Lakewood of My Youth
I believe I will go to my grave without seeing any significant change to my old neighborhood in Lakewood. I don't live in Lakewood anymore. I don't even live in Ohio. But I remember Lakewood so fondly and I visit as often as I can.
I like to park my car at Lakewood Park and walk to where I grew up: the corner of Abbieshire and Edgewater, just west of the park. I stroll down Lake Avenue and turn right onto Abbieshire. As I do, I realize that in 2006 this street looks an awful lot like it did in 1960, when I moved here at the age of eight.
As I walk, I see Mrs. Jensen's home on my left. In the early to mid 1960s her son, Scott, was a good friend of mine. Scott was one of the really nice kids from my childhood. He never had a bad word to say about anyone and he was fun to be with. I remember how we used to compare our religions. He was Baptist and I am Catholic. I think I convinced him that it would be better for him to have been Catholic, but only because our Sunday services were shorter.
Mrs. Jensen's a widow now. Sadly, Scott is gone too. Diabetes took him away from his family when he was in his early thirties.
Next to the Jensens, Mr. Schubert is still fixing up his house. The Schuberts have been in that house forever. There were three kids: Kim, Mike and Jeff. As far as girls went when I was a kid, Kim was pretty OK. But her brothers played huge roles in my childhood. It was all about sports, and Mike and Jeff were big players. I haven't seen Mike in thirty years. I still see Jeff often.
As far as I know, Mrs. Jensen and Mr. Schubert are the only ones still in the neighborhood from when I was young. It's just a coincidence that they live next to one another.
As I continue down the street I remember the Lovejoys, the Moores and the Powries. Kim Lovejoy was my little sister, Mary Kay's friend. Matt Moore was my age, though we were never that close and Fred Powrie was a part of a huge incident in my life.
Fred was 16 in the summer of 1962 when my mom and dad hired him to tar the roof of our garage down the street. At one point he had to ride his bike back home to retrieve something. As he left his house, little 11-year-old me challenged him to a bike race back to my house, seven houses away.
He agreed. A moment later I was losing the race by about four bike-lengths as I entered the dead-end area of Edgewater Drive next to my house. There was a chuckhole in the street. The front tire on my little bike hit the hole and the bike stopped dead. I did not stop, and I met Edgewater Drive face first, losing my two front teeth and my consciousness.
I don't remember ever seeing Fred again. That night after I got back from the hospital, a line of about 22 neighborhood kids came into our house to pay their respects. I was bandaged on my face and I could not speak. As I lay there on the living room coach meekly waving at all these well wishers, it reminded me of the people who filed past my grandfather's casket three years earlier. Only he didn't wave.
It's been 43 years since the accident.
I continue my walk and come upon 1053 Abbieshire where the Youngs and the Gerlachs lived. The Youngs were in that house 1961-66. Rollo and Steve Young were my best friends for a while. Steve and I are still friends. He lives near Boston. Rollo lives in Alaska. I spoke with Mr. Young on the phone in June 2004, three weeks before he passed away. What a great family!
The Gerlachs moved in late in 1966 and were so huge in my life, and in many ways they still are. Bob was 12 at the time they moved in and he went on to become the most popular kid the Abbieshire/Edgewater neighborhood ever witnessed. What a sharp wit for such a young man. He was also one of the very best baseball and football players in the neighborhood.
The Reilley house was next to the Young/Gerlach abode and carried an Edgewater address: 14907. Before our yard lay the dead-end, or as we called it for years, "The Circle." We played a lot of baseball on the circle. The generation prior to us had used a softball. That was dumb. It was either me, or maybe Kurt Shobert, who thought up the idea to use a tennis ball instead. We used the tennis ball to play baseball from 1963 until we were nearly adults, never breaking a window.
The Muntz family lived down the third base line. They had a big gray house that we always referred to as "the gray monster," after Boston's green monster. I've been married for thirty years now and I can't believe Mr. and Mrs. Muntz allowed us to use their yard as our left field for all those years. They were wonderful people. I'm not so sure I would allow a bunch of kids to run around on my grass and through my bushes.
When I say we played a lot of baseball on that dead end I'm not kidding. We played from March until September every year. When school started in September we switched to football. During the summer months, when we were out of school, we played baseball on the dead end as many as three times a day. We'd meet there at about eight in the morning, again at four in the afternoon and oft was the time we'd play a third game at seven.
