Serial and No Hurry to Get Home
I've been listening to the Serial podcast on my walks. I'd first heard about it a year ago but never took the time to check it out until Rachel recently mentioned how good it is. She's right. It's compelling listening, much in the same way Making a Murderer is.
I drove out to Golfworks Saturday morning to get a few things for my newly rekindled fascination with golf. Tammy was having several friends over so I took some extra time getting home and went a mile out of my way to revisit a neighborhood where I'd spent a year of my life in 1965 when I was 8 years old. I had written about my time there a while ago. I took some photos yesterday to go along with some of those memories I wrote of. We lived on the southeast corner of 66th Street and Lakeshore Drive in Richfield which is right in the middle of this map.
The home we lived in was a small, one-story home that must've been bursting at the seams with 8 of us living there. The house, as well as several neighboring homes, have long since been torn down to make way for a senior high-rise and other associated dwellings. A few of the trees remain but that's all. The photo to the left is taken looking in the direction of where our home used to be, right across from where Bridgeman's Ice Cream was before being torn down and replaced by Pizza Luce.
I had my first job while living there. Steve Casperson and I used a red wagon one summer day to deliver advertising flyers for the local Super America station across the street. Our hearts were in it when we started but after several hours of canvassing numerous blocks of homes, many of the flyers found their way into the storm drain before we returned to tell our boss at the station that we'd finished the job. I suppose the old adage is true that you get what you pay for because they didn't pay us much.
I took some photos to update my previous blog post linked above. The hill I wrote of that was to be our runway that would get Don Falin airborne is this hill. It looks much different today with an overgrowth of trees, none of which were there back in the day.
And here's the view I would've had from my bike the day I rode on the wrong side of the street, not paying attention to what was coming my way and nearly pedaling hard head-on into an oncoming car.
I miss being able to see the old house and walk the alley behind our homes and reminisce about so many memories that I can still see so vividly in my mind. Rachel will be able to do that with her childhood homes for a long time to come, probably the rest of her life. I wish I could.
Our weather has turned unseasonably warm, pushing into the mid-50s today. The pups and I were out by 7:30 this morning, back in the swing of our daily walks again for as long as the well below freezing weather remains a no-show. They're loving it! I don't typically walk them during the winter because their fur picks up so much grit from the roads.
The past few days they've all been camped out at the back door near where I keep their leashes. It's a clear signal and I can't disappoint them. A quick rinse in the laundry tub to clean their feet after each walk is all they need.
I got home and refueled before going walking on my own (nearly 13 miles total) to feel the sun and wind on my face. It was nice. I noticed lots of contrails with several running from north to south; flights most likely from Europe possibly working their way toward DAL or LAX. I have to admit, I was tempted to call the sup in my old area and have him/her tell me who I was looking at in the photo to the right but I dismissed the urge. Besides, the Serial podcast was holding my attention quite well.
I drove out to Golfworks Saturday morning to get a few things for my newly rekindled fascination with golf. Tammy was having several friends over so I took some extra time getting home and went a mile out of my way to revisit a neighborhood where I'd spent a year of my life in 1965 when I was 8 years old. I had written about my time there a while ago. I took some photos yesterday to go along with some of those memories I wrote of. We lived on the southeast corner of 66th Street and Lakeshore Drive in Richfield which is right in the middle of this map.
The home we lived in was a small, one-story home that must've been bursting at the seams with 8 of us living there. The house, as well as several neighboring homes, have long since been torn down to make way for a senior high-rise and other associated dwellings. A few of the trees remain but that's all. The photo to the left is taken looking in the direction of where our home used to be, right across from where Bridgeman's Ice Cream was before being torn down and replaced by Pizza Luce.
I had my first job while living there. Steve Casperson and I used a red wagon one summer day to deliver advertising flyers for the local Super America station across the street. Our hearts were in it when we started but after several hours of canvassing numerous blocks of homes, many of the flyers found their way into the storm drain before we returned to tell our boss at the station that we'd finished the job. I suppose the old adage is true that you get what you pay for because they didn't pay us much.
I took some photos to update my previous blog post linked above. The hill I wrote of that was to be our runway that would get Don Falin airborne is this hill. It looks much different today with an overgrowth of trees, none of which were there back in the day.
And here's the view I would've had from my bike the day I rode on the wrong side of the street, not paying attention to what was coming my way and nearly pedaling hard head-on into an oncoming car.
I miss being able to see the old house and walk the alley behind our homes and reminisce about so many memories that I can still see so vividly in my mind. Rachel will be able to do that with her childhood homes for a long time to come, probably the rest of her life. I wish I could.
Our weather has turned unseasonably warm, pushing into the mid-50s today. The pups and I were out by 7:30 this morning, back in the swing of our daily walks again for as long as the well below freezing weather remains a no-show. They're loving it! I don't typically walk them during the winter because their fur picks up so much grit from the roads.
The past few days they've all been camped out at the back door near where I keep their leashes. It's a clear signal and I can't disappoint them. A quick rinse in the laundry tub to clean their feet after each walk is all they need.I got home and refueled before going walking on my own (nearly 13 miles total) to feel the sun and wind on my face. It was nice. I noticed lots of contrails with several running from north to south; flights most likely from Europe possibly working their way toward DAL or LAX. I have to admit, I was tempted to call the sup in my old area and have him/her tell me who I was looking at in the photo to the right but I dismissed the urge. Besides, the Serial podcast was holding my attention quite well.
Comments
It was a two story with a basement... For a while my room was downstairs next to the main bedroom and them upstairs where the north facing window overlooked the new gas station being built. It was fun watching the progress of that.
Our neighbor Bob Falin was a bass player for the Del Counts.. a popular local garage band. He also had a Plymouth with a push button tranny shifter. He would rev the engine and then push the D and bang he would get rubber. I rode with him once in a while going to Richfield High in my Junior year.
We also had the Peterson's that lived across the alley. Brian was my age.
I recall burning trash in a burn barrel that was allowed back then and we also burned leaves in the street which was probably the last time I did that.
I worked at the Holiday Department Store on Lyndale then. Biked to work almost every day and made $1.25 an hours as a bag-boy and stock-boy and thought the money was great.
I also recall Barb Wire and her brother coming to our back door time to time. Their teeth were rotted from drinking sugar sodas all the time. Their parents were always gone. There was another kid that became the "weatherman" for some local TV station too.
Bridgeman's was across 66th street... pretty handy. The post office nearby was where I got my SS card which I still have.
All these memories come back as I write this.
Anyway... it was a two story house with a basement... not so small, had a nice back porch too where we had the TV and Watched Batman and Where the Action Is with Paul Revere and the Raiders.