Memory Lane

I recently got to talk to a woman who grew up in the same neighborhood as I did. Both of us are back in the neighborhood - Tiffany in her childhood home, me 2 1/2 blocks from where my mother still lives. I didn't realize how much I missed talking to someone who had the same memories, the same frame of reference. Even my siblings might not share all my memories, especially the ones 15 and 11 years older than I am.

When we were kids, the street that both my parents' property and Tiffany's butt up against was a dirt road. There was a white structure that we all called The Gate across the road two doors down from our house. It was a fence, not a gate, made out of heavy timbers painted white, with orange "safety" markings and a reflector or two. In the middle, there was a gap about 18 inches wide, so you could walk through it. I don't remember the reason that the city put up The Gate, but for years it effectively marked the dividing line through the neighborhood. I can remember when there was nothing but open space past it, space bisected by the dirt road and the irrigation ditch that ran parallel. Eventually both hit North Truckee Lane, another road that was dirt when I was small. Small ranches were the only residences along North Truckee Lane for a long time. On a corner I pass most days while driving my son to his 6:45 a.m. class, I remember watching the owners train their horses for the rodeo. Across the street and a bit south, there was a donkey that brayed loudly at us whenever we road our horses by. It was like passing a large, nasal barking dog. You could hear him protesting whatever it was that set him off even when you were half a mile or so past him. I rode double on our horse with my mother or my sister until I was three or four, when I could finally ride big, gentle Lady by myself.

Most of North Truckee Lane was swallowed up a few years later, about the time it was paved, by a road that now encircles our entire valley and the two cities in it.

Our house, the one I grew up in, and the one next to it - at one time the only homes on our street, back when it was a dirt road outside of town - were three bedroom, one bath houses. At one time, two bedroom one bath houses were standard. Ours and its "extra" bedroom were considered large for a time. (My husband grew up only a couple of miles away, in a neighborhood of two bed, one bath houses.) Then, when I was probably about six or seven, the city started building a new neighborhood on the opposite side of The Gate. These houses looked huge to us. Most of them were two story, an anomaly in itself at the time. They also had four bedrooms and two bathrooms. We snickered a bit about that; they just seemed so overdone. We referred to it as the rich people's neighborhood. Tiffany lived in one of those new houses.

I don't recall ever meeting her, although I do recall knowing two of her sisters when we were in our teens. I did know some of the kids from the far side of The Gate, but most of them were boys.

Even with new construction going in all the time, with the small ranches being sold to make way for subdivisions and paved roads, there was a lot of open space still around us on three sides when I was a kid. We lived in a chunk, several blocks square, that was considered "unincorporated county," even as we slowly became surrounded. We had over an acre, and about half of that was horse pasture. Our neighbors kept horses as well, until I was into my teens. A ditch flowed through the pasture from north to south. Our leg was unusual; a block to the north, it curved from a west to east flow to go south through our block. Just to the south of us, it turned back to a west-east route. Even with many houses nearby, we had large vacant areas.

I wasn't allowed near the ditch without a sibling to supervise me until I was eight, but even before then I was used to playing in vacant lots. After I turned eight, I spent even more time outside, since I could finally play at the water's edge, catching minnows or watching frogs. The back yard was nice, and huge, and I frequently caught garter snakes there, but the pasture offered both water and solitude.

The neighborhood kids built our own treehouse in the lot to the south of my house. It was a fairly ordinary thing to ask your parents for spare wood or nails, or just ask if you could rummage through the scrap pile. The tree we chose was a big apple tree close to a fence. We got permission from the man in the house behind the fence to nail our platform to his fence, and we put the platform about four feet up. We ran chicken wire around the bottom of the platform to enclose our downstairs "room," then hung fabric in front of the wire for privacy. We nailed steps straight into the tree. We had a casual rivalry with a group of kids from behind The Gate, and there was a lot of throwing of dirt clods and fallen apples. We loved our enclosed room, because they thought they were hitting us with their thrown objects, but they were hitting the chicken wire. We'd have snowball fights that took hours and ranged over the better part of a mile. We rode bikes down dirt roads and over small hills, our own bike jumps.

My walk home from elementary school could go along the streets, but it was quicker (and more fun) to go through a vacant lot to get to the ditch, then follow it down. There was a narrow trail worn next to the thick hybrid willows. In a few places, the bank rose several feet above the ditch, and the willows were so thick that you couldn't see the water. For most of the way, you walked between tall cedar fences and the willows. In at least 3 places that I knew of, the ditch flowed through pipes that took it under the street. There were frequently ducks and frogs around, a few misplaced balls or other toys, dropped pocket knives and the like, and sometimes you'd find something really odd. Once, a severed goat's head appeared in the water. Kids being kids, we gathered on either side of the ditch and poked it with sticks.

