A Taste of Old Minooka by Dr. Joe Lydon

In our years of corresponding by e-mail, Dr. Joe (Minooka Joe) Lydon shared stories with me so that I might savor a taste of Old Minooka. Dr. Joe grew up in the 1920's and 1930's, when a spade was called a spade. People went to the "nut house," bodies were viewed at the "corpse house," and physical impairments might earn you a nickname, such as "Peg Leg Jack." Dr. Joe had no wish to sanitize these sayings by being politically correct; the purpose of the exercise would have been lost. So here are a few of Dr. Joe's musings. There will be more.

John "Fifty" King lived with his maiden sisters next door to the little house your grandfather (Michael Lydon) bought at the top of the hill (on Davis Street). One fine day, Fifty died on the throne in the toilet (actually an outhouse). My brother went back to help the undertaker move him. As they took in the scene, the thought occurred to them, "Well, when you gotta go, ya gotta go!"

Gray Jack Donovan was asking Jim Nallin, the manager of the A & P store for "tick" (credit in Minooka). Jim fussed and fumed, spoke of inventory, etc., etc. "Hold it!" said Jack. "You don't have to whistle for me to dance!!" as he strolled majestically out. I was there and always thought that it was a great line.

I was at my Aunt Annie's one morning. I noted Cousin Mickey's shirt hanging over a chair covered with blood. (Mickey could never pass up a fight.) Auntie Annie walked in and shrieked until, from upstairs, she heard Mickey's bellow: "Don't worry about the blood, Ma. It wasn't mine. It was heeze!!"

Down in Miner Hill, the Scranton Electric Company had just turned off Tommy Mahon’s light for failure to pay. Well, Tommy figured, “If I have no electric power, no one else will either!! Tommy took his deer rifle and pumped a few rounds into the nearest transformer. The company came right out, replaced the transformer, and everybody, including Tommy, had power.

I think it was about that time that my father educated Tommy. We would pull the main switch, and via a jumper, connect the prongs of the switch to the nearest receptacle. This was an evening ritual performed by any of the males in our family. My father made jumpers for all our relatives. “Just never tell anyone where you got them” was the caveat!

The Mussos (the father was a shoemaker) were a large and lovely Italian-American family. One of the four or five in Minooka.  I think they had at least ten kids. I remember Andy Pompey (another Italian) tell me that “they were like mushrooms. After every rainstorm, there was a new Musso!”

Andy, well beloved in the town, was a paratrooper killed in Italy. Two months later, his brother Durando was also killed. The youngest, Louie, who had just entered the Army, was sent home under the “sole surviving son policy.”

Dr. Garvey – He never charged us a penny. My parents may have offered something. If they ever did, I can’t recall it.

Billy Kuchinski had a market atop Greenwood Hill on Birney Avenue. He had a busy general market there, but he also had a wagon on the road, the latter run by his son, Henry. He always had a few racy stories for the housewives long the route. “Henry, you’re a divvil!!” could be heard at every stop.

Dr. Joe spoke with Art Kania, who had given $15 million to the U. of Scranton School of Business. “I told him of our connection with Greenwood and how Little Billy Kuchiniski kept us alive through the Depression. He told me that he also kept most of Greenwood alive, too. He used to work there as a kid packing and delivering groceries. He agreed with me that Little Billy ought to be canonized!”

* * *

On Joe’s first day of school, his brother Sharkey and Martin McDonough proposed that we all go “down the ravine” – a large deep cut in front of the school – perhaps thirty fee or so deep.

“Why, Jack” I asked timidly.

“So we won’t hear the bell down there!”

“When I got to school, Sharkey opened the door and shoved me in. Thee I was standing in front of a giggling class. The teacher graciously asked, “Who do we have here?”

“I was not yet six, but I thought that the teacher, Miss Clare Walsh, was the most beautiful blonde I had ever seen! She graciously found me a seat.”

Interracial marriage - between Irish and Welsh or Irish and Polish, etc. There was a saying that when the Irish and Italians married, they produced short stops. When they married Polish people, they produced linebackers!

The comedian Con McCool described Minooka as "the place between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre where you couldn't cross the street on Saturday for the fish bones!" (Remember--no meat on Friday!)

I never heard the city to the south called anything but "Wiltsberry" nor the one to the north as "Bimmington."

The Dog Who Played Checkers - Hughie was a contemporary of my father's (the senior Sharkey Lydon) who lived halfway down Miner Hill. He was a good man, taken all-in-all, but his I.Q. was written in red ink. He did have a nice old mutt--everybody in town had a nice old mutt.

One day Tone-eye Daly came in on just a friendly stop-by. Hughie was sitting by his table opposite the faithful old mutt. Between them were the fragments of a checkers game underway. Hughie would make his move, and then he would reach to the dog's side. Keeping his finger on the checker, he would make a tentative move. If the dog didn't like it, he would growl. Hughie would seek a move more agreeable to the dog, and he would brightly bark.

Tone-eye watched in stupefaction. "Holy God, Hughie! You got a fortune on your hands! You can take him in vaudeville, and you'll never see another poor day! A dog who plays checkers. I can see it now!"

"Aw, this thing'd never made it," he said, pointing at the dog. "I can beat him two outta three any day!!"

Contributed by Mary Lydon Simonsen