The neighborhood…we moved into the house on 2117 E Bromfield
when it was brand new and Mom and Dad had a brand new house at that address two times due
to a house fire in 1997. The majority of the time I lived there we had the same
neighbors on the right side was the Jacobs they had two daughters Sandy who was
a year older than me and Suzie who was a year younger than me. The mom was from
Germany and so Sandy and Suzy got AMAZING packages from Germany with exotic
candy that we didn't have here in America I was always so envious every time
they got a German package and I loved it when they shared. I also remember
observing the AMAZING sandwiches that Sandy and Suzie had with cheese and lunch
meat and lettuce and tomatoes it looked so much more appealing compared to my PB and
J. I also remember how spotless their house was; it always looked like it could
be in a magazine. But it never really felt like their mom liked anyone to be
over so I didn't spend a lot of time over there. Their Dad was a good looking
man who spent a lot of time out in the garage or so it seemed to me. On the
left were the McCoy’s they had a son named Doug who was Johnny’s age and a daughter
Pam who was a couple years younger than me. We played together when we first
moved in but I always felt so much older than Pam. I did like going over to
their house because again there house was SO clean and their mom always gave us
snacks. She was a very nice lady who later died of Cancer. Their Dad had been a barber and often gave us haircuts when we were young and didn't care that we got our hair cut in our neighbors garage.
I remember walking
to Atherwood School which was a straight shot up the street from our home. This
was fun place to walk up to and play even when school wasn't in session. We had
many friends from our ward that lived on the street….we had the Olson’s their
daughter LuAnn was a great friend of mine growing up and The Coleman’s they had
a house full of kids that were all around my age and the Sanders at the very
end of the street. Tiffany had friends that lived in the cul de sac right
around the corner named the Allen’s and the Kennedy's.
I remember the time in my life when the
neighborhood opened wide open for me because I had a newspaper paper route. OH
my goodness my paper-route…. that was tough, feels like I did it for years but
I probably only did it for six months…it was awful. You had to get up SO early
and it was so hard walking with all those papers on your back, and on rainy
days it took even logger to roll up the newspapers because you had to put on
the plastic bags and your hands were a disgusting BLACK pool of ink when you were done….Heavens if you woke up late sometimes Johnny and Tiffany would wake up and say they wanted to help but it took all their strength and 10 minutes just to roll up one! On late days Mom would drive me to throw
the papers from the car. I believe that’s when we had a death of one of our dogs;
he had come along to be in the car while I was throwing papers and jumped out and
got run over…that was very sad. One
morning I noticed that one of the houses I delivered newspaper to, had not picked up their newspaper for several
weeks so I sat down and made a big pyramid with the newspapers thinking how
much more tidy that looked and in my own little mind thought “oh wont they
think what a nice paper girl we have” I was dang proud of myself and thought I
had really done a good thing and when you are 11 you do what 11 year olds' do
when they are proud of themselves, I told my Dad what I had done….to my despair
Dad was not even close to being impressed he said I had basically put a sign on
the door “Robbers no one is home come break in” my heart sank. Thankfully he
helped me correct my mistake. We had a very nice neighborhood to grow up in at
address 2117 E Bromfield St. Cherry
Before we moved into our home on Bromfield street I remember staying at the Motel 6. Mom had a little hot dog roaster that she would plug in and the hot dogs would rotate around little silver poles. It had a swimming pool and so when we weren't in the room Mom would sit out by the pool and watch us swim. Don't know why but I remember we had to change sides of the building we stayed in. First we were close to the highway and then we moved to the other side of the building. My guess is the noise would wake Natalie. Funny the things you remember. When we moved into our new home we had some boys on the corner the Weinsteins. David the youngest of their boys used to chase me and call after me, not sure what he was calling me but I knew I didn't like it. Really I was scared of him because Johnny told me he was Jewish and they had a Mafia that protected all Jews. One day David said he was going to get me and so I ran into the house and came back out with a butter knife and told him that if he kept chasing me I wasn't afraid to use it. He still laughs about my attempt to take his life.
My friends used to love to come to our house because we were allowed to play fun games One of our favorites was the really messy one, where you dump a cup of flour on a plate with a dime on top and slice at it until the dime falls. The person who made the dime drop had to retrieve it with their mouth. It always ended with flour flying everywhere. They would also love that we knew so many fun games like back to base. They couldn't believe that our family had family nights and learned all these fun games.
Another family, I just loved was the Krammers. Mom was friends with Vickie and so I would get to babysit their children. One day Vickie came running over to our house because one of the boys had fallen into the wash. She asked us to pray and it was so scary but we all did. He almost drowned but was rescued just in time.
