the golden ghetto

They say in AA that we are only as sick as our secrets and one of my biggest secrets is the three years we lived on Charrington. That was one of three or four streets they called the golden ghetto in Birmingham, Michigan. It started out in Detroit where I grew up on Pinehurst. 17539 Pinehurst. I can't believe I can still remember the address. It was a very middle class neighborhood and was predominantly Jewish. We are Jews so this makes sense. The house was a colonial and when mom got polio dad bought land behind the house (Meyers Woods we called it.) and built mom a swimming pool so she could excercise. And the house was perfect for us. I remember the wooden table that pulled out of the kitchen wall to make it into an eat in kitchen. On the first floor we had a powder room with black and white tiled floors, a living room, dining room and that kitchen with the pullout wooden table. And there was a screened in back porch. On the second floor 3 bedrooms and a full bath. I loved living there. I was the happiest kid in the world. Popular, lots of friends, a great mom and a great dad and a very skinny little sister who my father did not particularily like and said she had two left feet and called her poor pitiful pearl. In fact she could have been miss america she is so beautiful, she is brillliant, creative and very funny but that is a whole nother story. Our mom was an artist--a sculptor--and she was back in school at Wayne State getting her BA (she only did two or three years of college at Mills because she got thrown out for having a c- average. Anyway she was back at school working to be a writer. And I can still see her at that giant old black typewriter writing a story about our next door neighbor Mrs. Levenberg. But that was the least of it, mom had us out gardening--we planted everything that would grow in that amazing huge garden, and lots of trees, and we had baby ducks, she took us down to Eastern Market and bought baby ducks, and chicks and cameleons, and you name it we had it. And she taught us to draw though I am not very good at sketching--Lynnie either...though Lynnie would go on to be a great potter. Mommie worked with her more than me on the kick wheel in the basement...oh we had a finished basement with washer and dryer and a mangle where van did the sheets. that basement was dark and damp in my memory. with a place where the laundry shoot dropped the clothes down. I dont ever remember more than a couple of times thinking about money. The most vivid time was coming home from Joanne Kozloff's house--she lived on Outer Drive--which was fancier than the rest of the bungalows we lived in and I just remember parking my bike, which I adored, and going in and asking dad if we were rich. (I think JoAnne may have said something like she was richer than we were or maybe it was my friend Nita Fisher who said it...) Anyway Dad hugged me and said, "We are rich in love." That seemed right at the time. God I loved mom and dad. And I have to confess I remember sitting on the floor playing with Barbie Dolls all by myself but daydreaming that I would marry a Mott. I was young at the time--no more than 9--and I don't know how I had heard of the Mott's but they were wealthy--and owned a big apple sauce making company. I think I used to fantasize about marrying a Mott so that I could be as wealthy as a princess. But for the most part I was not concerned with money. I was a normal little kid and played baseball after school and had a ton of friends. We even had a club. The Capris. I can't believe I am remembering all this. I was in 6th grade at the time. I even like doing math. I remember asking dad how to divide and he showed me and it seemed wonderful. I guess I was asking dad already even though mom had not yet died. She must have been in the hospital in between operations as we did the slow switch to dad only. Anyway everything changed--so cliche--in 6th grade. Mom got more sick even though she had had the mastectomy that the doctors said would save her. And I was going to Kingswood in the fall for 7th grade. Away from Schultz School, the wonderful public school I had gone to for all of elementary school k-6. Mom and her two sisters had gone to Kingswood and they lived in the city way down almost downtown Detroit on Chicago Boulevard and they had a long ride into the city. Mom was determined that we would live near Kingswood and not have that hour long ride to school. But Jews were not allowed those days to live in Bloomfield Hills so that's how we came to live on Charrington in the golden ghetto. The house was I think 922 Charrington but I cannot remember the exact address --blocked?--it was a white colonial, funny looking brick and very plain. It did have a lot of land with woods in the back and hills and beyond the hills lived the Wilsons in a big fancy house. Probably the Wilsons had owned all the land around and sold some off for our subdivision but I dont know. (The Wilson's were very cool. Linda was a year older than I was and very nice and her little sister Peggy was Lynnie's age and her friend and their mom Peggy had gone to Kingswood with our mom and they were sort of friends but not really. I remember mom telling us that Peggy was very goyish. That she blew hot and cold and mom could never really figure her out. One other thing about the Wilson's was their father was the son of engine charlie the ceo of GM long ago and faraway who said, "What's good for General Motors is good for the United States.") Anyway that was a very long digression...sorry. So we moved to this non-descript house with good land and dad built us a pool that looked just like the one we had on Pinehurst but that was where any similarities ended. It was after all the country.