The Driveway

202 Crombie -Bullock home for 30 years

 

Our house is a very, very, very fine house! 

My childhood home in Atlantic, Iowa was designed by my grandfather, Herbert Leslie Morehead. It was built in the early 1950s, a walkout ranch-style home with a flat roof. The house had many special features - built-in drawers in each bedroom, hardwood floors, and lots of light from large windows on the north side. Thinking back, one of the best features was a fairly flat double-wide driveway for the 2-car garage. 

That driveway is central to many of my favorite memories of the first 18 years of my life. Yep, a big slab of concrete. I remember learning to ride my tricycle on the driveway. It was green with a white metal seat. I made the mistake of parking it behind my grandpa's car one day and he backed into it - bending it a bit, but it was still ride-able. Phew! Later it was a good place to practice riding my bike with training wheels. I'd turn around in the driveway and head up the sidewalk and back down again. 

The driveway was smooth - conducive to chalk. That was good because it was used often for Hopscotch - a game that is said to be over 1,000 years old. We played it by drawing rectangles on the driveway in chalk. 

Amazing - saw this on today's bikeride in Urbandale

  Hopscotch rules here

Another game we loved to play was 4-Square. This was a simple chalk square divided equally into four sections. Or you could play with two people, two sections. Players serve and bat a ball with their hands. I remember calling "banks or no-banks" rules. With banks you could bat the ball before it hit the pavement - then hit it again. Otherwise you had to jump aside to let the ball fly out of the square bounds. 

When I was older, I got into tennis (note - we were a golf family so I never had any formal training in this sport). I'd bat the ball at our wooden garage door. I often hit it onto the the flat roof! We had a long wood ladder that I just set up to the side, because roofballs were inevitable. I don't know how Mom could stand that constant thump of the ball! 

My best memories are of summer nights, playing with the neighbors - especially our next door buddies the Reinertsons. That meant we were playing with the big kids! I felt so special when they let us play. We'd play Sardines - a kind of reverse hide-and-seek, where there was one hider. All others had to look for that person and when they found him/her, they'd lay down next to them - making a row of sardines. The last person lost. Reinertson's tall bushes on the west side of their house were a great place to hide!  

We played Ghost in the Graveyard and Kick the Can. For those games we had to pick who would be "It" to start the game. Of course we used methds passed down through the years - usually the Bubble Gum Bubble Gum in a Dish chant, or Eeeny Meeny Miney Moe. 

Sister Susi is central to one of my fave memories. She's much older than me (haha - she's be 70 soon!), so I don't remember her playing with me nearly as much as Cindy and lil sis Betsy. That special evening, it was already dark. Susi's neighborhood friends were there - including Linda Buck and Jeff Grayson. There is a streetlight right over the driveway - a bright spot in the night. Jeff had his bike and they made plans to prank the cops. I'm not sure why they thought a cop would drive by. The plan was for Jeff to lay by his bike on the end of our driveway pretending that he crashed. The rest of us were supposed to flee the scene when the cop drove by - like we'd caused the wreck. Our cue to run was when someone would yell "Cheese It, the Cops!" We practiced the drill several times to make sure we all knew where to flee to. It was serious stuff to be included on this escapade! The cops didn't cooperate in the end, but fun was had!

Our driveway was perfect for jump-rope! I got a new jump rode for Easter one year. It was green rubber with white handles. No wonder we all stayed in shape with activities like that and Hoola-Hoop! Rope jumping also involved many memorized ditties. One of my faves was: 

Suzi Over the Ocean

Suzi Over the Sea

Suzi broke a milk bottle, blamed it on me

How many lickings did she get (yeah violence was involved)

1,2,3 - until you tripped up and stopped jumping

If we had enough people we could use a long rope with 2 twirlers and one to jump in between - or sometimes 2 people (double dutch!). We went International when we got Chinese Jump Ropes. I can't believe I didn't get shin splits! We never had a basketball hoop, but I didn't think twice about using the neighbor's patio hoop, stuck on a wooden pole. Thanks to the Reinertsons for being patient with a kid that probably bounced that ball when they didn't really wish to hear it. 

I look back fondly on these memories. I don't know when my love for driveway fun died out - to be replaced with enjoying the driveway as a place to park a car. We'd pull the extra car off to the side in the grass by the tiny fire hydrant. We drove my grandpa Bubba's 1971 light blue VW Beetle in the winters when my grandparents headed to St. Petersburg, Florida for the winter. Then Cindy got a Chevy Vega with racing stripes - that clutch was touchy! 

