Saturday, April 21, 2018

Snapshot & memories: Adorable
little me on Mulberry Street


Yep, that's me. In a frankly adorable outfit that I no longer have. I should try to find a grown-up equivalent of that outfit and recreate the photograph, which seems to be the hip thing to do these days. But I'm not sure the world is ready for that kind of horror. We still have the chest, though. It's currently being used to store outgoing Pengins for Everyone.

This snapshot is from August 1975, the same month that the Helsinki Accords were signed, NASA launched Viking 1 toward Mars, and Bruce Springsteen released the Born to Run album.

This is the first house that I remember. It is located on Mulberry Street in Montoursville, Pennsylvania. Dad provides the following background:
"This was our first home after my discharge from the Marine Corps. We rented it. I was a church parsonage. Wood pocket doors between living room and dining room. Fireplace in dining room. Four bedrooms, and one bedroom had a door leading to spooky attic. Free-standing garage. Huge backyard. We had 20-foot by 20-foot garden. (Not a bad memory for an old man.)"
My memories of this house are not nearly as detailed or specific, because I was just a little kid. Photographs and stories told by my parents over the years help to "augment" my memories. Here are some of my own recollections and stories about the house on Mulberry Street:

  • My bedroom seemed huge to me. That is, of course, because I was hobbit-sized at the time. I had a stuffed alligator on one of the upper window ledges. I think it was named Myron.
  • This is the house in which I banged my head one night in the bathroom, giving myself a Harry Potter scar between the eyes decades before it was trendy.
  • The kitchen was relatively small and led to the backyard. I am told that I once locked my then-pregnant mother out of the house and stood there, like Damien Thorn, as she crawled through the kitchen window to regain entry to the house.
  • I remember Adriane, my newborn sister, staying in the bedroom/nursery adjacent to mine.
  • I have memories of running and playing in the backyard. There was a small slide (possibly the next-door neighbor's), and we would rub it down with wax paper to make it slippier. One time, while playing in the backyard at dusk, I was buzzed by a bat.
  • I don't have any recollection of the spooky attic that Dad mentioned. I would love a chance to tour the house again some day. I should watch for it being up for sale; maybe there will be an open house.

More in this series

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