My roots are showing

Address: 2446 West 13th Avenue; Phone: Regent-8-2519
13th and Larch, Kitsilano just two blocks from Kits High in Vancouver

This is the house I was raised in...my Mom was watching Dragnet 1954 when she went into labor. No one was home, so our neighbour, Johnny Watson, (creator of Sundance Trampolines) had to drive us to Vancouver General Hospital.

I lived there for the first 13 years of my life. I still remember as a wee girl of 8 or 9 looking out from that top left window and looking over the downtown core and over to the North Shore mountains and praying for the city. God was very real to me as a child...A good reminder as I interact with the g-babies....God IS real and He does make Himself known to the very youngest of children.

Other things I remember:

Having my older brother Bruce take me to the movies up at the Ridge Theater on Saturday afternoons for $.25 (I seem to recall he was not too excited to have me tagging along)

Having to be home for supper by the 5 o-clock whistle (at the Labbatt's Brewery up on Arbutus and 12th)...that was the standard for every child in the neighborhood.

And laying in bed and listening for the 9 o-clock gun from Stanley Park...yes, we could actually hear it all that way....I guess there were fewer buildings in the way back then.

Walking the three blocks up the street to my Granny Pellitier's house (Grandad lived there too....Why is it that it's always G-ma's house and not G'pa's?) Any-who...Granny would call and say that the cinnamon buns were just out of the oven, and I would have to walk up and taste them first and then bring some home...oh, what a sad life I lived!

I remember the day my oldest brother Ken left to join the army...I was in my pj's at the side of the house, he picked me up and said he had to go....I was maybe three...I cried.

Walking the few blocks down to Broadway and Larch to the White Spot for fries and a Coke...for about $.25....sometimes I'd even get a milkshake....yum!

Swimming in our pool....we felt VERY plush to have an in-ground pool....it was an Esther Williams Pool...so 1950's! (For those of you who don't know...she made syncronized swimming into a movie sport).

The pear tree in the backyard.

The junk man that used to drive his horse and buggy down the back lane.

The sound of the milkman's truck pulling up in front of our house early in the mornings.

Mom's VERY latest in kitchen appliances - all pink!

The time Mom and I were home alone and we had a chimney fire...I had to run out of the house half naked (I was in the bath at the time...I was SO mortified!)

Playing with my best friends Cathy Burgess and Christine Press.

The Sunday dinners with all the family....roast beef and apple pie.

Walking to school in the rain.

The kind old couple, The McKlaren's who lived next door...he had a meticulously clean basement with shiny grey painted floors. Mrs. McKlaren would have me to tea.

A treasure trove of memories are wrapped up in those walls....I was able to walk through it at an open house this summer....it was so fun to see it through my adult eyes. It just sold for over $1,000,000...and to think my Dad was over the moon when he sold it for $34,000 back in 1967! Now that's what I call inflation!

I cherish the memories of my childhood....and hopefully I can make special memories for my kids and kidlets that they will cherish, too.

Be blessed, and thanks for stoppin' by