Memory Lane on 7th Street

Here’s a Googled street-view of the house where my family and I lived during the sixties when I was a kid. (BTW – I’m totally stealing this idea for a blog from JP's Memory Lane on 9th Street.)


We called this the 7th Street House. It was on 7th street, see? (Obviously, the present owner needs to do a lot of lawn care. My folks would have never let it look like that.)

Even though I was only seven years old when we moved here, I remember this house very well. Architecturally, it was the epitome of a nineteen-sixties brick house. Notice that there are no windows aside from the bay window in front. (I loved that.) The bedrooms only had small horizontal windows near the ceilings.

Speaking of that bay window, right behind it was a real, working fountain that gurgled down into a pool measuring about 6’ x 4’. It was about six inches deep, lined with pebbles and was a great place for releasing lots of my tadpoles (little frogs later jumped out and died.)

Oh, and the living room - - wow what I would give to have one like that. It had a sunken area in the center with deep blue carpet. Those two carpeted steps lining the sunken area were a great place for a Hot Wheels track, believe me. Electric trains, an Erector Set, and a super-sized set of Tinkertoys also made their way across that blue carpeting.

It was in this house that I received the greatest gift EVER on my eighth birthday. I was watching TV when my mom and dad appeared at the door. My dad was holding something behind him. What was it? He and mom were smiling -- and he handed me a six week old Beagle puppy. Oh my gosh, I was just so overwhelmed. I started crying and that surprised me. Up until then, I didn’t know that one could cry from happiness. I named the puppy Snoopy, naturally.

Somehow, my mom even managed to make me a cowboy cake. What a great birthday.

I had an irrational fear that Snoopy would get hit by a car. She’d often get out of the pen in the back yard and I’d spend hours chasing her around the neighborhood. Finally, I’d capture her and carry the wriggling Beagle home in my arms.

Of course, being the 1960s, I remember a lot of TV being watched at this house. My younger brother and I would sprawl in front of the TV most Saturday mornings for several hours of cartoons along with an assortment of sugary cereals. (Lucky Charms, Sugar Pops, Cap’n Crunch - - remember those?)

Scuffles ensued on weekday afternoons between little brother and me over what was to be viewed. Of course, we only had one TV (can you imagine that?) so there was always a battle over who got to watch what. Negotiating turn-taking was seldom successful.

One program that I was absolutely nuts over was Lost in Space. I never missed it. Usually, fish sticks and fries from the nearby Ken Kream were eaten in front of the TV as I got to watch the adventures of the Robinson family each week. Will Robinson was my hero. He was the same age as me but smart and savvy and brave. I wanted to be just like him.

Time marched on and we moved away from this house when I was in the third grade and then to another town. Snoopy got run over by the milk man when I was sixteen.