1967 - Wesley Avenue

So how many of you remember your first address and phone number? Here's what's permanently lodged in my head in my sing-songy, kindergarten voice:

"Hello, Officer Friendly, my name is Bronwyn Clark and my father is Jim Clark and our phone number is 869-5831 and we live at 1201 Wesley Avenue in the top of the blue house with the yellow door. Can you please help me find my way home?"

I know I had at least three addresses in my young life before we moved into the upper half of this duplex in a neighborhood in Evanston, Illinois. I've countless addresses and fewer phone numbers since then. But what was drilled into the brain of this kindergartner was essential information.

You see, they desegregated the schools in Cook County that year, so I would not be walking to Dewey a few blocks from my house. I would be taking a city bus to Labratory School in a neighborhood father away and in a more "black" part of the city. I was very aware of the diversity in my own neighborhood; we had Jewish friends and babysitters, Mexican friends and babysitters, and black friends and babysitters. But apparently this school thing was a big deal.

I was just excited to go and felt pleased and proud to be going to a school that was chosen for a pilot program of multi-age classrooms. Miss Baum would be my homeroom teacher and I would go home at lunch time until I was a reader. By October I was reading and got to stay for the whole day. My friend, Toni, was a year older. I was angry with her that she hadn't told me that staying all day included an extra recess! I would have learned to read faster had I known!

My first "boyfriend" was Anthony Mitchell. I liked him until he punched one of my dolls in the face. That was it. Victoria was too precious. Relationship over.

I remember the crisp, musty smell of swishing my Mary Janes through leaves on the sidewalk on blustery days in the fall walking to and from the bus. I remember the oily smell of the bus and the mechanical sounds of dropping my change into the fare machine. I always had a name tag with my vital information pinned to my person in case I was lost.

I hated those first cold mornings when it still wasn't cold enough for tights, but the tops of my scrawny thighs, unprotected by pants or knee-socks and sticking out below the hem of my dress, would turn bright red and literally burn from the cold. And then there was the season of static electricity, when your dress was perpetually stuck half way up your butt, much to the delight of all the boys!

Some days after getting off the bus I stopped off for a visit with my father's bet friend, Vaughn, who lived on Greenleaf Street, not too far from Frederick's, the corner grocery that sold penny candy, cigarettes (which I could purchase for my mother), and milk. Vaughn is an artist and I happened to be born on his birthday. He had a studio apartment in which he actually used the studio. I loved sitting and watching his paintings in progress. My mother gave me the ink and watercolor series portraits of my dad that Vaughn created for her for her birthday that year.

Another artist named Georgio lived in a garage converted to a studio in the neighbor's back yard. He made sculptures that haunted the night scape. I used to try and terrorize my sister by telling her that one of them was a witch that came alive at night and she would get you if she could see you at night. I half believed it myself. We both spent many a night trying to fall asleep, toes and heads twisted flat againts our little beds, so as not to be detected above the window sills of the sun room in which we slept.

Here's a picture of my sister, Wendy, at Christmas. I have many happy memories of tons of childhood adventures in this house. I think we only lived there four years or so. But those were the preschool and early primary years when the moms took us to the beach (Clark Street Beach, as a matter of fact) almost every day in the summer. We could ride bikes to Baskin Robbins and Cubs games were a great summer past time at Wrigley Field.

Mmmmm . . . . I must really have cabin fever. I can smell that Chicago Dog from here.

Does anyone know if we have any celery salt?