Life was so great back then in Lakewood. Everyone was so nice to us, allowing us to play our baseball and to make all that noise. I was not a cerebral child by any means, but I was wise enough to appreciate what we had there in beautiful Lakewood. Even at the age of 14 I can remember standing out on the Muntz's yard and thinking about how much fun I was having and that it would end one day. I really thought that, and often.
In the fall we played football. For quite a number of years we played on our side lawn. I bought a bunch of spotlights at Uncle Bill's (department store) and set them up from our second and third floor windows and from our garage, so that we could play night football games from September to December. The lights really helped, but only on the south side of the field. The field ran east and west and if you were a receiver you had to turn toward the north, or toward Edgewater Drive, so that when the quarterback threw the ball you could see it. Otherwise, if you were looking toward the house all you could see were the bright lights shining from the house and garage. It was possible to catch a ball this way, but it was like looking for a black hole in outer space.
We had a unique rule because of a big pine tree in the middle of the field. Once you started to run one way around the tree you had to keep going in that direction. You could not use the tree to try to fake someone out. It was a rule that worked forever and everyone abided.
Eventually, we got too big and our games involved too many players so we shifted our football games to nearby Lakewood Park and they lasted into the 1970s.
In the winter we also played basketball and ice hockey. It was normal for us to shovel someone's driveway just so we could play basketball. We sometimes took my spotlights down to the Essi house on Edgewater, until Mrs. Essi complained that it made her yard look like a "3-ring circus." We played hockey at Lakewood Park until we were old enough to drive. Then we played our hockey down in the Metro Parks, or "the valley," as we called it.
Nobody became famous from our Lakewood neighborhood. But most of us grew up to be law-abiding and upstanding citizens. I now live in Naples, Florida. Not long ago Bob Gerlach and Jeff Schubert swung by to play golf with my son and me. It's always great to see these guys. Growing up in Lakewood was special, but growing up in our neighborhood at Abbieshire/Edgewater was magical.
Things change as the years go by. But as I see the houses in my old neighborhood, and when I think about my 55 years, I realize there's a pretty good chance my neighborhood will be just about the same the day I die as it was in the summer of 1963. Somehow, that's reassuring. Batter up!
I like to park my car at Lakewood Park and walk to where I grew up: the corner of Abbieshire and Edgewater, just west of the park. I stroll down Lake Avenue and turn right onto Abbieshire. As I do, I realize that in 2006 this street looks an awful lot like it did in 1960, when I moved here at the age of eight.
As I walk, I see Mrs. Jensen's home on my left. In the early to mid 1960s her son, Scott, was a good friend of mine. Scott was one of the really nice kids from my childhood. He never had a bad word to say about anyone and he was fun to be with. I remember how we used to compare our religions. He was Baptist and I am Catholic. I think I convinced him that it would be better for him to have been Catholic, but only because our Sunday services were shorter.
Mrs. Jensen's a widow now. Sadly, Scott is gone too. Diabetes took him away from his family when he was in his early thirties.
Next to the Jensens, Mr. Schubert is still fixing up his house. The Schuberts have been in that house forever. There were three kids: Kim, Mike and Jeff. As far as girls went when I was a kid, Kim was pretty OK. But her brothers played huge roles in my childhood. It was all about sports, and Mike and Jeff were big players. I haven't seen Mike in thirty years. I still see Jeff often.
As far as I know, Mrs. Jensen and Mr. Schubert are the only ones still in the neighborhood from when I was young. It's just a coincidence that they live next to one another.
As I continue down the street I remember the Lovejoys, the Moores and the Powries. Kim Lovejoy was my little sister, Mary Kay's friend. Matt Moore was my age, though we were never that close and Fred Powrie was a part of a huge incident in my life.
Fred was 16 in the summer of 1962 when my mom and dad hired him to tar the roof of our garage down the street. At one point he had to ride his bike back home to retrieve something. As he left his house, little 11-year-old me challenged him to a bike race back to my house, seven houses away.
He agreed. A moment later I was losing the race by about four bike-lengths as I entered the dead-end area of Edgewater Drive next to my house. There was a chuckhole in the street. The front tire on my little bike hit the hole and the bike stopped dead. I did not stop, and I met Edgewater Drive face first, losing my two front teeth and my consciousness.
