Valley View Housing Project Reverie

 

I think I was a rather happy kid at Valley View Housing Project in Providence walking distance from Saint Edward's School where I learned my ABCs. I was known to disappear in the woods there feeding rabbits in a cage. I played games with my older brother Ricky who was once hit by a car with his Range Rider Boots coming off . Mother was frantic but Rick was OKAY and did not even go to the hospital to be examined . I was particularly fond of the gum ball machine filled with cute little prizes at a corner store. Toward evening we waited for the musical ICE CREAM TRUCK . We watched the " bigger " kids play baseball in a field across from the apartment complex. TV was new back then in 1953. I remember seeing an animated song around Christmas time : " Here Comes Suzy Snowflakes " . Ma told me that I was rather obsessed about having a Howdy Doll for a Christmas present. My first grade nun at Saint Edward's told the class that GOD was the artist who painted those beautiful red, purple, orange, green, yellow on the leaves of Maple , Oak , Birch , and Elm trees in the Fall.

I remember the antiseptic smell of our family doctor Ciro Scotti's office in West Warwick. There was a polio scare at the time. There is a photo of Mom sitting on the stairs outside the building holding her new baby girl Adrienne . I am sitting beside her. Some time in 1954 the Ruggieri family left Valley View Housing Project and settled in our very own home at 315 California Ave. in Washington Park , Providence , Rhode Island. We would live there -with many happy memories of the OLD NEIGHBORHOOD - until 1970.

Many ordinary American families remember the post war years ( 1946- 1964 ) as rather idyllic . An OPTIMISTIC time !