Friday Flashback: The House on Magnolia St.

My favorite Uncle Bob gave up his hippie, nomad-like existence when he married Aunt Deb and she started Pharmacy school. They bought a house on Magnolia Street and while she went to school, he and his friends made renovations. In the early years of my Seattle visits, it was always undergoing some type of upgrade (I remember a sauna under construction) and friends of Bob and Deb were always living with them either to help with house payments, construction efforts, or both. Eric slept on the upstairs sunporch, Bob bought couches for the downstairs living room at early summer yard sales for me, Gran D, and my mom to sleep on and sold them in his own yard at the end of the season when we left.

Eric and I were partial to Bobby K. because he paid us each $1.00 each day to let him sleep in. We also liked Patty because of her dog, Badger. Badger was a black lab that fetched anything and everything, even 2x4's that were being used to build the sauna. Even when we threw them on the roof of the backyard shed. Seriously. The dog would climb the tree next to the shed, get the 2x4, and wander around on the roof until Uncle Bob would come outside and get him down. He thought it was as funny as we did...the first time. By the second day, he had to make a rule against playing fetch with the dog in the backyard. Aunt Debbie's dog Tanya was far too much of a lady to climb a tree and fetch a board, but she could climb the homemade ladder from the ground 2nd floor balcony and Badger was terrified of it. Badger and Tanya lived until Eric and I were in our teens. I was very amused when Eric, who claims to remember "nothing about the past" bought himself a black lab a few years ago. And thought really hard about naming him Badger.

There was a small convenient store around the corner from Bob's house. It sold ice cream bars and we often spent our $1.00 from Bobby K on those. I could walk all the way home without having it melt too much. That never happened in Oklahoma in June. I remember being intrigued by it. I'm not sure if we were allowed to walk to the store by ourselves at the age of 8. We just did. Maybe Bob didn't know we weren't supposed to, or maybe we didn't tell him we were going. Either way, I remember feeling quite grown up for my 8 years each time I approached the cash register.

Bob and Bobby K also didn't know we weren't allowed to ride in the back of pick-up trucks, and we got to do it all summer. We never spoke the words, but each ride began with a conspiring grin between us about what our mothers would say if they knew. But they didn't. At least not until we went home at the end of the summer.

Going into town was also fun. We visited the Space Needle and its surrounding amusement park, we counted bums downtown (much to my mother's chagrin), we went to Pike's Market for fruit, fish, and Hello Kitty items, we rode a ferry to Bainbridge Island and back (without getting off because Bob didn't want to chase us-Eric's wedding marked the first time I ever actually set foot on the island in spite of yearly rides on the ferry), we went to the movies: The Great Muppet Caper and Superman, we drove up to Leavenworth, we drove down to the Oregon Coast (without reservations ;). We went to the movies: The Great Muppet Caper and Superman. We spent our summers on Magnolia St. when we were 7 and 8.