Ten Rows In

Stickball in Blissville was played on an empty block by the cemetery, close enough so mothers could watch over, far enough to give the players a sense of freedom.

A home run, as Bobby Czartoryski explained to me in an email, was when the ball was hit so hard it went ten rows into the cemetery. It took several boys to lift one over the wall to fetch the ball. Bobby is one of the old-timers still living here.

November tenth marks a reunion, the first of its kind, for residents of Blissville during the 1940s, 50s, 60s and any other epoch. It will be held at what was once the Old Bradley's Inn. I once photographed, simply by coincidence, a man whose father once owned the inn. He remembers a childhood of Christmases there, marked by watching his father stuff a paper bag with money, under the counter and ready for when the police came by.

His father finally sold the inn. By the time I moved here it was the Cork Lounge where ceilis were danced and potatoes were grown in the tiny backyard behind the kitchen. Now it's the Bantry Bay Publick House. Little is changed inside from the days of the old Cork, but now they serve a shepherd's pie more divine than words could describe. These are the marks of time in Blissville.