Home by Susan

Many a time I remember putting on socks and skating around our wood floors throughout our house to shine them up after they were waxed. The times we'd listen to the LP33 records like Brier Rabbit. Coming home when I was really young from some close by restaurant that Dad would let me pick out all his purple cabbage out of his salad and watching Edgar Bergan & Charlie McCarthy on t.v. When the 'Honeymooners' would come on the t.v., Mom would let me go out to the kitchen drawer next to the "ice box" as she called it and let me get a Mountain Bar. (They don't taste like they use to.)

I really enjoyed the summers when our plum tree would produce good. I'd just sit under that tree and eat and eat those plums. Now days that would make me really ill. The tangerines were good but the orange tree never did produce much. The peach and apricot tree weren't my favorite & hated cleaning up the mess they left. Dad let me try planting a garden in the back flower area but the only thing I could grow was radishes that we didn't even eat. We took the shed in the corner of the backyard and made a club house with a chalk board. And remembering chalk boards, we had that full wall in that middle bedroom painted as a chalk board with the dog & cat trim boarder - how BIG that was & what fun. That's the same room Dad decided to remodel and took out the window to make that large bar table with the hanging light. I thought he was so brave to be cutting windows out but it was exciting to have something changed around.

My favorite place to hang out when it was cold was sitting over the floor heater or putting my feet really close to the gas logs of the fireplace. Thought where we kept logs of wood was really neat but always wondered if anyone could open the outside door of it and push in the inside door and get into the living room - that scared me. Didn't help knowing 'Weird Wesley' next door or the peeping-tom that ran through the neighborhood.

Dad always kept the lawns looking so good. He never let any of us mow it saying he didn't want us to mow up the cord since it was an electric mower. Since that time, though, I've mowed many of my lawns. Wish I could grow roses like Mom; I try but don't make the bouquets quite like she did. She'd make flower arrangements for my teachers that seemed to be done professionally.

Seemed like as neighbor kids we would always play in the street either baseball, football or some other kind of game. We rode bikes a lot - even through the alleys that would take us all over the place. Taster Freeze was really close & we could get those dipped cones that you couldn't seem to eat fast enough before they'd drip all down your arm. Loved the sound of the ice cream man that would come down the street late in the afternoons or the Helm's Bakery truck that would come in the mornings & he'd have such a huge variety of donuts to choose from. Winchell's donuts were still the top of my favorite though.

One of the things I wish we could of kept before selling the house is that closet door in the garage. The one we had signed our signatures or wrote boyfriend's names. Just the years of memories that were on that door - did we ever take a picture of it?