I don't remember ever seeing Fred again. That night after I got back from the hospital, a line of about 22 neighborhood kids came into our house to pay their respects. I was bandaged on my face and I could not speak. As I lay there on the living room coach meekly waving at all these well wishers, it reminded me of the people who filed past my grandfather's casket three years earlier. Only he didn't wave.
It's been 43 years since the accident.
I continue my walk and come upon 1053 Abbieshire where the Youngs and the Gerlachs lived. The Youngs were in that house 1961-66. Rollo and Steve Young were my best friends for a while. Steve and I are still friends. He lives near Boston. Rollo lives in Alaska. I spoke with Mr. Young on the phone in June 2004, three weeks before he passed away. What a great family!
The Gerlachs moved in late in 1966 and were so huge in my life, and in many ways they still are. Bob was 12 at the time they moved in and he went on to become the most popular kid the Abbieshire/Edgewater neighborhood ever witnessed. What a sharp wit for such a young man. He was also one of the very best baseball and football players in the neighborhood.
The Reilley house was next to the Young/Gerlach abode and carried an Edgewater address: 14907. Before our yard lay the dead-end, or as we called it for years, "The Circle." We played a lot of baseball on the circle. The generation prior to us had used a softball. That was dumb. It was either me, or maybe Kurt Shobert, who thought up the idea to use a tennis ball instead. We used the tennis ball to play baseball from 1963 until we were nearly adults, never breaking a window.
The Muntz family lived down the third base line. They had a big gray house that we always referred to as "the gray monster," after Boston's green monster. I've been married for thirty years now and I can't believe Mr. and Mrs. Muntz allowed us to use their yard as our left field for all those years. They were wonderful people. I'm not so sure I would allow a bunch of kids to run around on my grass and through my bushes.
When I say we played a lot of baseball on that dead end I'm not kidding. We played from March until September every year. When school started in September we switched to football. During the summer months, when we were out of school, we played baseball on the dead end as many as three times a day. We'd meet there at about eight in the morning, again at four in the afternoon and oft was the time we'd play a third game at seven.
Life was so great back then in Lakewood. Everyone was so nice to us, allowing us to play our baseball and to make all that noise. I was not a cerebral child by any means, but I was wise enough to appreciate what we had there in beautiful Lakewood. Even at the age of 14 I can remember standing out on the Muntz's yard and thinking about how much fun I was having and that it would end one day. I really thought that, and often.
In the fall we played football. For quite a number of years we played on our side lawn. I bought a bunch of spotlights at Uncle Bill's (department store) and set them up from our second and third floor windows and from our garage, so that we could play night football games from September to December. The lights really helped, but only on the south side of the field. The field ran east and west and if you were a receiver you had to turn toward the north, or toward Edgewater Drive, so that when the quarterback threw the ball you could see it. Otherwise, if you were looking toward the house all you could see were the bright lights shining from the house and garage. It was possible to catch a ball this way, but it was like looking for a black hole in outer space.
We had a unique rule because of a big pine tree in the middle of the field. Once you started to run one way around the tree you had to keep going in that direction. You could not use the tree to try to fake someone out. It was a rule that worked forever and everyone abided.
Eventually, we got too big and our games involved too many players so we shifted our football games to nearby Lakewood Park and they lasted into the 1970s.
In the winter we also played basketball and ice hockey. It was normal for us to shovel someone's driveway just so we could play basketball. We sometimes took my spotlights down to the Essi house on Edgewater, until Mrs. Essi complained that it made her yard look like a "3-ring circus." We played hockey at Lakewood Park until we were old enough to drive. Then we played our hockey down in the Metro Parks, or "the valley," as we called it.
Nobody became famous from our Lakewood neighborhood. But most of us grew up to be law-abiding and upstanding citizens. I now live in Naples, Florida. Not long ago Bob Gerlach and Jeff Schubert swung by to play golf with my son and me. It's always great to see these guys. Growing up in Lakewood was special, but growing up in our neighborhood at Abbieshire/Edgewater was magical.
Things change as the years go by. But as I see the houses in my old neighborhood, and when I think about my 55 years, I realize there's a pretty good chance my neighborhood will be just about the same the day I die as it was in the summer of 1963. Somehow, that's reassuring. Batter up!
Volume 2, Issue 23, Posted 7:07 AM, 10.11.06