Now we live in a neighborhood across from a small city park. Hearing the kids playing still brings joy! I can't wait to play with our granddaughter as she grows up. She's just starting to pull herself up on furniture. The circle of life. 

The Bullock girls with my Morehead grandparents - Pops was the architect

                                                                                        We get to see Nell - and parents this weekend! 

 

Sum sum summertime

The most wonderful time of the year. As far as I'm concerned it's summer! I love it. Every former child should.

What's was not to like for a kid? You got out of school and had 3 months of vacation that seemed to stretch out in front of you like and endless wave of fun. Or boredom, which was still better than school, at least in June and July. By August, well....

I admit that I'm putting on my nostalgic goggles (waterproof for all that swimming I did) for my childhood summers. It's easy to forget the icky stuff (was there any? - I was oblivious to anything going on outside of good 'ol Atlantic, Iowa).

We had the run of our neighborhood, stretching for blocks from out house - especially after I got that snazzy Western Flyer bike with the banana seat. I felt like one of Hell's own little angels on that baby - tooling around the 'hood. I've mentioned before how fortunate the Bullocks were when the Reinertsons moved into the house next door to us because there was someone for Cindy, Betsy and me to play with. Also the move got rid of the creepy family before them - with the son that burned Cindo with the cigarette lighter in their car. Don't worry - our dad punched him.

We spent countless hours with Kathryn, Laurie and Annie Reinertson indoors and out. We did plays (my grandmother typed up the tickets on her manual typewriter) in the Reinertson's yard, hanging a couple blankets over their clothesline for the curtain. I don't think I had many speaking lines. #moreofabehindthescenesgirl. We built forts in the "woods" next to our house and climbed the trees there. We also had a cool playhouse that our grandfather built - I wish I had a picture of it. I remember being so busy playing that it was inconvenient to have to go inside to tinkle - playing is such hard work! Mom did a good job of just leaving us alone.

We were so fortunate that our parents belonged to a golf course that had a small swimming pool because early members thought that was important. My Aunt Marty says my grandpa Bubba was the first one ever in the water. That's funny because I don't remember him ever being in the water! That pool saw a lot of action. It had an ever smaller "baby pool" next to it that was somewhat dangerous because it was much too deep for youngsters and had a slick rounded bottom. In later years they fixed that.

We spent a lot of time at that little pool - just ask my shoulders. I just had another little precancerous spot zapped last month. The pool had cool woven chairs that you could tip down and hang your towel on to make a shady fort on the grass. By the time we went home late in the afternoon, I'd be famished and exhausted - just what Mom was hoping for I'm sure. (The little rats will sleep well tonight)

Sometimes the neighbor kids would play night games like kick the can or Ghost in the Graveyard. Or another hide and seek game we called Sardines where one person hid and when you found them, you laid down by them - just like a sardine in a can! I loved being included with the big kids.

My sister Cindy had a wonderful imagination. She was great at making up things to do. We'd use our porcelain horse collection with little rubber animal erasers as riders and play Horse Camp. It was fun naming all the horses and people. Mom got some old wallpaper sample books and Cindy used old boxes to make houses for Barbie and decorate. Quite stylish. Again - I was probably the maid.

We'd draw a 4-Square "court" on the driveway and play that with a rubber ball. Banks or no banks? That made a huge difference. We had a flat roof on our garage, so hitting a tennis ball against the door required that I prop the ladder up at the same time. I can't believe Mom let me climb up on the roof.

I was in Atlantic - at least the landfill, McDonald's and the cemetery this week. I had lunch under the tree we planted after our infant son died. He's buried there along with four other generations of Bullocks. It was very peaceful - unlike the Bullocks on this side of the grass. Haha. I'll be back in A-town in a couple weeks for my class reunion. I'm looking forward to seeing my homegirls of course, but also those peeps that I don't get to see quite as frequently. Atlantic is a good place to be from. Bring on summer!

Adnah David Bullock - Civil War veteran

Basementphobia

I avoid our basement. Just ask my family - it's true. Our basement at our current home is light and airy - not dank and dark like the one in our first rental home in Osage. Still - I don't like going down there. It's weird, I know. I'm unsure of the origins my basement avoidance behavior. A past life, perhaps?

