When I was growing up - 1

Google Maps and Google Earth have this thing called Street View now and it is fun to play with. After I got tired of looking at my house and my girlfriends’ houses I looked at all the houses I grew up in. Mostly New Albany Indiana. This is not the same childhood town that I knew but we are talking the 1950’s and the whole world isn’t the same in some ways either. I found out how to save the street view as a J-peg photo.

According to Mom my first home was someplace on Rear Market Street. 1810 seems to stick in my mind. I guess right after World War II you didn’t have a lot of places to choose from because there weren’t a lot. Rear Market was the wrong side of the tracks, literally behind the railroad station and you could hear trains. That is all I remember. Mom remembers roaches on the walls when you turned the lights on. Not me. There was also an apartment in between someplace on Spring Street where we lived when Dad was on sea duty with the Navy. One night some diapers hanging over a gas heater to dry caught on fire. Mom put it out. Scared the poop out of me.

But on to 530 E 8th Street which might have been the first nice house that we had. That's the photo on top of the page. I was the first kid for a couple years and I was spoiled and coddled there. I remember a red wood wagon and chocolate birthday cake. One night there was a wreck outside and Dad went out to check. The blinking yellow light that hung over the intersection was a foot above the street and swinging wildly. There was rain. There’s a scar over one eyebrow today that I apparently got falling on a metal toy on the back steps and cutting my head open. And I remember mixing yellow dye in margarine because it came in a white block to satisfy the dairy industry and their real butter. There was a Holy Roller church across the street but I was told never to go in so I didn't see much rolling going on. 530 E 8th was a fine place to live. As I remember. No brothers or sisters to speak of. Grandma Grantz’ house was up the street and across the alley at 9th and Oak. It was spotlessly white and her flowers bloomed in floods and came out through the fence. She had a two story shed the size of a small barn in the back where she had a kerosene stove and made lye soap from meat fat. There was a coal bin in there too and it was fun to play in. Today it is the office building for some kind of waste disposal yard. More soon. Ta!