We moved to this 'modern ranch' when I was 5 years old, in kindergarten. Though the driveway looks fairly flat, it was anything but; and brothers Ron and Andy loved the race course scare of going down it in the wagon or later their home made go-cart. The bottom of the driveway was a dead end road with woods (i.e. trees to crash into) that needed to be navigated in the end zone of the ride.
Old photos are intriguing, I love pouring over boxes of them. Photos from the halcyon days of my youth; it's like peeking through a window at another world. This youthful world is no longer. These memories are gone, largely lost to today's world. It's wonderful to reconnect with them.
I picture, in my mind's eye, the daily life's activities of living in this Ardmore Rd. house for 6 years. Is it an honest memory or have I embellished it over the years? I will have to ask Ron and Andy. Childhood was lived outdoors. It was wagons and go-carts, forts in the Mountain Laurel bushes, kick ball games, a 2 story tree house, swinging, back yard swimming pool shared with neighbors, 'camping' in the back yard with a campfire and new fangled Jiffy Pop, neighborhood games of kick the can, and walking to school rain and snow, every day. It was coming home from school at the noon hour for lunch, making our own Halloween costumes, roller skating in the basement, Dairy Queen on a hot evening, shoveling a 'rink' on Indian Lake to have an ice skating party, playing outside after supper until dusk, and Amos and Andy on the black and white TV.
I love this photo. I love the goofy grin on Ron's face. I love Andy's protective arm around Ron.This photo is a bit small, but if you could see it up close you'd see Andy is missing all his upper front teeth. I recall the daily ritual of having my hair braided and the wisps that would eventually escape. And of course I can conjure a complete memory of the house interior.
This is the pretty memory, the solid and loving beginning of childhood. This is also the house where my mother died when I was 8. It is the house where I walked into the kitchen and found my father and two brothers slumped on the kitchen floor crying, looking up at me to tell me she had died. I was 8. Tragic as that is, this photo brings me nothing but love. It may be the 'Pollyanna' in me, but the phrase "It takes a village" is quite accurate. It did take a village to raise me. My village began on Balder Road, moved to Admore Road, to Highland Street, to Damon Road and finally the greater world. We all need a village, but these two wonderful men pointed me to the path.