Paul and I saw a story on television the other night that featured a couple who was important in the creation of the American Basketball Association back in 1967. The league was an alternative to the National Basketball Association - marketing itself as a more fast paced scoring league. I was ten years old at the time and loved all things sports. I received one of the cool red, white and blue balls for my birthday.

I'm sure I would have been better at actual basketball had they utilized this ball

The memory of that ball took me back to a memory of our basement in my childhood home in Atlantic. There was a tile floor in the room along with a small black and white television. I'd watch the games and dribble the heck out of that ball, around my legs like a little Harlem Globe Trotter.

The Bullock girls and friends spent a lot of time in our walk out basement of that ranch style home. Mom would insist! (smart lady). In addition to the TV room, there was the large "playroom" that had a concrete floor covered by a jute rug on one half. The piano was parked in one corner and there were raw wood shelves along one wall. In another corner there were floor to ceiling cupboards where our parent's "stuff" from their earlier lives were kept. The ceiling wasn't finished and there was a rack in the corner for luggage and a built in rack for dad's lingerie samples, though he also had a couple racks on wheels that were usually in the TV room, flowing with robes, nightgowns and slips of all sizes.

The shelves in the playroom were full of all sorts of things! Cindy had an aquarium for a while - with beautiful angel fish. My Cedar Rapids grandma gave us some of her costume jewelry - we had fun dressing up in that. It didn't take us long to dismantle Mom's beautiful doll cases, dolls and clothing. My Aunt Jeanie donated her record player to us - I remember firing up favorites like Peter Pan on it.

My sister Cindy was very creative and was fun to play with (though bossy). She could direct several of us in building a wood block village, utilizing plastic farm animals for "people", naming every one. We also made boxes into houses using leftover wallpaper samples for decorating for Barbie. The Reinertsons from next door were frequent visitors to our basement building experiences, stopping only for meals.

One of my earliest basement memories is watching Roy Rogers on TV and riding the hell out of my rocking horse. That was some good exercise - I bet it wore me out. I always did love horses after that.

I wish I had this horse back!

 We played with real toys in the basement too - like the Creepy Crawlers Thingmaker and the Incredible Edibles (I'm not quite sure they were...). I had a little time bomb thing that you'd wind up and throw around until it went off - I can't believe it survived those floors!

And slumber parties! The basement was the scene of the crime for each of those. The food would get laid out on the laundry room table. The laundry room was another huge room with laundry appliances including a giant machine called an iron rite, its own walk out door, a phone with an extra long cord, a row of hooks for coats and huge freezer.

During slumber parties we put the "sleeping bags" in the playroom, which was very dark as there were only a couple tiny windows up high. There was no insulation between there an my folks' room so...there was a lot of stamping on the floor when it got late and we were loud - carrying on with "Mary Worth" and lifting people, and so on.

One summer, Susi used the basement as her room when she came home from college in Colorado. The TV room had lots of windows and a door, and she dreamed a bad guy was trying to get her - causing her to scream. That brought Dad running, but he slipped on the stairs bruising his heels as he scrambled going down (it's a funny picture to the Bullock girls, Dad in his jammies bumping down on his heels). A quick check around found no intruder, but by then whole house was awake and Susi will never live it down.

Does any of this explain my dislike of basements? Naw. I'm still not sure where it came from. I'm just weird. Yeah, that's it.

Weeping Willow

I went for a short bike ride today after I finished up my work week. I rode west on the trail, under Jordan Creek Drive, just south of a line of homes lined by trees. One is a large weeping willow. I started thinking about a similar tree that had a big impact on my life.

When I was growing up, we treated our neighbors' yards like our own. There were few fences back then. The Duttons had a fence and we decided the big rock in the back yard must be the grave stone of old Mrs. Dutton's departed husband. We'd stand on a rung of the fence and peer in between the ivy. The Browns had a partial fence too, to protect their garden. Most of the others on our side of the block (it was a big one) had wide open yards. We traipsed through all of them.

The first next door neighbors I remember at 202 Crombie were the Germains - Jack and Phyllis with their children, Margie, Dorothy, Johnny and Barbie. They were all older than me and they moved away when I was little. I didn't know it - but Phyllis was something of a celeb!

