Where The Streets Have No Names

If you read my last post, you're aware I recently spent a week in Appleton because of Mark's thyroid cancer treatment. 

I spent 8 hours on the weekdays working from their basement, but I also spent a weekend there. I don't do well with unstructured time in general. Even during weekends at home in Green Bay, I must have a specific plan for running errands, spending time with people, scheduled miscellaneous appointments, plan on binge watching Netflix or Amazon Prime, or I tend to sleep an entire weekend away.

Another thing about staying at my parents' house is that I don't smoke cigarettes there. On average I smoke 3 cigarettes a day: an amount so hideously low, I frequently wonder why I even bother. Regardless, I got there late on a Tuesday and hadn't smoked until the following Saturday. My ruse was to take my car out and run the engine for a bit because it had been bitterly cold for a few days and my father is a firm believer in HEAT, a gas tank at least half full at ALL times, and driving an undriven car at least twice a week. So off I went.

At first I just started driving without any destination. As I was considering my options, I drove to the neighborhood that developed about a quarter of a mile north of the neighborhood I grew up in and where my parents still live. That land was all fields until I was about 10 years old and suddenly an entire neighborhood with streets named after apples appeared like magic. 

As a "tween" (a word not invented when I actually qualified for its definition), I was friends with a girl who lived on one of the apple themed streets. I drove past her house which had been painted or re-sided from a shade of green to light harvest gold. I kept going and went past the house where I babysat a toddler while in junior high and whom my sister babysat after I grew out of that particular career. 

I drove past the former home of one of my life-long sister-friends. Further down the same street I drove past the house of "the cello God" of my high school orchestra years.

I kept driving north and stopped at the building which is now a day care, but was my grade school from 1975 to 1982 (maybe 1983?). The center core of my grade school was one of the earliest grade schools in the Appleton Area School District and is on the National Registry of Historic Buildings (or something like that; don't Google it and get pissed off that I'm wrong) and is the only part of the original structure that remains. 

I spent some time swinging in the playground. When was the last time I spent time swinging?? The current swings are not the originals from my grade school years, but I vividly remember the black vinyl seats held up by heavy chains. After reaching the apex and swinging backwards, I would straighten my legs, throw my head back, close my eyes and get swept away in the glorious feeling of semi-weightlessness, aware of my hair ever so lightly dancing around my face in the breeze. What a wonderful time childhood can be.

Due to the amount of time that has passed since I last found myself in that physical state, I became nauseous rather quickly and dragged my feet, not in the mixture of sand and gravel of my youth to stop myself. All of the other outdoor gym equipment from my time there was gone, replaced by heavy plastic pieces instead of steel, the gravely sand replaced by an injury-reducing plastic/rubber material made of recycled water bottles. I remember when a part of the school playground flooded and froze every winter and we would slide across it in our tennis shoes during recess.

After around forty five minutes of "running the car engine" I returned to the original home I have ever known. My parents bought their house in May 1973 and have never lived anyplace else. That is rare. Granted, that structure has gone through innumerable outdoor and indoor re-vamps including the installation and removal of a 2400 square foot pool and deck, the addition of a four-seasons room off of the family room added around 1977-1978, and my own bedroom and living area added in the basement during the summer of 1987. That was a sweet set-up I doubt my parents anticipated. I had my own good-sized bedroom with a sink and vanity, the bar my parents installed in the early 1980s was there with my own small refrigerator and microwave, a living area with a daybed, several chairs, cable TV and a VCR. Through a door was the "laundry room" with a shower and toilet. Because the garage is connected to the house through a small landing, I (and everyone I knew) could come in through the garage, head straight downstairs and live there for weeks without ever seeing anyone I was related to. That's exactly how I spent most of my senior year in high school.

That street, however, does have a name. It's North Lynndale Drive.