Took an hour to visit my birth village

I lived the first ten years of my life in this Wonderful life type little village. It had a great schools system, sidewalks, and a half block from my house Sunset park which had a public pool, tennis courts, swings. My wife drove me there and I sat in front of my old house. It was pretty much the same as 66 years ago, but the roof shingles had been concrete, and now it is fiberglass shingles. The side yard which had seemed so large as a toddler was a postage stamp. We slowly drove from house to house for blocks, even taking my old walking route to Main Street School. I had moved in third grade summer to another town about thirty miles away and lost touch with friends, but strangely ran into a classmate ten years ago who immediately remembered me. We talked about the kids which were in our third grade as we had all gone to kindergarten, first, second and third grade together, and he had stayed in the district until graduation. It was fun, but my oldest granddaughter is now third grade and I know her emotions and intelligence are now set in stone, because I did not change much from the product of this small village and realize that she will cherish her memories of third grade.......my white sox had just been to the world series against the dodgers, and I had established that I could kick the ball over everybody in a kickball game......what wonderful memories of a life well lived.

I remember at Halloween all the downtown merchants let the high school art club paint their retail windows with halloween scenes. Trick or treating was such a big deal for kids as people were very generous with their good candy. I was in cub scouts and I would squeeze all the little girl hands hard who had rings on when we would square dance in gym class.....even at the young age I was finding this uncontrollable attraction to females which I did not entirely understand. I remember the dodgeball game where I almost knocked my third grade teacher unconscious. I remember on treat day in kindergarten complaining to the teacher that I had a rock in my girl scout cookie, to which she explained very patiently and kindly that the rock in my cookie was my tooth. I remember my Dick and Jane reading series, and how we all spent every dime of our allowance on comic books and simply exploded our reading breadth. I remember Ike and how safe and secure I felt in my school and my home which had a oil burning furnace and when I went to work with my Dad he would feed coal into his business furnace. I remember the first phone was a party line and rotary dial. I remember all the homes having one car garages and families with just one car. I remember the Friday night VFW fish fries, and my first Mac french fries.......hooked for life.

No an hour spent visiting your birth home is something I would recommend to everybody regardless of your health. It is good to have that child like innocence restored......even if for only an hour.

2seaoat wrote:I lived the first ten years of my life in this Wonderful life type little village.  It had a great schools system, sidewalks, and a half block from my house Sunset park which had a public pool, tennis courts, swings.  My wife drove me there and I sat in front of my old house.  It was pretty much the same as 66 years ago, but the roof shingles had been concrete, and now it is fiberglass shingles.  The side yard which had seemed so large as a toddler was a postage stamp.  We slowly drove from house to house for blocks, even taking my old walking route to Main Street School.  I had moved in third grade summer to another town about thirty miles away and lost touch with friends, but strangely ran into a classmate ten years ago who immediately remembered me.  We talked about the kids which were in our third grade as we had all gone to kindergarten, first, second and third grade together, and he had stayed in the district until graduation.  It was fun, but my oldest granddaughter is now third grade and I know her emotions and intelligence are now set in stone, because I did not change much from the product of this small village and realize that she will cherish her memories of third grade.......my white sox had just been to the world series against the dodgers, and I had established that I could kick the ball over everybody in a kickball game......what wonderful memories of a life well lived.

I remember at Halloween all the downtown merchants let the high school art club paint their retail windows with halloween scenes.  Trick or treating was such a big deal for kids as people were very generous with their good candy.  I was in cub scouts and I would squeeze all the little girl hands hard who had rings on when we would square dance in gym class.....even at the young age I was finding this uncontrollable attraction to females which I did not entirely understand.  I remember the dodgeball game where I almost knocked my third grade teacher unconscious.  I remember on treat day in kindergarten complaining to the teacher that I had a rock in my girl scout cookie, to which she explained very patiently and kindly that the rock in my cookie was my tooth.  I remember my Dick and Jane reading series, and how we all spent every dime of our allowance on comic books and simply exploded our reading breadth.  I remember Ike and how safe and secure I felt in my school and my home which had a oil burning furnace and when I went to work with my Dad he would feed coal into his business furnace.  I remember the first phone was a party line and rotary dial.  I remember all the homes having one car garages and families with just one car.  I remember the Friday night VFW fish fries, and my first Mac french fries.......hooked for life.

No an hour spent visiting your birth home is something I would recommend to everybody regardless of your health.  It is good to have that child like innocence restored......even if for only an hour.

Thanks for sharing this Mr. Oats . . . . . it reminds me of the spiritual hymn by Tennessee's own Ernie Ford Precious Memories.

Great read... thank you.

I enjoyed the read.