TRIP ENDS IN PHILADELPHIA

We came back to Philadelphia on an especially auspicious weekend.

It was graduation day for the University of Pennsylvania and other schools. Hundreds of teams of scullers from all over the country were vying in the Mother's Day Race on the Schuylkill River and The Barnes Institute of Art formally opened on the Parkway.

We stayed near Rittenhouse Square, a small Park surrounded by old brownstones, apartment houses, shops and of course, restaurants with sidewalk cafes. We walked there to find a restaurant but it was virtually impossible to get through the crowds.

We opted instead for Effie's, a small Greek restaurant where I often met with fellow writers. We passed Kimmel Center, home of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where people were watching the concert broadcast on a large outdoor screen.

I was born and raised in and around Philadelphia. The reason for the week long trip was that Ed was curious about the places and people he had heard about and it was an opportunity for me to catch up with so much that is a part of me.

Broad Street is the City's spine off of which run a multitude of ethnic and tony neighborhoods. It runs from the Naval Base in the South to Cheltenham Avenue in the North. Market Street runs East from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill River and West. The streets intersect at City Hall.

Ed and I went North on Broad. We traveled past Temple University. As we did, I wondered if the students I taught there still remember my charge to them, ask hard questions, and use P.A.M.?

The Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue an imposing building where my sister and I first attended Hebrew School is still standing but is now home to a Vietnamese Congregation. Across the street was the "Hinky Tire Company," my father's first business. We had lived in the aparment above. It is uninhabitable.

A long row of Brownstones, boarding and flop houses were on the rest of the block. All have been demolished. On the corner of this same block was an elegant florist, Grakelow 's which catered to the carriage trade. Up the street, only a historic marker shows the site of the Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium, home to both the Phils and the "A's" baseball teams.

As we explored the neighborhood I spotted my first public school,the Staton. Children were playing in the schoolyard. We traveled past the house where I was given a doll by a neighbor. The doll is still sitting intact in my curio.

Good friends and family came out to join us for coffee one morning. We sampled Philly's cheese steaks near the Italian Market and drove past the house where my father was born and raised and went to school. We were hosted by a close friend for dinner on the Main Line and stopped in Swarthmore to visit more family.

The day before we left, more family came in from New Jersey, New York and the suburbs for brunch. We all bemoaned the distance that keep our visits infrequent.

Before we headed for PIA a guard at the Philadelphia Art Museum in the Raymond G. Perelman Building told us that children who saw the 1969 Olivette portable typewriter display wanted to know how it worked.

It was a wonderful trip. Ed took me to the Airport, then went on to D.C. I came home happily exhausted after seeing so many people and places unique and important to me. Andrew met me at the Airport.