Memories of Alexandria Friends
Pat McCauley, Menard 1944
Current resident of Hunstville, Alabama
Mockingbird Park was an exquisite bower of grand, old oaks, dusty sycamores and brilliant crepe myrtles hovering over casual clumps of lush shrubs and seasonal blooms, with two tennis courts right in the middle. A small playground was sensibly situated at one corner, and forest green benches were scattered in cool spots just right for idling. A double-wide block bounded by Bolton Avenue, Park Avenue, Madison Street and 16th Street, the park served an active clientele during the day and lollers and lovers in the evenings. That, at least, is the way I remember it before coming home some time after World War II and finding a community center there.
Admit it. At this age, we remember lots of things that are not so. And maybe Mockingbird Park was less than the wonder world reverie summons up now and then. City Park was a grand adventure, away on the other side of town, a special place for Sunday afternoon rides in the Essex. But Mockingbird Park was walking-distance from home for a kid by himself, easy range for dinner time at noon or bathroom breaks. It was a personal preserve for Our Gang, shared willingly with gangs from adjacent neighborhoods in the day when the term conjured children’s comedy.
Outgrowing swings and see-saws, we played croquet, and pitched horseshoes over in a safe zone where nobody was likely to walk through and be beaned. We learned to play tennis there, not great tennis but good enough for fun in the fullness of days and for appreciating the pros in the twilight years. Boys discovered girls there on summer afternoons. Enticed by the heady scent of Lifebouy, shampoo and starched cotton dresses, it was enough to make a fellow quit in mid-serve, run home to bathe, don fresh shantung and t-shirt, and be back by dusk, there to flirt and string four o’clocks on clover stems in the shadows, so the other fellows couldn’t see him doing that sissy stuff, for girls.
Mockingbird Park had a nocturnal charm as well. Several mansions situated amid park-like lawns across Bolton sparkled in the gloaming. Evening traffic moved languidly on that thoroughfare, and the brick surface hummed in a minor key. Sparsely lighted, perhaps only by the surrounding street lamps, the park assumed a mysterious, romantic aspect. But in those innocent times, the favored carnal activity there was feasting on aromatic hot bread purchased at the Cotton Brothers Holsum Bakery in the next block of Bolton Avenue.
Later, the building that transformed Mockingbird Park served countless residents as a meeting hall, recreation center and branch library. May they remember it as fondly as we do the gem that preceded it.
