Memories

I'm trying to get random thoughts out of my head, so I can think about other topics.

I remember when my dad would bring the trash to the trash burn barrel in the backyard. We had a big backyard. Part of the backyard was a hill and I used to sit on the ground and roll down the hill. Behind our house was a little creek and on the other side of that were horses. I loved to watch them. I remember having a swing set out in the back yard.

Our next door neighbor's house was so cool because it was like a house on top of a house. I guess it was kind of like a duplex only it was one level on top of the other. I remember when they had a party and asked me to come over and babysit their daughter, Millicent. I'm sure that's spelled incorrectly.

We had a Collie named Laddie. He was the best dog I've ever had in my entire life. He was a very special dog. He was able to get himself off of his chain and would make his way around the small little dead-end street checking on the neighbors. There were six houses on the street. Laddie would sit on the bottom step of the mail truck and ride around the street with the mailman. If I got off of the patio he would take my wrist in his mouth and guide me back to the patio. I loved this dog tremendously. Well, we went on vacation and when we came back Laddie was dead. It was never proven but my parents believed that the next door neighbor on the other side of us poisoned Laddie. He told my parents that he was always in his garden. That's the one and only time I ever saw my dad cry.

I remember an old little shed behind our house that I loved to play in. It had a dirt floor, was dilapidated and was filled with spider webs but I remember being in a little fantasy land when I went in there. It was like a little house and there were baby food jars on the shelves like a little collection. I think this was one part of the property that my parents had no desire to mess with whether that be to fix it up or to tear it down. It was a big house with three bedrooms and a huge basement. I would love to have had that house now that I'm an adult. But we moved away to Texas when I was eleven which would have been in 1979 or 1980. My parents moved there for work.

The driveway to the house was just a little rock area in front of the house. You had to walk down some steps to get to the front door. Once in the house, you stood in the living room. The kitchen was to the left, down a few steps. Straight through the living room, on the right, were the bedrooms, a bathroom and the door to the basement. My room was purple and I also had purple carpet. I remember if you stood at the door to my bedroom there was a window on the left and another window straight ahead with my closet being on the right. If you looked out of the window that was straight ahead you could see the little shed that I loved so much.

If you stood at the basement door there was a little landing you'd step down to, turn right and go down the steps. At the bottom of the steps, there was a door to the backyard on the left. There were lots of windows in this room. We had a ping pong table in the middle and my dad had his desk in the far right corner. If you turned right again you'd head into the furnace room which was always kind of dark and scary. Then you'd turn right again and go down a few more steps to the washroom. There weren't any walls between the washroom and the furnace room, but I remember that there was a phone on the far wall of the washroom.

If you walked straight through the washroom you'd come to a door. This was some kind of shop that the previous owner worked out of. There was a business type glass door on the other side of the room. That's where my dad kept all of his tools. I believe this room was what used to be the garage.

I remember the Havel's across the street. The mom and son were pretty mean but the dad was really nice. I remember the son's name, John Havel. I think the dad's name was Gene, but I don't remember that positively. It could have been the mom's name, Jean. I remember playing with John in his yard, doing cartwheels and falling. I fell on my hand and knocked the wind out of myself. That was pretty scary because I couldn't catch my breath for what seemed like forever!

There was a buckeye tree in the neighbor's yard that we used to play with. I remember when John was being mean to me and throwing the Buckeyes at me. That hurt!

I had a yellow sunflower bike with a basket on the front and wisps of plastic ribbons hanging from the handlebars. I remember seeing a man pushing his car up the hill at the public end of the street once. He jumped in the car as it crested the hill and rolled down the other side. I rode my bike to where he had stopped his car and parked my bike. I walked over to him and asked him if I could help. He said, "Yeah you can sit in the car and push the gas pedal for me." And of course, I did what he told me to do. His car started up and I rode home to tell my mom about my good deed I did for the day. My mother exploded! I couldn't believe why she was so mad at me. I wound up crying and crying. My mom told me that that man could have driven off with me and all she'd have was my sunflower bike! I didn't realize that what I did could have gotten me kidnapped. I was scared and sad all at the same time.

So if you went down to the public end of the street you had to go down a little hill on the right to get out of the neighborhood or you could take the big hill down to the left and up another hill to another little neighborhood. There was a little girl that I'd play with every once in a while and I remember that my dad could stand out on the patio and call me and I'd hear him. It was very cool. I couldn't tell you anything about the little girl that I played with, I just remember being able to hear my dad when he called out for me. Just thinking about the hills I don't know how I rode my bike up and down those hills. It would kill me if I had to do that right now. Of course, I'm thirty years older now, too.

At the far public end of the dead-end street was some private property with a lake and a pavilion. I remember walking back there sometimes. You'd have to walk around the bars that blocked the driveway. I'd follow the driveway to the left and then it would turn to the right. There was a small pavilion straight ahead and a little lake on the right. I never cared to go anywhere near the lake but I liked to sit under the pavilion and daydream.

I haven't driven by the old house in a long time. I'll have to make a point of doing that one of these days.