The Life of a Story in Progress 011: A mover and a shaker on Wall St. (you'll have to think about that title to get it...)

In 1972, I moved into my first apartment on Wall St. in Worcester, MA. It was only for a very short while. I think perhaps 2 months tops. In fact, when I mention "my first apartment," I usually tell people it was the apartment on Mott St. in Worcester (only because I forget about the Wall St. apartment).

The apartment was quite small. It had three rooms: a kitchen and two other small rooms. It had no heat and my short stay there was, in fact, during the winter. When I moved in, I didn't even notice there was no heat until the landlord said: "in the morning, you can turn on the burners on the stove (gas stove) to take the chill out of the air." Yes, as you probably can guess, that doesn't really work as evidenced by the frozen-solid glass of water found on the night stand in the mornings.

Wall street was the street on which the famous El Morocco restaurant was located. I was never inside, and years later, it moved. I don't know if it still exists. I don't even know why it was famous.

Also, during my sojourn on Wall street, Worcester had a significant ice storm. Nothing like the storm of 2008, but still a challenge. The driveway to my apartment was a fairly steep hill and I couldn't drive up the driveway or even walk up to my place. I had to walk waaaaaaay around and come in from another angle, literally passing through vacant lots, other peoples yards and one really tall fence.

The only other associated memory I have about the Wall St. apartment is that it was on the same street as Chevalier Furniture (corner of Wall St. and Grafton, St.), which was a furniture store that employed me to deliver furniture. I remember that before any wooden furniture went out, it had to be rubbed down with a thin oily furniture polish. It made the wood look shiny and presumably more attractive. It was a silly practice as the polish was only cosmetic, made it difficult to carry (very slippery) and would rub off on anything it touched, including the other furniture in the customer's home.

Oh look, I actually have a picture of the place!

Apparently, I had a cat.