Why Philly Matters: Fits Like a Glove
Two days later, I got a call on my cell phone from a number I didn’t recognize. It was Joanne’s younger brother, Peter. Peter was a couple years younger than Joe, so I’d never really known him all that well. We chatted about this and that — what we’d been up to since we’d last seen each other, the old neighborhood — and then Peter got to the point of his call.
“It’s a godsend that you called Joanne,” he explained, “because we’ve been holding onto something you left at our house on Woodstock Street.”
Holding onto something? For me?
“You left a black baseball mitt over the house,” he went on. “I thought about throwing it away when we left Woodstock Street, but I figured you might want it back someday. I kept it in a box when we moved to 3rd and Nedro. Then, when we moved up to Fox Chase, I brought it along.”
I had last been to the Alteari house in May 1968. Maybe April. Two days earlier, Joanne had remarked to me that the great thing about living on Woodstock Street had been that people looked out for one another. I’ll say.
“What kind of condition is the glove in?” I asked.
“Not bad,” Peter replied.
“Did you oil it?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I didn’t have any oil.”
I asked him where he lived in Fox Chase. He told me Chandler Street.
“That’s amazing,” I exclaimed. “That’s just a few blocks from where my sister lives. The next time I’m down, I’ll stop over and get the glove. In fact, there’s a cute little cafe one block down from Chandler Street. It just opened about a year ago. I visit it every time I come to see my mom. We could meet there.”
“I don’t know it,” he replied. “Do you mean Dunkin’ Donuts?”
“No, I mean the Three Sisters Corner Cafe, that little coffee shop across the street from the park with the statues of the lions in it. You know, the park where the buses turn around. The cafe sells coffee and tea and muffins and croissants and has nice little iron-wrought chairs outside. It’s a really classy operation. It’s just one block down from Chandler Street.”
