When You Realize Your Parents Weren't All That Sharp

 My parents tried to do their best in raising three kids. I think they thought it anyway. As I've looked back over the years growing up in Boone, Iowa(pop. 12,000) my thoughts are many even from the age of three.

Well, I have one or two memories of that time when I might have been out of diapers. We lived in a tiny house on 5th street across the road from what was called The Roundhouse. It was the railroad yards and inside The Roundhouse were a number of locomotives which were being overhauled.\

When I was four we moved one block south to 4th street. This may have been the dumbest move in a long line of dumb home moves. Please understand that 4th street in the 1950's was also called Highway 30 aka The Lincoln Highway. It ran from New York City to Los Angeles--or is it San Francisco? Who cares? It was the major highway in the United States. Our front porch was approximately twenty feet from Highway 30. I can remember, as a four year old, playing in the front yard. Every time a sem-truck came by, which was about every five minutes I'd run to the back yard out of fear. One day, and I recall this vividly I got into dad's Studebaker which was parked in the drive. I magically let out the brake and the Stude rolled out into the highway. Luckily, the brakes on the semi worked to perfection. Can you imagine being a long haul truck driver in the 40's and 50's? They'd have to drive though every little podunk in the country.

In 1951 Mr. & Mrs. I don't know what we're doing bought a two story home at 127 So. Clinton. The place was big; had a sun porch and I had my own room. This is why I now know my folks were clueless. The home was on a corner lot. The yard on the north side ran all the way to the alley which in normal terms we would call a half block. There was also a very large grassy parking area that ran the same distance. In those days every yard had huge elm trees, the kind that required raking leaves from late September until late November. If you're a youngster reading this piece please know that lawnmowers of the 50's were unique. They were all of the push kind.

Not only did we have a humongeous yard we had a driveway as large as a basketball court. That, in itself, isn't a problem for 7 months of the year in Iowa. Come November the snow arrives and doesn't let up until late March-----maybe.

Thank God I was too young to shovel. Daddy-O got the call. The moral of the story is never, ever buy a home on a corner lot.

We stayed on Clinton until 1956 when I was ten. Mom had her heart set on a two story stucco home at 1315 third street a block and a half north of where we lived. It was a great place. The basement still required coal shoveling which wasn't that big a deal. it had a concrete floor where I could practice my basketball dribbling in inclement weather. Once again, my parents didn't think before they bought. The house had sixty windows which required changing twice a year. In the fall the storm windows came out. In the spring they we exchanged for screen ones. Hey, kids, air conditioning was in the near future. My grandmother who lived with us had her own air conditioner. It was a rolled up newspaper used to fan herself. Did I say this earlier----thank God I was too young and too small to climb the ladder. After a couple of years dad got tired of this and hired a guy named Jim Murphy to do the job he was to lazy to do.

My dad lost his job on the railroad a couple of times so we were forced to move in with my grandfather at 705-11th street. He lived on a corner lot but he made a garden out of his yard. Granpa was smart.

When I was 18 my parents bought a home across the street from Memorial Park. That area contained the high school baseball park. Why oh why did they ever purchase that place is beyond me. There was a basement area with sink, bath, toilet. It could have been an apartment but it sat vacant until I came home from college. What a waste.

The last home they purchased was on Prairie a couple blocks north of the Boone Golf & Country Club. I don't need to tell you what it was like because it was an exact replica of the one on 19th street.

Two years after The Queen and I tied the knot and we were living in Ottumwa, Iowa we finally had enough cash to purchase a home. We discussed what we were looking for and where.

It's good when both partners think alike. In unison we both said, "Never, ever, buy a home on a corner lot.