Remember I got into Kalispell at 8 p.m. after my fiasco in the park. So all of these photos were taken between 8 & 10.
There's going to be a lot of babbling about my childhood & the character Ann so maybe you'll want to skip this post.
There used to be a park meridian in front of it with a statue of a dough boy which I thought was a very funny name even after I found out that it meant an American infantryman in WW I.
Here's my & Ann's house. When I was a kid it was kept up but definitely the most humble house on the block.
The gully is where we'd sled in the winter & where I'd find wild flowers in the summer. My greatest find would be the rre shooting star. I tried many times to transplant it to my flower garden at the side of the house but like most wild things taken from their environment it always died.
My Dad got a new pick up & Frankie I sat in the cab playing we were driving all over the U.S. Well, there were some severe curves in some parts of the country. The next morning when my dad went to back out of the garage he ran into the wall. We could hear him yelling in the house.
In the side view of the house & garage you can see the "sun porch" that I slept in as a kid. It is on this side of the garage that Ann's Mother falls into a snowbank after drinking too much on a New Year's Eve.
Now the house is the only on left from that time & is certainly the most run down. The front yards were our vegetable garden. The 2 front trees were cherry. This is the house where the fungus lived in the dirt cellar.
The hospital is where in 1 day I got all but my upper & lower teeth pulled because my baby teeth wouldn't come out & my parents got a deal because Mom was working there part time.
Woodland Park is about 8 blocks from my house. This is the scary path that we'd use to enter it. There were a lot of holes in the dirt bank & we never tired of daring each other to put out hand in one.
There were small log rafts on these lagoon & everyone honored the proper etiquette handed down from kid to kid about where to "park" the rafts & to always leave the 2 poles on them.
Here is the pond where we would skate in the winter. There is now an updated version of the skate house where an old man sat with a wood stove & stoked it. The girls' side was separated from the boys' by a wooden lattice. We'd leave our shoe & boots there while we skated.
Cornelius Hedges Elementary School is where I had my first struggle with editing.
The room second from the right was the classroom of Miss Holly Hoover who was my 5th grade teacher & my first experience with fashion. I'd look forward to going to school everyday just to see what she'd be wearing.
On the other side of the school was my first grade classroom. I so loved my teacher Miss Overguard that I told her she was smart enough to teach third grade.
Here is St. Joseph's Church which played a big part in my life & where Ann visits the languishing Virgin.
THIS PHOTO DISAPPEARED ON ME
This the house I first lived in when we came to Montana when I was four. It is from inside the larger side window that Ann & I discover dust motes. MY mom was the caretaker of the old man who lived there & my family slept upstairs in the attic.
As you can tell, it was getting quite dark by now but this house is next to the previous one & where my playmate lived. At the time I thought it was HUGE & that her parents were very rich to have such a home.
This sis the library that my parents & I used. In the winter we could check out 10 books at a time in case we got snowed-in. Jake & I slept in front of it.
