.   Looking back it seems like it should have been painful, but it wasn't.   You could roll yourself.   Others could roll you.   Sometimes we tried more than one kid at a time inside the rolling box.   That was a bit of a problem.    I can't begin to communicate the delight, excitement, and great fun brought by a box.   Big day in the 'Hood!

At Brenner Street I attended one semester of a private kindergarten....something or other Country Day School.   I don't think I was to crazy about the place.   One time they had a pet day.   I was maybe the only kid without a live pet.   My parents had me bring my bronze statue of a cowboy horse.   I don't remember suffering at all for that.   I think they (and the school) did a good job of convincing me my statue was just as significant as the live pets.   Go Abe and Harriet parents!   I still have that horse, though one leg has been half broken off since I was about 10.

Anyway, I left that school for public school at the end of the semester.   Now I wish I was the fly on the wall hearing the parents discuss why first I went to private school, and then I didn't.