Disturbing News . . .

. . . At First Glance

When I switched into the e-mail mode on my computer this morning after reading a couple of newspaper articles I was greeted with a subject line which, if I were a bank president, might have struck an omious note.

"The Mockorange Lane Gang Rides Again", I read - with visions of Jesse James and his cohorts or some other notoriuous bunch riding into town with a no-good-intent riding ahead of them.

But, Old Newsie, just relax. It seems like that new e-mail feature Facebook
(at least new to me) had led to daughter Yarntangler's finding two more of the girls with whom she as a kid played with back in Pennsylvania, residents of the same street on which this blogger's family resided.

Note I said two MORE girls. A few years back I'd already located for Yarntangler one other chum from Mockorange, so now the "gang" is four but three are non-bloggers - Gail, Sue and Rita, the latter being the gal found sometime ago, who in 1959 was Yarntangler's companion on a family trip to Yellowstone National Park.

While those are now found, I can think of a few more to be sought, Renee, Sandy and Barbara, by name and two other neighbors whose names do not come to mind.

Yarntangler's message to headquarters here says (probably) this is the start of reviving a gang of youngsters who were neighbors 50 years ago, the female side of the gang.

Now what about the male side? There's a good possibility this Facebook program will find others once these gals start tracking them down - seems like women have that knack (one I once knew did it after going to great lengths including the state department).

Some of the male teens they'll be looking for include such names as Richard. Andy, Rick and Greg. Unfortunately Greg, who became a lawyer, is deceased I was told a few years ago. Two other male "gang" members are Terry and Denis, who are already located.

Levittown in Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, was in the 1950s a brand new post-World War II city of 17,311 homes, a place carved out of five townships and villages, mostly farmland. You bought a home there for $10,000 - yep, that's right, $10,000.

Teenagers who grew there now are scattered all over the United States I assume, maybe even round the world , having moved on to colleges after their high school days, and thence to jobs wherever they could find them.

This "gang," girls and boys thoroughly enjoyed a large swimming pool located a few blocks from Mockorange Lane (the pool in which I lost my false teeth one day) and some of them at least learned their ice skating techniques in a frozen-over drainage ditch along the base of the home section in which we resided in, Magnolia Hill.

Facebook folks and eventually this blogger, will have a lot of nostalgia to talk over once they get together online and maybe, if as already been suggested, they get together in person for a reunion.

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