A Move to Weston
When I was almost fourteen years old we moved to Weston. Being a teen is a difficult time in one’s life and I was no different. It was also difficult fitting into a new school system but I soon found friends in my neighborhood that I was compatible with and we shared homework or babysitting jobs.
I got my first real job working at Foot’s General store just around the block from our house. I served ice cream. Guess you could have called me a “Soda Jerk.” What it taught me was responsibility and the art of making sundaes. Another job was being a Mother’s Helper for a Jewish couple. They had three boys and I became part of their Jewish family. I have many happy memories of them.
As for activities there was tennis, horse back riding, going to Howard Johnson’s after the monthly dances, art lessons, apple picking, football games and going to Moody Street to shop for clothes. Of course we always had access to Boston for the train stopped down the road from our house. We could hear the freight trains at 4 o’clock every morning as they blew their melancholy whistle echoing in our valley before crossing the roads.
In high school I found a group of friends who loved Jazz as much as I did. How many people can say that every Wednesday afternoon they went to Boston’s Copley Square Hotel’s Storyville and listened to the jazz artists who were traveling through the area.
Some of the artists we were fortunate to see were, Johnny Mathis, when he was nineteen, big bands like, Louie Armstrong, Bobby Hackett, Dizzy Gillespie, Glenn Miller Memorial band, Benny Goodman Memorial Band, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horn, Jean Krupa,, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz and Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughn, Stan Kenton, Chet Baker, Louie Belton, Bert Barrack. And so many more I can’t remember them all.
Some of the artists we were fortunate to see were, Johnny Mathis, when he was nineteen, big bands like, Louie Armstrong, Bobby Hackett, Dizzy Gillespie, Glenn Miller Memorial band, Benny Goodman Memorial Band, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horn, Jean Krupa,, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz and Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughn, Stan Kenton, Chet Baker, Louie Belton, Bert Barrack. And so many more I can’t remember them all.
Now when I look back on it all, I don’t think I would have wanted to live anywhere else, for I had the best of both worlds… Newton was close to the trolleys and the buses went everywhere and Weston is only 12 miles from Boston and had a train that went directly to North Station. We had city activities and country living.
Ah! Ya can’t beat that…
Night, night, you all out there, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,
Sleepy Sally Sandman
