You can't go home again

Or perhaps it's more a matter of you shouldn't go home again. You might be very disappointed, if not horrified, by what you'll find.

My sister Nancy, who's two years younger than me, called me recently to talk about her upcoming 50th high school reunion. I encouraged her to go as I had a lovely time at mine. She and I attended the same school but our two younger sisters went elsewhere as we'd moved away from that neighborhood by the time they were of high school age. 

For many years we lived in the upstairs flat in this building that was owned by my paternal grandparents, Jim and Nora Brazill. They ran this corner store but had given it up by the time we lived there. When I was in Buffalo, NY, for my reunion I went by the old neighborhood to check it out. It still looked quite similar to this when we lived there in the 1950s. 

The owners of the store lived on the first floor behind the store. The basement under the stores was stacked to the ceiling with wooden cases of pop bottles. There were two coal bins and two big old furnaces, one for each apartment. On the opposite corner was the Red and White Grocery store.

A shoe repair shop was located behind the grocery and Charlie Stroh, the grocer, and his family lived upstairs. No trees, no grassy yards and no charm left.

When the store was owned by the Paufler family after my grandparents, Mr. Paufler would give all the kids penny candy based on our report card results. I can still picture where everything — not just the rows of penny candy — was located inside the store. The floors were wooden and the ceiling tin.

It was quite a shock to me to see what changes had occurred to this little corner in all the years I've been gone.

There's still grass along the side of the building, so I guess that's a plus. But no shrubs or flowers like there used to be.

The door on the side led upstairs to our apartment. All of us kids played in the empty lot next door as well as in the construction site when the adjacent building was going up. 

The upstairs rear was a porch that ran the width of the building and had screens and storm windows. We ate out there in the summer and played and read our books in that lovely space. The downstairs had an open porch that took up half the space with wide steps that led up the door which opened into that apartment's living room. Where the cars are parked was a fenced yard where we had our swing set. 

That upper porch was a large enough space that my sister and I rode our bikes up there when we were little. This photo is from the spring of 1951. I'm age 4 and my sister Nan is 2. Note the pinhwheel fastened onto my bike, though I imagine it would not be possible to get up enough speed to make it spin in that limited space. 

There was a two car garage with one side designated for each apartment. The street is still lined with American elm trees in this photo taken on Easter Sunday in 1956 when Nan and I are aged 7 and 9. I'm wearing a pale pink topper (as we called those short coats in those days) and my hat is decorated with cherries. I had a similar purse for my favorite doll!

This is the house that was located just beyond ours. Three sisters lived there and the property was always immaculate. The women's last name was Burns and, as was characteristic at that time, they were always referred to as "the Burns girls" though they were all middle-aged. 

The Burns house looks almost identical to 1953 when this photo was taken. Nan and I are aged 4 and 6 and going to a neighborhood birthday party but I don't remember whose it might have been. The big difference here is that the empty lot between the Burns' house and the Majors' house has been filled in with another small brick house. We all used to play in that empty lot which was a big depression, probably having been dug out for a house that never got built. It meant you could really hide amid the huge weeds. 

A note about our dresses in the above photo: Nan and I each had the dress she's wearing which was patterned with tiny stars. One dress had red stars and the other blue. I think Nan may be wearing my hand-me-down rather than her original dress. I am wearing one of my favorites which was a pale sage green and cream stripe with a black velvet ribbon at the waist. 

. . .

After Mark and I re-visited this childhood house in 2015, we checked out the house we moved to after this one. It was in great shape and looked almost identical to when we'd lived there. In fact, the street looked prosperous and well-kept up. I had forgotten that the street was paved with bricks which was still the case and it looked fabulous!

But seeing our house in the pictures above confirmed my decision to never revisit my grandparents' houses that I remember most from my childhood. I would hate to have this kind of reality replace my childhood memories.

Comments

[Lisa at Greenbow]

Yes, if you have fond memories of your childhood place or any place I wouldn't visit it either. You wouldn't want to cloud those memories. I am amazed that you can remember so many details of your youth. I don't remember so much.

[Linda Brazill]

Some I truly remember like what our clothes were like. But others I really only know the photo. So I know we rode our bikes on that porch because there is a picture of us doing so. But I don't actually remember doing it.

[Rae Kaiser]

Love your dresses. I remember my entire first grade wardrobe. I grew up in a very small town in central Wisconsin. My parents went to Marshal Fields in Milwaukee to buy my first grade wardrobe. This was a very big deal. My parents were not wealthy so this is surprising to look back on. My favorite dress was a red men's shirt with a red man's plaid tie, and a matching flared shirt. What a dress. My Dad would tie the tie.

[Linda Brazill]

My mom made a lot of our clothes as well as adding embroidery details. I wonder if all women know what they wore when. I only wish I had taken pictures of all my great 1960s clothes. And that outfit sounds so "you."

[Barbara H.]

Oh gosh, Linda, you took me right back into my own childhood memories, including the dresses. The house where we lived from my kindergarten year through my high school junior year still looks much the same but the yard - oh the yard has changed. It had lots of oak trees which meant lots of leaves and acorns in the fall. We raked the leaves into outlines of rooms for our "houses" and used the acorns, etc. for our dishes. Those trees are all gone - sad to see but they would have been huge by now and a definite hazard in a midwest storm.

[Peter/Outlaw]

So many fond memories of how things were. I can't even remember what I wore last week.

[Susan Adler Sobol]

What an enjoyable post. I remember as a child visiting the Brooklyn, NY neighborhood my mother grew up in. She became so upset by how it had changed. Her emotions were overwhelming. Susan