Flashback Friday: Stewart Hill Drive

I played outside a lot as a kid. I was one of those kids that was out the door after breakfast and only came in for Ramen noodles and popsicles and bandaids. We had a great yard and neighborhood. Why would I be inside?  Here are a few pictures of me outside our home in River Heights. I'll try to provide dates if I can guess.

Check out this gem of a car. I don't remember riding in it. I remember that beauty of a van parked in front of it though. Can you see the curtains in the windows? It also had tables and the back seat folded down into a bed. It was a pseudo camper, for sure. We climbed on the ladder all the time. The roof of the van was the best hiding spot during night games but I was never that brave.

circa 1986. Belly shirts were big that year.

I wish I had that wooden chair. Too cute.

I realized a couple of years ago I love chain link fences. They are sturdy, great for climbing over, don't obstruct your view, keep dogs in or out. Sure they're not pretty but they're not that noticeable either. 

Anyway, if you look closely and compare my bangs in the picture below with the picture above you'll see I cut them. I remember that day. My mom had a bunch of women over and they were all sitting around the kitchen table. I think it was some sort of presidency meeting for church. I asked her if she could cut my bangs but she said no because she was busy (duh). I went back into her bathroom and got her hair scissors. I opened them up, held them to my forehead and thought "this feels like about where she cuts my bangs." No. No it was not where she cut my bangs. I put the scissors down and went on my merry way not thinking for one second I had done anything but a great job. One of my older sisters enlightened me and then I cried.

1987. I betcha I'm not even swinging, just hanging.

I loved this swimming suit because the day I picked it out I learned what a koala was. The suit also came with these sunglasses. I'm thinking the suit was purchased long before this photo was taken because it doesn't fit me anymore. This was also the time of life that I wore my swimming suit all day and sometimes all night and then all day again. You never knew when sprinklers were turning on at any of the houses in the neighborhood. It's best to be prepared.

Let's say 1989

We had the best front yard or at least an exciting one with these evergreen bushes bordering the walkway to the house. They were poky. The dead, fallen branches would give you slivers if you walked down it barefoot. I learned to steer my tricycle straight to avoid running into them. You knew you were one of the big kids if you could run and jump over them.

1990. Look at my cute baby brother behind me.

 Another picture in front of the fence. I love it. This is the west side of our yard. If I had a picture of the north side, I'd love to show you. Behind the chain link fence on the north side, the back of our yard, was a drop off, a cliff. We lived on the edge of the "gravel pit". (I think there are homes built down there now.) It's where we dumped our grass clippings and if you were really brave, you'd hop behind the fence and scale down the hill a bit and hide during kick-the-can.

1990

 This was the best front porch. It was a concrete porch that ran the entire front of the house. We played house, board games, rode our bikes, pretended it was a stage or school. It seems weird to me now that there was a flower bed between the porch and the house. My eyes are closed in the sunshine just like my kids do. That's funny.

1989 I think. I remember wearing these clothes in kindergarten so that's my best guess.

 If you were standing at the end of our walkway and took a picture of across the street, this is what you'd see. The butter yellow house was my best friend Melissa Bambrough's house. The house to the right of it, almost cut out of the picture, was where a boy named Riley lived. He had spiky hair.

1991. Not my bike. Probably Melissa's bike.

Melissa's basement was unfinished so her mom let us build forts with sheets tacked right into the 2x4s. Her mom once sent me home for hitting Melissa's little sister. "We don't hit at our house," she said as she pushed me out the door. I wanted to yell defiantly "Well I do!" but didn't. Her sister deserved it. I don't remember what she did but I was a well-behaved child so she must of done something really bad. 

Other memories:

We played night games all the time. In my mind our house was the gathering spot for the neighborhood kids (It didn't hurt that we made up 8 of the kids). We knew who's yard was best for what games: kick-the-can, steal-the-flag, sardines, colored eggs, etc. I think I was one of the younger kids but I played hard and didn't want to be treated as one. Sometimes we'd play poison on our basketball hoop mounted over the garage door and I was no good at that. 

Tommy Atwood and Kenny Fox. These two boys were best friends and sometimes my friends and sometimes were mean to me. I played with them a lot until Melissa moved in. Tommy always wore cowboys boots so he ran funny. Red hair and freckles. His mom was super nice and threw the best birthday parties.  Kenny was nicer when Tommy wasn't around. He was probably my first friend. He's the only boy not in my family I've seen pee.  We got in trouble for lighting matches against the bricks next to Tommy's front porch.

Kenny Fox carried around a blankie. I once teased him about it (maybe I wasn't as nice as I thought) and threw it down the neighbor's window well. He tackled me and chocked me for a second and ran off. I ran home and told my mom but I don't think she took it seriously enough. 

One night I was playing late at Kenny's house which was next door. By the time I went home it was dark. When I got to my front porch there was a ginormous snail right in front of the door. It's antennae were wiggling around. (I'm making a face typing this.) I freaked out and ran back inside the Fox's house, not even bothering to knock. I told Sister Fox about the snail and she told me to be brave and just go right on by. I don't remember how I got into my house that night, if I did walk on by or if I used another door. But I do know I skip the page with the photo of the snail in my kids' ABC nature book to this day.

Kenny had an older sister named Alison that was my sister Rachel's friend. I loved Alison. She was so nice and cool and I loved when she came to our house and Rachel would let me stick around. One day I knocked on their door and asked if Allison could play. I was like 5 and she was 11. She was so nice to play Barbies with me for a little while. *Fun fact: When I was at USU, we had a class together. For some weird reason Developing Societies could be taken as a graduate or upper level sociology class. She was in it as a grad student, I was in it for my sociology minor.

My world was so small then. Brother Fox was Dr. Fox our family doctor. Dr. Bingham was our dentist and lived down the street. There were teachers from our school that lived in our neighborhood. My whole life was riding bikes around the block, going to the cemetery a street over, riding down the hill to the school if we felt up to the ride back up. I had 6 kids my age in that neighborhood. If someone couldn't play, just ride to the next house. We knew which houses would let us jump on their trampolines, which had mean dogs, which houses didn't mind if we rode bikes in their driveway.

Basically it was perfect.