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A. Varesano interviewing Bertha Falatko

AV: Yeah. Same size? And did it have places for the geese to roost?
BF: Um-hmm. Well, we usually used to send the geese out, most of the time. And
they would go out in the alley and feed on the grass most of the time. That’s
what we’d do with the geese. Send them out.
AV: They didn’t have their own yard?
BF: No.
AV: And the cow, did the cow have any yard to walk in?
BF: No, she’d go out to pasture.
AV: You set her out, too. Then this was a description for a general yard lay-
out of this street? [written Main ST.]
BF: That’s right.
AV: Do you remember anything about the Back Street layout?
BF: No, that I couldn’t tell you.
AV: What about the streets over here? What did they look like?
BF: Well they were just all, it was all dirt. And then we had, the ditches
were pretty deep, that we had to have a walk across from our house, across
the ditch. We used to have a boardwalk.
AV: And how big was that?
BF: Well, the boardwalk would I guess be about, let’s see, about so wide,
as wide as this here. About twenty-four inches or so.
AV: And the ditch, how deep was that?
BF: Well, that was pretty deep. That would be about, let’s see, about I guess about eighteen inches deep.
AV: And how wide was it?
BF: I guess about, no, not as wide as this. And how wide is that? About eighteen
inches, too, I suppose!
AV: Now, what did people do, with these ditches and boardwalks? Like, did people congregate around them? Did they use them for any purposes? Did people sit on the boardwalks?
BF: Oh, maybe we children did, when it would rain. We would sit on the boardwalk
there and put our feet in the water that was in the ditch. But the other
people didn’t. They….
AV: I heard some people mention that, like, mother, would nurse by sitting on the boardwalk, and they’d chat with their neighbors there?
BF: Oh, maybe. I don’t recall anything like that.
AV: What was the purpose of having this deep ditch on either side of the road?
BF: Oh, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know. I suppose just so the water wouldn’t all get into the gardens.
AV: Well, if the gardens were all planted with vegetables, like you mentioned, where did the kids play?
BF: Mostly around the street. It wasn’t very dangerous, because like I said we
didn’t have no cars at that time. So it wasn’t dangerous, that’s where we
played most of the time. In the streets. Streets and alleys.
AV: What kind of games did they play in the streets?
BF: Well, like Ring around a Rosy, Hide and Seek, Tag, Hop-Scotch.
AV: Do you remember Nipsy?
BF: Nipsy [blank space], right.
AV: And do you remember something called Duck in the Walk? Was that played
there?
BF: I don't know what game that would be.
AV: How do you remember playing Nipsy?
BF: Well, we would have a paddle, and a nipsy, and we’d made a circle in the dirt.
AV: About two feet in diameter?