Do
you remember the big rock
at the corner of the driveway at 90 Maywood Road? Do you remember
the long
dirt driveway there with grass between the tire tracks? Do you remember
the
big pine tree we would climb? How about the tree just to the
other
side of the road where we carved our initials? Or the "back
lane" that connected your house with West Norwalk Road? How about
playing along the Five Mile River behind my house?
Or
burning trash in the metal bin at your house? Or putting pressurized
cans of different sorts into the fire and watching them explode in the
burning trash bin? (Not
at all a smart idea!) Or exploring the new houses that were being built
along Maywood Road? Or the pump-house that was along the stream on
Maywood road? Or Shelley Brown's barn and the rock-and-roll group we
tried to form there, The
Latter Four?
How
about your old VW bus (not old then) and how we would sit
in the back seat if we wanted to keep our feet warm? Or, later, your
dad
had a Datsun (I think it was yellow), and another older blue car, and
then an
Opel Cadet? Or setting balsa-wood gliders on fire and throwing them
off the roof on Maywood Road? Or climbing up on the roof at the
church
and rolling apples from the apple tree down the gutters?
Hmmm . . . Or the time that we took a small bike and rode it into the pool at Appletree Lane, just to see if it would
sink? (It did!) Or painting Mr. Doucet's house in Pound Ridge NY
and getting to drive his Morris? Or your go-cart?
Hey, now I'm really on a roll remembering!... I
remember some very cool trips with your father . . . to the Submarine
Base in Mystic to see the new nuclear sub, the "Nautilus" . . . and
to Tupper Lake . . . and to the airport in Westchester County, sometimes to
check on the plane, and a few times I got to fly with you. Or the many
times that we went to the Darien Diner and your father would buy me a fried
egg sandwich (which I still hold as a favorite treat) . . . or trips to
the New York World's Fair . . .or Saturday mornings going "in town" with him
to do chores . . . or to the Darien 5&10 store . . . or to your father's
office at IBM?
Here's
one more... We were going to the submarine base
in a school bus . . . I think with the Cub Scout troop, or maybe with a
McGrath Elementary School group. Your dad and mine were chaperones. As
we were driving along, there was smoke (probably a very small amount)
that
drifted up from the floor around the gear shift. Your dad told
you, me and my
father, "Well, at least we know the engine is still going!"
One more... We were driving up to Silver Lake Conference Center and there
were what appeared to me to be clusters of smoke in the hillsides. Your
father tried to explain to me that those were puffs of low-lying clouds and not
fires in the hills. After a while I came to believe him. (But it
took me a while!)
Or one more... Shooting your grandfather's rifle (with
appropriate supervision) up at the Tupper Lake house and feeling the "kick" of
the gun against our shoulders.
Or one more... How large your Maywood Rd house seemed after
it was expanded. I particularly remember the light brown color in the
linoleum tiles that were on the floor . . . and how the access to the attic was
through your closet.