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| 731 North Garfield Avenue. Image by Google Maps |
I was seven when we moved out of the one-story house (photo right) on Garfield. It was there I met my best friend who lived four houses away. I was so young I don't remember meeting him, so I was probably in kindergarten.
A neighborhood grocery store was three blocks away, close enough that my friend, K.C., and I could walk to the store to get things for our moms (and candy for us).
Our neighbor to the right (as you look at the picture) was an old man named Mr. Schultz. I don't remember much about him other than he was friendly with my parents. The Boltons lived on the other side of the driveway, they had four kids, all a lot older than me. The oldest boy was a senior in high school and a fast runner.
There was one daughter, she may have babysat once or twice, but during this time my parents were seven-times foster parents to teen-age girls so they may have watched me too.
It was a quiet neighborhood with a local public school a block away. Mom drove me to St. Paul Lutheran School seven blocks away. Other than K.C., there were two boys my age on the same block who also went to St. Paul's. I don't remember any other kids.
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| 145 Forest Park Blvd. dwm photo |
Our backyard was big enough to host football and baseball games in what I dubbed, "Stump, Weed Memorial Stadium." In addition to the next-door neighbors, Tim would come from a block away.
Sometimes Brad or another kid from school would join us for a game of tackle football or pick-up basketball.
Janesville had youth baseball leagues, but none of us were involved in those that I remember, we organized and refereed our own games as long as we had enough kids to play.
The neighborhood store was farther away from this house, but I was sent to pick up stuff at Art's Randall Avenue Grocery for mom or make my own trip for a 25-cent Choco'lite candy bar.
I know we locked the house when no one was there, because when I was old enough to be home alone, I had a house key I wore around my neck. The only crime we experienced was a couple teen-age boys who knocked over a flower pot and damaged a garden. The kids were found and as punishment the local youth judge sentenced the kids to do work for mom.
Unlike the 2013 photo above left, we had two large trees next to the neighbor's driveway plus one across the sidewalk from the gas light. My parents, little sister, and I were watching a storm one evening when a branch fell on the corner of the porch, giving us a start and damaging the roof.
In the summer, we had breakfast together out there before Dad went to work. We didn't have air conditioning, not many people did.
The feel of both neighborhoods was similar - a mix of families with jobs ranging from assembly work at General Motors to professional jobs. There were differences politically, but it wasn't discussed much. A friend's dad was a political science professor at University of Wisconsin - Whitewater and the only Democrat I knew. My parents supported U.S. Senator Bill Proxmire, a Democrat, but otherwise voted Republican.
Janesville had recently opened a second city high school on the west side, so the rivalry between Craig (my school on the east side) and Parker wasn't ten years old until I became a student.
Kids raised money for school field-trips; for scouts; 4-H; or a team going door to door selling everything from Christmas wrap to popcorn. The elderly woman who lived across the street asked mom if I could mow her lawn when I was in junior high.
Forest Park Boulevard wasn't a boulevard when we lived there, the median between lanes of traffic was removed and paved. It was busy enough to be part of a city bus route.
I continued seeing K.C. after the move, either riding to his house or him to mine. One thing we enjoyed was taking the bus for a ride around the city or going to the new Janesville Mall.
There isn't enough drama on either Garfield or Forest Park to make a movie, but both were good places to grow.
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