While heading out of town last week I drove by the house where I grew up. It’s in the Mid-town/Medical Center area not far from Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, which used to be Bellevue Baptist Church back in the days of my youth. Boy how times have changed. The two story house that used to be to our west is now gone, replaced with a vacant lot and an abandoned car. The windows are boarded up, although I do believe the duplex is inhabited. The huge back yard now looks so small and overgrown with weeds. I can remember the aches and pains from spreading out a dump truck load of gravel. I packed that gravel down smooth so I could bounce my basketball without chasing it all over the road. Funny the things you remember.
When I was small we had a big front yard but when they widened the street they cut off more than half of it. Sure made cutting the grass easy when I was old enough to do that. Still think I griped at my folks for making me even though it must have taken all of 8 minutes to cut. I know you’re all gone now but I’m sorry about that.
This house and neighborhood hold so many memories for me that I think I’ll try to document them here over the next few months. Might be fun to stroll down memory lane and who knows, maybe a little therapeutic.
Have you been by your childhood home lately? What memories came flooding back for you?
All I can say is I bet you didn’t have a sweet “log cabin-esque” playhouse in the backyard, complete with tiny Maggie-sized furniture on the front porch & horse-paneling on the inside. I know, growing up in Cordova before it was commercial was definitely hood – you don’t have to say it…
We did have a metal building that was a fort, workshop, stage, hideout and anything else I could think of. Played lots of basketball using a wire basket nailed to the side of it. You’d think it was 1920 or something but it was the early to mid 70’s. When I drove by I was amazed at the actual size of the yard. It seemed pretty large when I was a kid, now it looks like a postage stamp.