John Morris Recalls 1950s Park Forest and Ponders the Monolithic Clock Tower, March 31, 2002
My family lived at 9 Elm Street circa 1954, when I was about 6, so my memories are limited. On one side of us lived the Koenig family, and on the other, John and Cathy Hart and children (Johnnie was my playmate.) Cathy Dunbar lived across the court. Our family was friendly with a young lady from Germany named Dagmar something who lived down the court. My dad, John Morris, was in the insurance/fire protection business in the City (now lives with wife Jean in SF Bay area). Jean kept house and tended to me and younger sister June. Some distinct memories are of the first movie I ever attended at the local theater, which was an Abbott and Costello feature. Every noon I would race home from school to catch the "Uncle Johnnie Coons" show on the tube - his theme song was "A Walk In the Black Forest" I think it is called.
There were plenty of kids in the court and everywhere. One of them (anyone remember who?) had a basement full of war relics, such as rifles and gas masks, and it was a great pleasure to be invited over to break these out and play war games. One day a neighbor child had somehow gotten some firecrackers and was setting them off when the police arrived and hauled him away. I collected the remaining pyrotechnics, which were promptly confiscated by my mother. I was not a particularly angelic child myself, given to melting crayons on the baseboard heaters in the Lakewood School classroom, and not sleeping during mandatory nap time (we had to bring our own rugs to school for this). I distinctly recall an immigrant (German I think) who periodically drove into the court in an ancient truck, which contained his blade grinding shop (scissors, knives). He would go door to door asking if anyone required anything sharpened. Then there were the Fuller Brush men, etc. Park Forest was the perfect place for a salesman to get a lot of calls with minimal traveling.
The Clock Tower in the shopping center was a wonderfully mysterious monolith to me - I probably thought of it similarly to the way the apes regarded the monolith in the movie "2001- A Space Oddessy." I kept wondering if there was anything particular inside of it!
I now live in the Washington DC area and work for the US government, and sister June lives in Texas and works in health care. I will always remember Park Forest as a great place to be anytime.
I would welcome anyone who remembers our family or our court at that time to email me at
John Morris
