Dear Editor:

I enjoyed Mr. Fassinelli's column on Saturday and I felt inspired to write this to you. We are slightly different in age.I graduated from Beverly (Massachusetts) High School in 1967. However, in 1957 I was 8 years old and in second grade at Upton Elementary, Ryall Side in Beverly, Mass. I remember living close to two !!! candy stores. I remember switching from fountain pens with ink wells at our desk to ball point pens. I remember getting our first TV and watching "Howdy Doody."I remember getting my first little record player and the classic music records my dad gave me. My brother, Mark, was 5 and my little brother, (now deceased) Brian, was 2 years old. My sister wasn't born till four years later. There was no such thing as area codes or zip codes. I don't remember the model car my dad had, but I am sure he had one, a 1955 something.My dad worked as a laborer at the United Shoe Machinery Corporation (The Beverly equivalent of the Zinc Company) and there was a small pond in the parking lot which was part of the Bass River. There was a replica of the ship, "Arbella" from colonial times in Collins Cove, Salem, Mass. and a Victorian train station for the Boston and Maine Railroads, also in Salem, Both gone now.I remember playing "guns" with my best friends, Ronnie and Stephen in a field across Elliot Street, the main street that was my home street, Opal Avenue ran into.I was a happy 8 year old without a care in the world. I had a black collie named "Tessie" whom I adored.My phone number was 922-5977 through I never used the phone then. My dad was a Seabee like Ward Cleaver but I guess if we were the Cleavers I was Wally and Mark was Beaver and Brian was a bonus child. My mother wouldn't quit until she had a girl ... Life was good.Respectfully yours,Dana L. Phipps,Tamaqua