About the Stories       

 

           The people contributing to this story collection grew up in the 1940’s and 1950’s in Sunnyside, Queens, and now live scattered across the globe.  Both a cyber-reunion and a story-writing adventure for us, we want to remember what it was like to grow up in the post-War years in Sunnyside. 

 

         Many of the essays in this collection reflect our innocent enjoyment of childhood - of street hockey and tobogganing and hanging out on the tree-lined streets playing potsy and jumping rope.  Others tell stories about our families.  Still others include an interesting encounter, a person we remember, the physical neighborhood, our school years. 

 

          Some writing, however, talks about the dark shadow cast over our child years by the McCarthy era.  At its height, the “Red Scare” with its attendant fear-mongering, hung like a pall over our community, driving a wedge between neighbors.  Often, children were caught in the middle.

                          

         Story-telling makes us real people to one another, difficult to demean, dismiss and disrespect.  Telling our stories to one another nourishes the hope that we can reflect on our collective past, find common ground, and make some small positive contribution to our collective future. We hope you like what you read.

Ruth Horowitz, 2016