Her brother Mule was true to his name. If he didn’t want to do anything, he didn’t.
Likewise, she said, Snort Walsh was always snorting, Mope Fahey was known to be lazy, Jitterbug Begy could never sit still and Hienie Kenney “had a butt on him.”
Her own name, “Flop,” says more about the immigrant neighborhood.
She happened to share a first name with a Florence Flopkkjen, whose name appeared somewhere in connection with the filing of naturalization papers.
Thus did Florence McLean, the ninth of 10 in her family, transform from Flo into “Flop.”
She called about all this because of a promise she’d made to the late Rudy Mammolite, an Italian from Irish Hill. He went by various nicknames, including “Red” for a tint of his hair, “Dolph” for the second syllable of his proper name (Rudolph) and finally “Diamond,” which a friend tagged him with after seeing the ring Rudy purchased for wife Ivy.
“He was a little older,” said Flop, who was born in 1928 and whose German-descended family lived on the Irish sounding Kelly Avenue before the city renamed a series of streets for trees and she found herself on Cypress Street.
Irish Hill was bounded roughly by York, East, Pleasant and Kenton streets, though “Hill Irish” was used to describe almost anyone attending school at St. Joseph Parish.
The “Hill Irish” were not to be confused with the “Flying Dutch” of St. Bernard, the “Lace Curtain” of St. Raphael or the “Silk Stocking” of St. Teresa.
The kids of Irish Hill all knew the local landmarks.
Hospital Hill was at the corner of East Street and Selma Road, where the old City Hospital once stood. The poor house was on Dayton Avenue south of town. The Pumphouse was in old Reid Park, providing water pumping for the city and a place for Flop to fall or flop into the water, giving her mother a fit.
The Circus Grounds were in the present Davey Moore Park and Crybaby Bridge, with its attendant spooky stories, could be found in North Hampton.
Kids knew the Car Bars on East Street, Yontz’s Ice House on Selma near East, and Bolden’s Pond, where kids skated during the winter and floated the imperfect casket tops filched from Springfield Metallic Casket Co. in summer.
“My brothers always had a casket top,” said Flop.
Perhaps because of her experience near the Pumphouse, “I was never allowed to go.”
These were the stomping grounds of the likes of Oney Shanahan and Baldy McLaughlin, the later who became hairless even as a child. Conversely, Fuzzy O’Dell wore his hair short, and Curly Grusenmeyer, well, you can guess.
Jumbo Johnson shared a chunky nickname with Big Lard and Small Lard Kearns, known individually as “Lardy.” Similar dietary habits also provided USDA nicknames for Pork Chop Shanahan and Pork Cavanaugh.
Squintie Kearns was tagged for weak eyesight and Cy Yeazell for his thick glasses. The Cy was short for Cyclops.
Ding Dong Shay and Dimwit DeWitt weren’t considered the sharpest tools in the shed; Duck Bohn and Snake Reeb were identified for the way they walked; and Dink Wallace, Puno Mitchell, Peanuts Shay and Mouse Barber were known for their diminutive statures.
The Higgins boys were called Pius and Unpius. The first became a priest, the second didn’t.
The male Legs Lubbers was known for his long legs and Norma “Legs” Hecht for her attractive ones. On the other hand, “Hands” Hecht’s hands were just huge.
Bub Copeland and Brud Woodrow likely got their names from younger siblings unable to say “brother,” and Tony Lizza was always called Oochie because that’s what his mother called him.
Commando Powell, Dynamo McNeer and Scrapiron Murphy were physical presences, though no one wanted to fight any more than Kid Brex, whose name sounds like two stiff jabs.
Wom Kennedy was named for his tendency to fall down (Wom!) while under the influence, and Howard Hohn became Hobgoblin and then Hobby, the name he was known by as a County Commissioner.
It’s seems wrong to leave out Squaller Parsons, Scholar Lynch, Crybaby Welsh, Cotton Cavanaugh and John “Loon” McEnaney, who later brought his childhood goofiness to the airwaves by inventing characters for Springfield’s WIZE radio.
Red Mustard not only had a tint in his hair but a last name to add spice to his nickname; Lefty Amato was a pitcher of some note; and Flop remembers You’re Up Fred, a batter, but can’t remember the last name the manager would have penciled in.
Queenie Rider was born to rule roosts and Minnow Kennedy somehow was thought to look like one.
Also running around were Tom “TV” Valley, Figaro Kehoe, Amo (for “Love”) Moody, Toots Linkenhoker and Eleanor Watch Your House Key, which served as a kind of pronunciation guide for her last name, Wojeciechowski.
While you all work on learning to spell that, remember to watch your house key.
See you next week.
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