Where It All Began

Yesterday, after a wonderful service for Aunt Bebe and a welcome chance to catch up with the far-flung members of the Webner clan, Russell, UJ and I took a trip down memory lane.  One of our stops was the first house I ever remember living in, on Orlando Avenue in Akron, Ohio.

We lived at the house on Orlando until I was in third grade.  It’s a time and a place that remains very vivid in my memory.  In part, that’s because Mom drilled our address and phone number into my brain before my first walk to Rankin Elementary School, so that if we had any trouble we could ask a grown-up and they could help us.  That sentence says a lot about how much the world has changed since the early 1960s, doesn’t it?  And I remember the address and phone number even now.

The house looks the same, with the side room where we colored and the little front stoop where we sat on sultry summer days.  The neighborhood also has the same snug feel to it.  I wondered if kids had been jumping the leaf pile in the front yard, just as we had done so long ago.

It felt good to know that this structure, of little importance in the grand scheme of things but of great significance in my life, still stands.