My Neighbors on Harvey Road
In 1953, my parents, Herbert and Mildred Stein, my sister, Rachel Judith Stein, about three years my senior, and I moved into a perfect 1950s modern home at 9342 Harvey Road, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20910, although there were no zip codes then.
It was about as lovely a home as Jews could own in that day and age. It overlooked a beautiful park called Sligo Creek Park. The park was totally clean and neat. It featured a pristine creek, and fire pits and picnic tables. There were 29 homes, as I recall, on that street. It was a dead-end street, but roughly in the middle of the street there was an even smaller road called “Greyrock Road,” which had about eight homes.
For two years, my sister was off at Wellesley College. I loved my sister very much and still do. Every day, I wrote a letter to my sister, put it in an envelope and mailed it off to Rachel at a mailbox at the beginning of the street, just where it intersected Dale Drive. I briefed her on my trivial doings at Junior High School, an authentic hellhole called Montgomery Hills Junior and then at an almost paradise called Montgomery Blair High School.
The principal players on Harvey Road, at least to me, were David and Elizabeth Scull, from families so elegant that one hardly dared to say their name.
My sister had been a cheerleader at another Junior High, eastern. She was also a member of the “prestige” girls’ club at Blair. It was called “Blair O’Debs.” She was well loved at Blair as well.
In those days, only a very few Jewish girls were invited into Blair O’Debs. I was honored indeed to have a sister in the “O’Debs” world.
On Harvey Road, as I recall, roughly half of the families were Jewish. The others were Christian. There were no families where the husband and wife were divorced. There were none where the parents were alcoholics and only about two-thirds where the parents smoked cigarettes. Marijuana was unknown.
In my age/sex cohort, boys born roughly between 1942 and 1946, almost all of us gathered on our broad dead-end street to play touch football after school. None of us was a particularly good athlete, but it was a good-natured group and we had fun. If there was heavy rain or snow we did not play.
In colder weather, we might play basketball on a packed dirt court behind several homes. At that time, I was unusually tall. In summer we might play baseball in roughly the same space. That was unfortunate because of one boy who took delight in crashing into first base, which was often me.
On summer nights, the boys and girls of the neighborhood hung around the home of the Greenblatts, Roberta, and Melvin. They were wonderfully hospitable and often made hot dogs for all of us.
The neighborhood was mostly Democrats, which changed completely when my father became chairman of President Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers. My mother, always strongly anti-Communist, was until her death in 1997, the most fervent fan of Richard Nixon on earth.
As I said a moment ago, I love my sister. In those innocent days, there was no sex. She went out on “dates” often — maybe always — with Jewish boys from Silver Spring. My bedroom had a window next to the front door. I would hear my beloved sister, thank her “dates” with a chaste kiss, and then dart into our house.
By some kind of weird fate, our next-door neighbors on Harvey Road were the Bernsteins. Carl Bernstein and I were close friends. He became a famous reporter and columnist — mostly attacking Richard Nixon, whom we in our house worshiped.
Anyway, time has passed. The principal players on Harvey Road, at least to me, were David and Elizabeth Scull, from families so elegant that one hardly dared to say their name. Their son, David Lee Scull, roughly 18 months older than I was, is still a close friend. He attended our son’s funeral in July of 2023, and I love him dearly. Most of the land in Silver Spring was originally owned by his ancestors.
His grandfather was a Lee. Yes, from that Lee family. When I was in their home, I felt as if I were in a museum.
I had better stop now. But I could not end without noting that my wife and I live in Beverly Hills, California. I do not know ONE single neighbor’s name. On Harvey Road, I knew every neighbor’s name.
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