Golf Hall of Fame
Phyllis Germain

She once beat Babe Didrickson in a golf game. Her daughter, Dorothy went on to play professional golf too. I didn't realize her sister-in-law was one of her competitors. Perhaps that is how she met Jack, her husband.

When the Germains moved away, a family named the Mahoneys moved in briefly. The only thing of note that I remember about them is that one of their kids burned or threatened to burn one of us with a car cigarette lighter and Dad got really mad and punched him.

Then the Reinertsons moved in. Their kids were one grade older or younger than each of us. Plus they had a boy - Donnie stuck in there. They were great neighbors and we entertained each other better than any electronics ever could. In nice weather we rarely went indoors. There was a sandbox and our playhouse and the "woods" near our house. Technically the woods couldn't really be considered woods - more like a 7 yard wide strip of trees, bushes and undergrowth. We could be anything there - pioneers, space explorers, secret agents. I loved climbing trees.

Reinertsons had a pretty nice swing set with jungle gym bars plus that willow tree. It was like a siren - calling to us. "Swing on me!" We used the branches for a variety of things. Whips, of course. I'm sure Mom had to solve many a whip-related incident. We also made them into bridles when we played horses. Susi broke her wrist swinging off the tree - so that activity became taboo!

The willow tree in West Des Moines doesn't look like it gets that much action. It can dream though.

Water Park in WDM

Bike trail signs help direct me. This one runs along EP True just north of the mall

I liked my little ride down memory lane. I'd forgotten what cool neighbors we had. I'm looking forward to getting to know our new neighbors here.

Sitting on the front porch

I'm sitting on the front porch at Joanie's in Waukee. That's where I stay whilst I work in DSM Monday through Thursday each week. It's a beaut of a summer evening. Though it was hot today, it's a perfect temp now! I'm on the rocker as it's a little chilly inside, as AC can be. I thought it was cold in our office today. Sometimes I hate air conditioning (except when I love it).

Nights like tonight make me recall those summer nights when we were kids - out playing and I didn't want the night to end, and my mom to call us in. Those nights when I'd get to play with the "big" big kids! Heady stuff for the little ones. Our neighbors, the Reinertsons were stairstep ages to us. Bonnie was a year older than Susi, Donnie younger. Kathryn a year younger than Cindo, Laurie a year older than I - and we were fast friends when we were young as were Cindy and Kathryn. Betso and Annie (a year younger) were good friends too.

The six youngest of us would play together a lot! In the winter we played "farm animals". I know - sounds kinky! But it just consisted of those plastic colorful farm animals and blocks. We'd construct elaborate homes for them with the blocks and name the animals. Cindy would sometimes get very crafty and use old wallpaper sample books to make real homes with cardboard walls with wallpaper.

Other times we'd use the porcelain horses we'd received for birthday presents - purchased at the local five and dime stores like Bonneson's and Ben Franklin. The riders would be the pencil erasers - specials ones shaped like animals you could stick on top of the pencils. The erasers would be the riders, and we'd fashion bridles out of yarn. The horses would be named after horses we'd have at Bar L Ranch in Guthrie Center at Summer Camp - names like Dacron and Buttons.

In the summer we'd play outside - in the woods next to our house where we'd fashion forts with sticks, and pretend to eat the poison berries growing on the bushes along the edge of our yard. One summer Laurie and I took a bunch of the books from our basement and made a library in our playhouse in the back yard (it was cool - my grand dad had built like a miniature of our house with a porch and windows). Laurie and I cut envelopes in half for the check out tickets we glued into the books. Doug Younger was the only person who ever checked out a book. I still have a book with one of the envelopes in it.

So when the big kids deigned to play anything with us, it was BIG stuff. I remember playing sardines one night. That was when the person who was IT got to hide and when you found them, you lay down by them...like a sardine (a little tin of fishies). That night Donnie Reinertson hid on the back corner of Reinertson's house in the low bushes. (Evidently they hadn't invented chiggers yet...) We had a HECK of a time finding him! Such excitement when we finally did! Another group fave game was Kick the Can.

The Reinertson's uncle fabricated an electrical metal box you could use to play Jeopardy - it lit up and everything! That fam loved to play games. And they had a lot of cousins - so going to their house around the holidays was a crazy time.

If you read my last two blogs, you'll find this surprising - but I didn't think about any of this at all during Mass. Just on a beautiful summer evening.