My dad was a builder who, for more than two years, spent his evenings and weekends nailing together our new house in then-growing State College, home of Penn State's main campus. I was in kindergarten in Bellefonte, and I recall feeling proud that my daddy provided blocks of wood of all sizes for my class to play with. I also remember traipsing around the construction site before our house was finished. It was located on Homan Avenue, at the time the edge of town, backing onto disused farmland. When we moved to State College, I and my brothers used to cross over the field to an old barn to catch pigeons and scare ourselves silly at the sight of long-dead rats strung up, presumably to deter young trespassers.
Our new house was simply wonderful! It was a modern split-level, with plenty of room for Mother's piano and a Christmas tree. Because the house site had so recently been farmland, we were plagued with mice. I clearly recall spreading out to read the funnies on the livingroom rug, and watching as cute little baby mice toddled across the newspaper. My sister Anne was born soon after we moved in, and I was pretty thrilled to have a real babydoll to care for. Had I known at the time that three more babies would follow over the next nine years, I might have been less thrilled to begin my 12-year career as Mother's assistant. But when I was six, I was over the moon to have a baby sister.
Mother had five kids now, but she made time to take courses in library science at Penn State. Dad was the superintendent of construction of what was then to become the Military Science Building on the campus. Between time spent haunting the main library with Mom, and visiting the job site with Dad, the campus was a familiar second home. One year, I participated in a university-sponsored children's television show called "Keys to the Cupboard," in which my group created a whole circus tent full of clay figures of lions, horses, acrobats and highwire artists. When the project was finished, the circus was raffled and I won! I have no further memory of the tent and its contents. It probably ended up in the trash bin after being played with once or twice.
Our mother was a musician -- she had a lovely warm soprano voice, and had been a music teacher in Boston for a year prior to her marriage. She gave voice lessons in our living room, though how she managed to keep five children quiet and out of sight is a mystery. I can still hear the fog-horn voice of one of her students torturing "Beautiful Dreamer." Mother and her brother Bill were both excellent singers and organists at their respective churches, and sang as well with a group of madrigal enthusiasts based in State College. They called themselves "Pro Nobis," and took turns hosting evening rehearsals. I begged to be allowed to stay up when they met at our house. One December, they gathered to hear a recording of a new Menotti opera, "Amahl and the Night Visitors." The story of the poor shepherd boy who meets the Magi was utterly enchanting. Shortly after the first scene, I was sent off to bed, most unwillingly. Next morning, Mother told me that Father Hovanec, who sang tenor in Pro Nobis, had left the recording for me to keep. My first record! I wore it out over the next months, and I still get a thrill when I hear it to this day. "This is my box. This is my box. I never travel without my box!"
Our happy times in State College were cut short when my dad was transferred following completion of the Military Science Building. Near the end of third grade at Easterly Parkway Elementary, I had to leave my first friends on Homan Avenue and all of our near relations in close-by Bellefonte, to travel to Canonsburg in far-Western Pennsylvania. Today, the university campus is much changed, bigger; the town itself is vastly larger. No more farmland next to Homan, just miles and miles of suburban development. Go figure...
