If you grew up on one of the many streets bordering Culler Road, you probably were referred to as a Chestnut Woods kid. Chestnut Woods began near Penco Road, where Mr. Zagula ran the Chestnut Lanes bowling alley, ran past the 7-11 to Sabu’s Lounge and included the streets below Palm Drive, ending at the Culler Road and Pleasantview Drive intersection.

Mike Orrechio and I grew up as Chestnut Woods kids. His house bordered Pleasantview and Mellon streets. Our sprawling, 900-square-foot house was on the left-hand side near the middle of Mellon Street. We had seven boys, of which I was the youngest. (Who needed any more than 900 square feet and a bathroom?)

Mike and I see each other at church and meet from time to time to discuss fundraising ideas for our parish schools. But before any business is discussed, we invariably talk about growing up where we did and how fortunate we were to be raised in such a safe, vibrant and really wonderful neighborhood. On Pleasant Drive, and the three feeder streets (Woodward, Mellon and National), there were some 150 or 200 kids in the 1960s and 1970s. Add the surrounding streets, such as Highview Circle, Shady Lane, Ardmore, Putnam and High streets, and the number of kids who grew up in Chestnut Woods was astounding.

Mellon Street had its own football team, the Mellon Marauders. We played other neighborhood teams, like the Liberty Lions (kids who grew up near Liberty School) or the Lane Gang, whose players lived on the outer perimeter of Chestnut Woods, on Lane Street, Montgomery or Myron.

Our home field was not a field at all — it was the extremely sloped backyard of the Barkhurst’s house on Pleasantview. No downhill possessions unless you picked off an errant pass. If we weren’t playing football, it was wiffle ball, or PG ball, as we called it. You know, a skinny, yellow bat and white ball with a series of holes in it. Add some black electrical tape to the ball and around the sweet spot of the bat, and you had all the elements of a great home run derby. We played PG ball in everyone’s backyard, but mostly ours or the Magnone’s, who lived across the street from us. Both backyards had bare spots in the grass representing the bases, mound and plate when we played real games.

Back to home run derby behind the Magnone house. Home plate was the bottom of their backyard. A shot beyond the second laundry pole in the Solomons’ backyard was a homer. You could catch a fly ball in home run territory, however. A grand slam, which we called a “grammy,” was over the tall hedges into Mike’s backyard. There was no climbing the stone wall and reaching over the hedges to catch a grammy. We even had a double grammy — a blast over the Orrechio house.

At the end of Rome Street, Jim Kestner oversaw nightly wiffle ball games in the summer. He was steady pitcher, umpire, general manager of both teams and league commissioner. Teams were divided evenly — no powerhouses. There were no video replays.

The “top of the street,” at the intersection of Mellon and Pleasantview, was a most popular spot. This was on the Millers’ property: They lived in the oldest and biggest house in the neighborhood. The entire neighborhood was a farm at one point, owned by Mrs. Miller’s parents, I seem to recall.

They had fruit trees — sour apple, black cherry and a small sour cherry tree across the street from Mrs. Rumora’s house, near a small patch of grass that was sometimes used as a football field when we didn’t have too many players. The epicenter of the top of the street was a huge weeping willow tree, under which many of the teenagers would gather and many life lessons were learned.

The same area was a hub of sports activities, too. A long flat stretch allowed for games of kickball, frisbee football and long toss. There were occasional fights, arguments, some smoking and cussing, but for the most part it was an area where we gravitated to talk, laugh, tell jokes, discuss girls and eat one of those sour apples we picked from the Millers’ apple tree. We actually had salt shakers that were set into the ground where we gathered — salt was a necessary balance to the sour apples, if you are wondering.

There were some terrific athletes who grew up in Chestnut Woods, including Jim Hissom, who grew up on National. He played with Tony Dorsett at Pitt and was part of the 1976 national championship team. His next-door neighbors, Rich and Bob Costello, were fine baseball players, as was Bob Drelick, who lived on Woodward Street. Carl Fodor, former Marshall quarterback, grew up on the far end of Pleasantview. His sister, Mary Beth, was a terrific athlete, too. Tom Battista played at Ohio State for Woody Hayes. Tom grew up across the street from Tim “Legs” Lescalette. Tim could play any sport and run like the wind.

Joanna Bernabei, West Liberty All-American and head basketball coach at Boston College, grew up on Highview Circle. John Harcharic, who grew up near Liberty School, played safety at WVU. My oldest brother, Pat, played hoops at Wheeling College. (These are just a sampling, as there were many other really good athletes in the neighborhood. I trust five of my brothers will be mad that I didn’t mention them.)

We played a lot of basketball as kids, whether it was in my driveway (until my brother, Pat, pulled down the basket from the carport with a Shaq-like dunk) or at several other places in the neighborhood. Snow didn’t deter us — we simply shoveled it off the driveway at our house, took our winter coats off and played, sweating in our T-shirts until mom yelled at us to put our coats back on, warning, “You’re gonna catch your death of pneumonia,” or something like that. (None of us ever got pneumonia.)

On Pleasantview, the Nichols had a nice hoop on a flat area where we played many a game of two-on-two, 21 or horse. That’s where Tony Magnone invented the “Euro step,” although I’m pretty sure he didn’t get any credit for it. We simply called it walking. If the ball bounced away from the hoop toward the other side of the street, you had to quickly grab it or it might roll all the way down the hill toward County Club Estates, the neighborhood below us — no kidding. There was an open swath where the electric lines ran, and if the ball stayed within it, it could roll all the way down to Sharon Drive. The youngest player had to run down the hill and retrieve the ball. There often were long delays when that happened.

In winter, we would sled ride on Hoover’s Hill. It rivaled any ski slope at Canaan or Snowshoe, if my memory serves me correctly. It was this massive, steep mountainous slope that seemed to start at Highview Circle and would eventually take us across Pleasantview (where a lookout was always posted to warn of coming traffic), down the driveway of the Barkhursts’, where there was a natural ramp, causing us to get airborne, landing hard in the bottom of the football field, before cascading into the woods below, where the heavy snow and brush would stop us. When I drive by there today, I wonder what happened to the steepness of that slope and the once impressively long run.

Mike and I laugh about how we thought we were rich. We had all we needed — loving parents, many siblings, great neighbors, a couple of balls and gloves, a football, a sled or two, a bike, dinner at 5 p.m. every night followed by a home-made dessert. Dinner at our house lasted up to two hours. It was an event. We went through two gallons of milk at every meal and 24 loaves of bread a week. That’s a lot of bread and jelly. My mom actually had a caddie at Kroger who pushed the second buggy. Holidays at both of our houses were special — not many gifts, but plenty of family, food and lots of company.

Didn’t everyone live like me, sleeping in the same bed with my brother, Bill, into our teenage years; wearing hand-me-down clothes; or, being the youngest, having to take a bath in dirty bath water? (My mom would pour some Mr. Sudsy in and hit the hot water handle with the speed of a magician performing a sleight-of-hand trick just to cover up the murky water, saying, “There now, that’s better.”

Mike and I disagree about a number of things — whether that one hit was a grammy or a double grammy; who had dibs on the blackberry bushes at the Point; whether we called “bank” or not while playing hoops; or who was better, Clemente or Aaron. But the one thing we always will agree on is that we were really rich. We didn’t have anything, but, in fact, we had everything we needed.

We agree we were so very fortunate to grow up in such a fantastic neighborhood, us two Chestnut Woods kids.

(McCune is a resident of Weirton)