The last memory I have of our back yard on Wenonah is standing at the bottom of the stairs in the summer of 1999 with the family that lived there then and seeing fireflies ?#34; probably for the first time since the 1970s. The family had invited me in when I stopped to talk to a neighbor who was helping pull weeds in the front yard. I got a tour of the whole house, except for the basement, and memories just blasted at me like hailstones.
But back to the yard. Early days ?#34; my most vivid impression is watching my little brother toddle up the back stairs, blood streaming, after I hit him in the head with a hoe. Well, he got in the way when I was trying to chop down a tree. At least it was winter and he was wearing a thick, knit cap. I might have been five then.
The swing set was the setting for hundreds of memories. It was always there, as far as I knew. Dad had put it up in 1959 maybe, and it was still there well into the ’70s. My favorite trick was to climb up to the very top and sit there or hang by my knees. Getting down was harder than climbing up, but I figured out a system, so I was quite the show-off, scrambling down like a true gymnast (in my mind). Another cool thing to do in the yard was splash around in the blue kiddie pool.
Early June was the best time in the yard. That’s when the poppies came out. I loved the poppies. There were exactly two of them. I loved the tulips and the jonquils that came up in spring, the lilies of the valley next to the back steps, and I even loved the bank of peonies against the Sharkey’s fence, even though they were usually covered in ants. We don’t get those kinds of flowers here in Florida. Here we have hibiscus, gardenias and sad things I plant next to the parking lot. The gardenias are great, but die about a second after you yank the blossom off and put it in water.
June was also when it was finally warm enough to grab a towel from the bathroom and Dad’s little black transistor radio and lie in the sun. Summer of ’67 ? “Are you going to San Francisco?” ? “Stop children, watch that sound” ? “A little bit of soul, yeah, a little bit of soul” ? Great fun till the ants found you.
Later, between sophomore and junior year in high school, my boyfriend Chuck Teaney and I would hang out on the back stairs and talk about who-knows-what until we got bored and did that thing that always startled my mother. I’d climb up on Chuck’s shoulders and knock on the kitchen window. Ha. That was fun.
Much later, after Mom and Dad moved to Florida, I’d drive by now and then in a rental whenever I was in town, just to see what the house looked like. I was there last February and took a gorgeous picture on a bright, cold Sunday morning. The place looked nice. Only problem was the huge fence that went all the way around to the front. Darn. Couldn’t see if anyone had made a snowman in the back yard.
I may go back in August. If so, I’ll sneak a look through the gate to see if there’s a new swing set. Or a new blue kiddie pool.