I think I'm part of the last generation whose parents felt safe just turning us loose like that. "Be home before dark" was a common admonition. Often on weekends and during the summer, kids would have breakfast, head out with instructions to return for lunch, then head out again after lunch knowing you had until sundown. I don't remember anyone being hurt beyond skinned knees or elbows. I never saw kids with cigarettes or alcohol pilfered from parents. Even in the privacy of our screened in room, nobody lit matches or got naked or anything else we would have considered "stupid." Even kids like me, who tended to be awkward or "goody-goody" or "slow" or any other trait that was different than "ideal" figured out how to interact because we had to. Running home to mom with a complaint was a good way to get made fun of or left out. I remember threatening to tell my mother something only once, when someone did something I thought was harmful; I don't remember what it was, but I have a vague idea that the mere threat was enough to quash it.

As Tiffany and I talked, I said, "Do you remember before they built the park?" I was practically giddy when she said, "Oh, I was so mad! They even cut down the tree with the swings!"

My current house backs onto the park. We love that we have a gate that goes straight to the park. This park, I'll admit, has grown on me in 30+ years. I, and my kids, have some good memories there. But there will always be a warm place in my heart for the vacant lot it used to be.

Despite the fact that there were many empty lots, this one was referred to be everyone as just The Lot - as in, "Mom, I'm gonna go play in The Lot." It was on Tiffany's side of The Gate, surrounded by two story houses on two sides. The other two sides face streets.

The west side, one of the long sides, faces a fairly quiet residential street. Back when it was just a vacant lot, I remember the street being closed to traffic when a certain amount of snow fell. There was a ridge all along the lot that made for great sledding, down the ridge, across the street and into the cul-de-sacs on the other side. Even in the summer, everyone referred to it as The Sledding Hill. After a good storm, there would be dozens of us dragging our sleds up the hill and sliding down the hill and across the street. A gully ran almost the length of the lot; the tree Tiffany referred to was in the gully. I think it was a cottonwood, and it was what my mom called "a volunteer." It grew simply because a seed landed, and the gully funneled enough water to the roots that it grew. Someone had hung a tire swing from it. Someone else had hung a simple rope with a knot at the end. I think there was a regular swing, too, made out of a slat of wood and rope.

When they built the park, they leveled most of the lot and tore out the tree. There's a few mounds that are supposed to look natural, but they're too short, too symmetrical, and on the wrong side of the lot, covered in lawn. Our collective indignation at losing The Sledding Hill took years to fade - especially after a snow storm. And sure, the city put in a swingset, but it wasn't the same. We missed "our" tree.

As we talked, our friend Julie listened. I tried to explain about the vacant lot and the hours we'd spent there. Both Tiffany and I told her how furious we'd been to lose our play place to a leveled, sanitized park, but she just looked more and more puzzled.

"Did you go through the pipe under the street?"

"Oh, yeah!"

I turned to Julie. "I think I'm the only kid who didn't ride their innertube through the pipe that went under the street between her house and mine." Again, Julie looked politely puzzled, even as I tried to explain.

Just after the bend in the ditch that took it east again, the ditch went under the street. (This is the same street that would be closed, in our minds, just so we could sled across it.) The water fell about six feet once on the other side, creating a little waterfall, and the force of the falling water created one of the very few places in the ditch where the water was over everyone's head. We estimated The Swimming Hole to be about seven feet or so deep, based on the observations of people who hit the bottom after going through the pipe. It was about seven feet wide, too, before the ditch narrowed again to its standard three to five feet across.

I am severely water phobic. There was no way, not even for a million dollars, that I was going through the pipe. Everyone assured me that you could breathe, despite having to lay on your back to go through, and assured me that even if I didn't swim well, I would not drown in The Swimming Hole. It was a valiant but vain attempt; I never even went in The Swimming Hole, much less through the pipe. I climbed out of the water a long way before hitting the pipe, for fear I'd be sucked through against my will. My sister went through; she loved it. Every other kid in the neighborhood and their visiting friends and relatives went through; not me.

"I was so mad when they covered the ditch," Tiffany said.

"Oh, I've never gotten over it. My son feels so gypped when he hears my stories." My son can't believe he doesn't get to go wading, tubing, skating, catching fish, frogs and snakes, right here in our neighborhood.

I told my second oldest daughter about talking to Tiffany, and she was aghast at stories of the pipe. She assumed that we'd done it in secret, without our parents knowledge or consent. "No one does stuff that dangerous any more!" she said. I found that rather amusing - she's my thrill seeker, boundary pusher and the one of my kids who exults in breaking rules. I assured her that our parents knew. "Now, kids' stories are things like, 'I played video games for 12 hours straight,' " she said. "They get carpal tunnel." I think she's right, but boy, the world was safer back then, I think.

Consider it: with less supervision, fewer scheduled activities and fewer facilities, we were still safer. My parents were overprotective, and they thought nothing of sending us to the movies by ourselves, or letting us go swimming with no adult supervision, much less lifeguards, and letting us build and sit in our own tree fort. I miss those days, for me and for my kids. It's sad that they're gone, probably forever.

But boy, it sure felt good to talk to someone else who knew EXACTLY what I was talking about!

Oh, by the way: I live in one of those "rich people's houses," but now, the neighborhood is considered decidedly downscale, despite most houses, like mine, having been added onto since then. Fashion is fickle, and it dislikes age.