When the missionary's would come to teach our neighbor Dave I would get so excited. I felt such pride in asking him if he wanted to know more about our church. I did get a little jealous of all the attention he paid to Cherry. Just love that Mom and Dad embraced what ever ideas we had when it came to teaching others about the gospel. They didn't always embrace all those around us. Thankfully when I was googly eyed over the neighbor across the street, Doug, Mom and Dad kept a watchful eye. Somehow they always called me home right after I was over at his house watching him work on his car. Also remember when Johnny started to hang around that TV star (Adam?) who played on Eight is Enough and Dad said he didn't like the words he choose. It was the first time I heard and understood that damn and hell were not ok to use. Dad has never been ok with a foul mouth. I think some kids were a little afraid of our Dad maybe because of the times he would yell for us to get home or when we decided that the front yard was a fun place to play on Sundays. His voice could move mountains and you always knew when you were in trouble. Tiffany
I remember the Jacobs who would never give us our balls back if they went over the wall and one time wouldn't give us our bike's back so Steve Krammer had to go over and get them. Verl McCoys cut my hair. Weinsteins there was always some issues with. Krammers I remember Vicki wanted to beat Johnny up. -Mike
My most vivid memory from the Neighborhood was the family that lived next door to the Weinsteins. They had two boys and one of them was just a little bit younger than me. One day out playing the younger one called me a little boy. He was younger than me and I found it completely disrespectful that he called me a little boy so i punched him in the face. I thought that was the end of it until his mom came down to our house and talked to Mom about it. Mom had my back and told the lady there had to be a reason for it. When Mom asked me about it I told her he had called me a name. Mom felt somewhat validated until she asked what he called me. "Mom, he called me a little boy." - Joey
Before we moved into our home on Bromfield street I remember staying at the Motel 6. Mom had a little hot dog roaster that she would plug in and the hot dogs would rotate around little silver poles. It had a swimming pool and so when we weren't in the room Mom would sit out by the pool and watch us swim. Don't know why but I remember we had to change sides of the building we stayed in. First we were close to the highway and then we moved to the other side of the building. My guess is the noise would wake Natalie. Funny the things you remember. When we moved into our new home we had some boys on the corner the Weinsteins. David the youngest of their boys used to chase me and call after me, not sure what he was calling me but I knew I didn't like it. Really I was scared of him because Johnny told me he was Jewish and they had a Mafia that protected all Jews. One day David said he was going to get me and so I ran into the house and came back out with a butter knife and told him that if he kept chasing me I wasn't afraid to use it. He still laughs about my attempt to take his life.
My friends used to love to come to our house because we were allowed to play fun games One of our favorites was the really messy one, where you dump a cup of flour on a plate with a dime on top and slice at it until the dime falls. The person who made the dime drop had to retrieve it with their mouth. It always ended with flour flying everywhere. They would also love that we knew so many fun games like back to base. They couldn't believe that our family had family nights and learned all these fun games.
Another family, I just loved was the Krammers. Mom was friends with Vickie and so I would get to babysit their children. One day Vickie came running over to our house because one of the boys had fallen into the wash. She asked us to pray and it was so scary but we all did. He almost drowned but was rescued just in time.
When the missionary's would come to teach our neighbor Dave I would get so excited. I felt such pride in asking him if he wanted to know more about our church. I did get a little jealous of all the attention he paid to Cherry. Just love that Mom and Dad embraced what ever ideas we had when it came to teaching others about the gospel. They didn't always embrace all those around us. Thankfully when I was googly eyed over the neighbor across the street, Doug, Mom and Dad kept a watchful eye. Somehow they always called me home right after I was over at his house watching him work on his car. Also remember when Johnny started to hang around that TV star (Adam?) who played on Eight is Enough and Dad said he didn't like the words he choose. It was the first time I heard and understood that damn and hell were not ok to use. Dad has never been ok with a foul mouth. I think some kids were a little afraid of our Dad maybe because of the times he would yell for us to get home or when we decided that the front yard was a fun place to play on Sundays. His voice could move mountains and you always knew when you were in trouble. Tiffany
I remember the Jacobs who would never give us our balls back if they went over the wall and one time wouldn't give us our bike's back so Steve Krammer had to go over and get them. Verl McCoys cut my hair. Weinsteins there was always some issues with. Krammers I remember Vicki wanted to beat Johnny up. -Mike
My most vivid memory from the Neighborhood was the family that lived next door to the Weinsteins. They had two boys and one of them was just a little bit younger than me. One day out playing the younger one called me a little boy. He was younger than me and I found it completely disrespectful that he called me a little boy so i punched him in the face. I thought that was the end of it until his mom came down to our house and talked to Mom about it. Mom had my back and told the lady there had to be a reason for it. When Mom asked me about it I told her he had called me a name. Mom felt somewhat validated until she asked what he called me. "Mom, he called me a little boy." - Joey
