Jefferson City Memories

Fall seems to have hit the Midwest, which is wonderful. We had another blast of heat last week, but it has now cooled down to what I consider perfect fall weather. Today, it's sunny and mid 70's, with a nice breeze blowing. It was like that all weekend – the only hiccup was when we had to shut up the house and turn on the air because there was smoke blanketing the neighborhood. It turned out to be a house in the midst of demolition – hopefully the fire was intentional, but you never know.

We had a pretty quiet weekend. Yesterday afternoon we took Mom to Independence for a memorial service for one of her cousins. That generation of our family has drastically reduced from the original 26 first cousins. It was a nice service and we enjoyed the Sunday afternoon drive.

I'm in the final week of my online class.....really, it's final week! The final exam for the course will be available online by 6 pm Friday, and then I have five days to take and submit the exam......50 questions, worth half my total grade. After the assignments of the first five weeks, I'm solidly on 90% for the class.....so I'd have to really blow the test in order to not pass the class, but I can miss five questions and still finish “with distinction”. My fingers are crossed – but it would probably help more if I'd start studying!!!

It's probably because I've started writing this blog, but it seems every time we're with family now, memories are triggered. It's kind of fun, because memories are surfacing that had long since been lost in the gray matter.

Last week I talked about my grandparents living in Jefferson City. The week Mom and I spent with them each summer was a real highlight for me. That gave me the opportunity for all sorts of things I didn't experience at home. I can still remember the address of their home – 1230 Adams Street. A block from their house was a baseball stadium for the Jefferson City Jay's.....I'm not sure what level baseball that was, but I remember the stadium. Jefferson City High School was built two to three blocks from their house during the time they lived there – the last time I checked online, that school is still in use. I was reminded last night of getting to use their phone to call the Time & Temperature number, a real treat for a kid with no phone!

I always had money for the ice cream wagon that went by......in some years there was a sno cone truck, and some other things. But the ice cream wagon was my weakness. Central Dairy delivered milk to the box on my grandparents' front porch. There was a beautiful mimosa tree just off their front porch, the first mimosa tree I encountered. I still have a soft spot for them in the summer.

There were so many kids in the neighborhood that were around my age. Jay and Beverly Schatzer lived down Union Avenue about half a block, Tommy and Renae Stone lived about half a block up on Adams Street. But the jackpot was right across the street. There was a duplex across the street with two families and all their kids.........a brother and sister had married a brother and sister. Alfred and Nordell Lookinough lived in one side of the duplex with their five kids; Norman Sanning and his wife (oh, my goodness! I can't believe I can't think of her name, she was so nice) and their three kids lived on the other side. The oldest of all these double cousins was Patricia Sanning – she was just three days younger than me. But in an indignity, she was a year ahead of me in school......thanks to the fact that those two families attended Catholic School and they didn't have to adhere to the same age restrictions as public school.

The Sanning/Lookinough house had a huge fenced-in yard, with a couple of swingsets, slides – and I don't think a single blade of grass! I loved running over there to play. The Stone and Schatzer kids were usually there playing as well. The most fun was playing hide and seek just about dark at night. Tommy Stone pinched the lighted tail off a lightning bug one night and gave it to me – my first engagement ring. I was probably 7 or 8.

I haven't been to that neighborhood or seen any of those people since the mid 60's. But it's amazing how vivid the memories of them remain!