On Hampden Heights The photo in the header is me, Philip, at 3 or 4 years old. I am standing beside "my" fire engine. You could sit in it and pedal it and pull a string to ring the bell. It was one of several great kids' vehicles at the house of my grandparents, Mama and Dad Schuler.

The really fun ride was on the "Wagon" - a large, sturdy wooden wagon with wooden wheels and steel tires. The house, 1406 Hampden Blvd. in Reading, PA, was on a fairly steep hillside. We would start at the garage entrance, down the driveway, left in the alley (a level stretch of about 25 feet) then right where the alley turned down toward Palm Street. Another right on Palm Street - onto the sidewalk for a continued long downhill ride to the end of the block. The grades probably ranged from 5 to 10 degrees. What a ride! And what a clatter we made with those steel rimmed wagon wheels! Of course, those rides didn't happen until I was about six -- able to handle the exhilaration of gravity power.

My close friend in Reading was Eddie Davies who lived in the next block. When we weren't riding the wagon we were fighting or building houses out of porch furniture and blankets or reading our favorite comics (The Katzenjammer Kids) or swinging on the swings in Eddie's Basement. Of course, we weren't just swinging...we were "flying fighter planes."