Welcome Friends!
Welcome to the world of Arlene. True stories about my life and fictional stories from my thoughts.
Actually, what gave me the idea to start this website was when, as usual, something against the norm would happen to me. You need not worry. It wasn’t a serious wrong. But I remember remarking to my boyfriend, a webmaster, when he was surprised at what had happened to me.
“Welcome to Arlene’s World”.
After hearing this often enough, he finally replied,
“Hey, why don’t I make a website called “Arlene’s World”.
Hence, the beginning of this writer’s personal blog site.
When my two brothers and I were growing up our parents didn’t have a lot of money. Dad was a forklift operator who worked all through the night. My Mom was a stay at home mother which was referred to at that time as merely a housewife.
During the day when we were off from school we had to be as quiet as church mice in order for Dad to sleep. So Mom would take us out for long walks during the day along the neighborhoods of Southwest Philadelphia. Sometimes we’d crossed over railroad tracks which was dangerous and almost ended tragically. Other times we’d stop along Chester Avenue at the 5 and dime store to get an Italian water ice. My favorite flavor was cherry but I liked lemon at times. Then along came a new flavor, blueberry, which turned our lips and tongues blue. Or chocolate water ice! Sometimes we’d share one of those huge Philadelphia pretzels loaded with mustard. My older brother would always be picking up a stone or railroad spike from the ground as a memento. Me? I’d be watching the ground below for coins. My younger brother was in a carriage intently search peoples faces that walking by him. Finally, we’d get back, tired and spent. Just in time for Mom to make Dad dinner before he went to work.
We were fortunate, in a way, not having a lot. It brought us closer together, at least my Mom and my two brothers, when we were young. We didn’t get to see Dad too much because of his working schedule. We didn’t have a car. A treat for us was Dad taking us with him on the trolley cars. Or getting a bus to downtown. But our favorite was walking with Mom because we got to see more and appreciate the world around us.
At night, after Dad left for work, we’d sit in my parents’ bedroom, at its three huge bay windows which overlooked the bustling city street below. We sat comfortably on a bench that went underneath the windows in three sections because Mom had made pillows for us to sit on. We’d put our little white radio on the fake fireplace that adorned the middle of one of the walls. We’d listened to old time shows like The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Fibber McGee and Molly and so forth. Mom had already heard them when she was young and use to tell us about the shows.
Oh, yes. We’d had television sets. But they kept breaking on us. So we were treated instead to the radio’s theater of the mind.
Sometimes my Mom would tell us funny stories of when she was young; other times we’d watch and listen to the night life bustling beneath us. Taste the metallic clanking of the trolleys. Feel the distance haunting moan of the railroad whistle. Hypnotic. Drawing.
There was the rolling, bump, bump of car tires on tarred streets; mixed often with the stomach wrenching shrill of ambulances and police cruisers. At times, the wind would treat us to the far off wisps of personal conversations. Accompanying, at times, with loud shouting. Bad words punctuating angry arguments. Or nervous, sex-filled, drunken laughter.
We’d make up stories about what was happening below us, creating our own theater. Arguing among ourselves as to whose story was closest to the truth.
Looking back, I guess I miss those nights, listening in the dark, with my family. The closeness we use to have, is gone. Back then, clouded in the past, when I was young and innocent.
So when it came time to pick a theme for my new website, arlenesworld.com, my boyfriend told me to look for something that “spoke to me”. After hundreds of themes I happened upon this one with the bay windows. It reminded me of when I was a little girl. Remembering those windows, the times my family and I spent there, has caused me to change the original direction of my personal online writing website. Instead of filling this site with my frustrations and ravings of the world not treating me right, I want to make this a site that builds a family.
I hope you enjoy my new writer’s website and visit it often. It’s devoted to the reader in all of us. For my part, I will try to write as much and as often as possible. Sometimes I’ll relate personal stories; mostly amusing, I hope. Other times I’ll publish interesting, short, fictional stories. After all, I am an aspiring author waiting to be discovered and looking for a publisher. Please keep in touch and let me know how you like my website. Tell me something about yourself in my forum. Feel free to critique my writings. Or publish something of your own.
Perhaps we can become an extended family, picturing ourselves virtually sitting around those windows. Watching the world go by below us. Telling each other stories or just listening to the sounds of the nightlife below.
God Bless and Enjoy.
Arlene