The vibrant neighborhood of my youth is now a sad place

What a nice neighborhood I grew up in on the North Side during the ’60s.

We had our pick of three local mom-and-pop stores to frequent if we ran out of lunch meat, bread or milk. We had two different barber shops for the men and a beauty salon for the ladies. Carl’s Pizza Den on a Friday or Saturday night was always bursting at the seams.

After our Little League game was over, there were cherry or vanilla cokes at Jordan’s Pharmacy. We had a tailor shop and a hobby shop, where one could get a model car to put together and paint for 99 cents. We had a Texaco gas station, a TV repair shop, a nice beer distributor that would actually deliver in the neighborhood and a dry goods store that carried everything.

There were two baseball fields always in use and Horace Mann Elementary School, where more than half of the classes made honor roll. We walked to school and came home for lunch.

A fire station was manned by some of the folk in the neighborhood. Three bars sponsored our Little League teams. One even kept the equipment we needed. We would ask the bartender for the key to the basement, get the balls, bats and other gear and put things back at the end of our game.

The place of worship on this street was Shadeland Avenue Presbyterian Church.

And we had the greatest Fourth of July street fair a little neighborhood could ever have.

All this and more in just three blocks on one street. The nicest thing was that everyone knew everyone.

What is there now? Nothing. It’s all gone. No stores. No school. No firehouse. The ballfields are there, but there are never any games to watch. Not even the church remains.

There are at least 10 vacant lots where houses have been burned down. So sad.

I feel so bad for today’s residents of my old neighborhood. Now they have to run for cover in the middle of broad daylight because of gunshots.

You should have lived there 50 years ago. You would have loved the place.

DAVID BYERS Cranberry