The Old Neighborhood

In this blog I went back to the neighborhood I grew up in. We moved here when I was 6 years old

Our first house is somewhere inside this one on Round Pond...it was much smaller then

There were woods here when we lived across the street. It was a great place to play and climb trees.Then we moved into this house.  My grandfather planted that oak on the far right in the top pic. It was a small little twig looking thing when he planted it and one day my buddy Steve and I tried out Steve's new pocket knife by shaving the bark off of it. It was the only time I ever saw my grandfather even remotely upset. Lucky for us he saved the tree

Sadly all grown over now this was once a nice field where we played every day. My dad would stand on the driveway and we would go up to the curve in the street and he would hit us his legendary "major league fly balls"
There is a small pond behind all that growth that used to hold all kinds of fish

Now we'll start at the top of the street and see all the neighbor's homes

This was my best friend Steve's house. I think the church uses it now and school was getting out when I took this so people park there to pick up their kids. I spent much of my young life in this house. Steve lived here with  Mr and Mrs Fortner and sisters Ann and Sandi...tons of memories here

Coming down the street we come to the Stahl's house. Mr and Mrs Stahl lived here with Johnny, Ruth Ann and David. 

Next door is the Boyette's house. Mr and Mrs Boyette lived here with Nancy and Susan. Mr Boyette was an amazing man. He used to take me all over with him. He took me fishing a lot. He used to keep beehives and he took me with him to work the hives. He used a garage in the back yard to extract the honey from the hives. I can still smell that garage...it smelled so good...like honey

Sadly Mr Boyette and Mr Stahl passed away much too soon. They were as good as men can get and were my Dad's best friends. I don't think he ever got over losing those two men

Next is the Maves' house. Mr and Mrs Maves along with David and Ted lived here. Mr Maves owned Maves 5 and 10 cent store back in a simpler time when stores like that existed

Across the street lived the Ryals. Mr and Mrs Ryals and my friend Bill lived here. Bill deserves his own blog someday but he also left us way too soon and I still miss him. I visit him once a year 

At the end of the street lived our cousins the Akins. Wendell and Marion lived here with Wendell and Blair. Another house I spent much of my young life in. Another place with so many memories

For elementary school all we had to do was walk to the end of the street to Lake Magdalene Elementary

So that was our neighborhood. It is older now and a little run down from age but it was a great place to grow up. I'm not sure if places like this are around anymore. Kids roamed freely all day and went home when we heard our mom's yell that supper was ready. We were all lucky to have grown up here.