My Hometown the Series, Part 2

This is the house where I spent most of my growing up years. Actually, that isn't quite right, I'd say I spent just over half of my growing up years there, now that I really think about it. When I was born, we lived in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath house in the country. I know, most of you probably think that all of Chandler is "the country", but this house was about 2 miles off the main highway...actually in the country. We had about 4 acres of land with 2 ponds that my dad and I would fish in occassionally. We had blackberry bushes, peach trees, a garden and pecan trees. We had several dogs and a couple of siamese kitties. It was really fun. Most of my childhood memories are of that house and just playing outside all day long and catching fireflies at night. We had a couple of trees that sat at the top of our driveway, and my dad put in a monkey swing for me that we had bought on our vacation in Virginia. So fun!!!

Well, one day in early January when I was in the third grade, my mom and I were on our way home from a Brownie meeting, and our house was on fire! It didn't look all that bad, and my sisters, brother and parakeet made it out of the house just fine. One of my sister's boyfriends kept going back into the house and getting things out of the front room for us....some pictures, coffee table, letter jacket. I remember that most of all. We spent the night at my aunt's house.....9 of us crammed into her little 2 bedroom, 1 bath house! We were notified during the night that the firefighters made two more trips out to our house and on the third trip, they couldn't save anything. Yep, the whole thing burned to the ground! Of course as a little girl, the most important loss for me was my toys....spefically a baby doll....Happy Baby...I had gotten less than a month before for Christmas! My mom let me buy her at Wal-Mart and all was right in the world again! We got so many donations from everyone in town, it was really quite overwhelming!

We found a little rental house that got us by. My mom came to me one day and asked how I would like to live next door to one of my friends. I was ecstatic! So, we moved in February to the house in the picture. We thought we were uptown to be able to live in a house that was "in town"! It had 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths and a garage!! Woohoo! ;o) I had to share a small bedroom with my two teenaged sisters until my dad finished out the garage for a room for them. For my birthday that year, my parents held a scavenger hunt for me that led to a brand new bike! That is one of my favorite memories in that house!

Anyway, we have all since moved out (and back and out, etc)....gotten married had lots of kids and now my parents are finally redoing their house! I can't wait to see what they come up with! It is so nice to have a home to go home to when you need it!

Whew, that got emotional for me there! Anyway, like I said, I'll just be playing this by ear, so I hope you all enjoy it!