Morning glory: Road to hope

There are three Morning Glory Roads in Philadelphia's far Northeast: 3100, 3200 and 3300. 

All three blocks were gouged out of farmland and estate properties near the former Philadelphia State Hospital - more infamously known as Byberry - and minutes from the old Liberty Bell Racetrack. We had no idea what a mall was until 1968.

The first house on the Academy Road side of Morning Glory Road's 3300 block - ours - is where my dad lifted my mom in a sweep of hope and promise over the threshold in 1959. It was a blue-collar development that would soon be swollen with Baby Boomers. The builder advertised it as Glenview, "perfect living in the new Northeast."

My mother called it "fertile valley."

It felt like a suburb: We had an A&P supermarket, a movie theater, a 7-11, a hardware store and a deli we could walk to in what would now be called a strip center. We rarely had to venture "downtown," as we referred to center city Philly, except for the Mummers parade and the annual Christmas light show at John Wanamaker's department store.

We didn't have to leave our street much to play either: We could smack a plastic Wiffle ball or half a  rubber ball from our driveway and watch it sail across the street onto a neighbor's roof. 

Before we could say "Tag, you're it," we'd be on the Whip, an amusement park ride on a truck that whirled us in a small circle and jerked us around the turns. You could feel the icy air on your face as the Good Humor man opened his back freezer door to popsicles and ice-cream sandwiches. 

Ben & Jerry's it wasn't. But then choosing from 98 flavors would have taken all day.

In summer, we could be out from morning to dinner because our fierecely protective stay-at-home moms would watch their own kids and everyone else's from behind the kitchen window screens facing the street. At a recent annual reunion of our old neighbors - many of us now longtime surburbanites - we marveled at the fact that we could give our children so much more than our parents were able to, except that long-ago freedom. 

"You couldn't do that today," was a wistful refrain. 

When I first walked into the backyard of our reunion host, I had my 88-year-old mother on my arm. The first old neighbor to see us was awed: "It's Mrs. Wiser! Mrs. Wiser!"  

Heads swiveled. Hugs were exchanged. Others took her hand. Because mom was one of the women behind the screens who kept our old street a safe haven. Until it wasn't. Fate also took up residence on our block, entitled and arrogant and often, so audacious it shattered one Christmas for all of us. 

It took an infant, a high-school senior, a fresh bridegroom, a father of three. It would deliver hurt to our doorsteps for decades. 

While my mother joked about Morning Glory Road producing so many children, she also thought it might have been cursed, that our little houses - with three bedrooms, eye-level ovens and Formica counters - were plopped onto an ancient burial ground.

So we talked about that at our reunion, too. Memory gaps filled by each other and by our most senior guests: my mother and her longtime friend, another 88-year-old neighbor, both of them survivors of terrible tragedy.

What we did remember was how these two and other Morning Glory moms and dads went on after loss. For their children, they were devastated in private, but stoic in public. They told us what we needed to know as kids and saved the rest for when we were adults.

The women behind the screens helped us see through the dark. 

Driveway, 3359 Morning Glory Road