A story that I read recently made me think of my childhood. My parents lived in a small apartment when I was born. I have very few memories of that apartment. But I do have a mental image of the 3 rooms, and I remember going across the street to visit a neighbor who had a daughter a little older than I was for a tea party. We used an old trunk for the table. My other memories are from photographs of me on a tricycle and in a swing.

In August of 1951 my parents bought a house on a short, hidden street. I remember them laying the linoleum floor in the kitchen. It was blue and yellow. There were big tile squares with smaller squares cut out inside them. We punched out the small squares to put yellow in blue and blue in yellow to make a pattern for the floor. Funny that's the only memory of moving into the house that I have, perhaps I spent the night with my grandparents on the day of the big move.

There were 14 houses on one end of our street and a large apartment community began on the other end. They were small, wooden, 2 or 3 bedroom houses in just one of many such neighborhoods that were build after World War II. We were within walking distance of a shopping center that had a grocery story, a drug store with a soda fountain, dry cleaners, children's clothing store, hardware store, beauty and barber shops, a variety store and an ice cream stand. No need for a car, a Wal-Mart of downtown.

If the shopping center wasn't close enough, every day the bread truck drove through the neighborhood. He would stop and you walked up a couple of steps into the panel truck. Inside were the best cupcakes I have ever eaten, a small selection of candy and loaves of bread. In the summer the ice cream carts or the Merrymobile came down the street each afternoon calling to us with bells or music. We didn't get ot buy cupcakes or ice cream very often so it was a real treat when we did.

Most every house on our street had a family with kids my age. Next door were two boys, David was my age and Denny a year younger. We played together all the time. I learned to play baseball, marbles, cowboys and army. We had lemonade stands; I remember the mailman was a great customer. For a while the apartment community was mostly empty and the owners didn't mow the grass. We had great fun playing army and hiding out in the tall grass.

There was a small wooded area behind out house which we called "The Woods" (creative, weren't we?). We walked on the path and in the summer picked the wild blackberries that grew there.

My yard had several climbable trees. Under my favorite--the wild cheery tree--was a large sandbox. Almost every summer my Dad would add sand to it. We spent many hours in the sand box, digging and building. We created Disneyland and tried to put water in the rivers we dug.

On warm summer days, we had contests to see who could get up and outside first. We played out all morning, but when lunchtime came we had to go in to eat and to rest during the heat of the day. No air conditioning in our house unitl my brother developed hay fever and we got a window unit for the living room. I don't remember the summer heat being unbearable, we had a large window fan that was on at night and seemed to cool the house enough for sleeping.

After resting we'd go back out and play until after dark. We played Four Square, Hide and Seek, Red Rover and Mother May I. Collecting lightning bugs was grand. Someone would get a jar and punch holes in the lid and we'd run after the bugs. Sometimes there would be a yard full of kids to play with, mostly boys. For a short time, Ramona lived in one of the apartments and I had someone to play dolls with, but that was just a year or two.

One of my favorite things to do was to go outside on rainy summer days. We put on our swimsuits and walked down to the corner where the storm drain was slow and the rain water would back up to creat a temporary pond for us to run and jump in. There was no neighborhood swimming pool. We usually did have a small, blow-up pool in our yard or we could set up the hose and sprinkler to run through and cool off.

Funny, we played outside without adult supervision and lived to tell about it. We didn't slather on UV protection; never heard of a knee pad or bike helment. There were always bee stings in the summer, and a few accidents. The worst I remember was an afternoon we had a huge cardboard box and decided it would be fun to use it like a bobsled to come down the few steps that led off the porch. I'm not sure how Denny was selected to go first but his short ride down the steps turned into a long ride to the hospital to have stitches put in his chin. David and I never got our turns in the box.

Sadly, I don't think kids today have half this much fun. They are all enrolled in too many organized activities, spend too much time playing with electronic games or are trapped inside for fear of kidnapping. There are days when I wish I was younger, but I wouldn't trade being a kid in the 50's with any of the younger generations.