Macedon Digs

Moving from relative isolation of the rural countryside to Macedon was an improvement in social potential as friends were now down the street instead of light years away. Closest to me was Scott & Larry (brothers). Up the road and a hill from them was Bob and his little brother Reggie. Recently at a class reunion Bob confessed that he worshipped my sister Rita back then. Rita was (and still is) a few years older, so it wouldn’t have worked out. A fair distance past Bob (maybe a half mile) was Bill. In the other direction was Dave, who was closer to Dennis’s age than the rest of us. He had 2 sisters with whom I interacted very little. Way past him was Tom and Dave Heckman that we occasionally saw – they were more Dennis’s age, anyway. Up the road from us in another direction was John who was older as well and we interacted with rarely. He had a dog named “Polack”, though I do not know if the dog was actually Polish. In summary, friends were within walking distance, or at least easy bicycle distance.

I liked the house we moved into. The front door was pretty much useless, as there was a short front yard and some concrete steps down to a fast road (55 MPH speed limit). The only good use of those steps was for waiting for the bus on school mornings. The gravel driveway in the back was quite wide and came up to the garage. There was a branch of the driveway that continued to the house next door where an old lady lived by herself – Mrs. Allard, if my memory serves me. On the other side of the driveway was the woods, which was good for hiking and adventures. There was a decent sized lawn and a couple of apple trees. Some evenings we would throw apples up in the air and bats would dive bomb after them. On one side of the house was what we called the “back yard” which was really a side yard. On the other side of the house was a fence and on the other side of that the landlord kept a working swimming pool, as he owned a pool business. He told us we can use it as long as we took care of it, and we certainly did on both counts. We would never have been able to afford a swimming pool so it was an unexpected luxury, particular for us kids in the summer. It certainly made me popular amongst the neighborhood kids. Through the back door and up a few steps was a utility room where the washer and dryer were kept. Through another door you walked into the kitchen, or turned right to go into a full bath. Which now seems to be a strange place to have a bathroom with tub, but it all seemed natural to a kid. The light switch to said bathroom was outside the bathroom door. If someone were using the bathroom at night you could flip the light switch off and get screamed at.

The kitchen was L shaped and had an area for eating. The room off the kitchen was officially a dining room. After a few years it became the TV room. After that was the living room. Off that was my parent’s bedroom which, for a number of years, doubled as the TV room. I liked lying on the bed and watching TV – it was quite comfortable. Or, you could climb the stairs to the bedrooms – Dennis & I shared one and Rita had the other. There was a crawl space off to the side which served as an attic for storing shit. The basement was off the kitchen, but I rarely ventured down there because it was old, musty, cobwebby, and scary.

I have great memories of the place as well as doggone lousy ones. I grew up a lot while living there for 5-ish years.