yep, my childhood home is on the block.

1962 to 2024…..62 years. I left in 1980 to Jasper and beyond….18 years of stories, good and bad…a lot of life.

I can actually almost remember my 4th birthday in that dining room….maybe because I saw and I think still have it somewhere…1963, the year of the Beatles (I remember seeing that on the old B&W TV) and the year John F. Kennedy was shot….I remember watching the funeral in one of my grandparent’s living room during a visit.

Odd, thinking about it now, I was in that kitchen the morning after Robert Kennedy was shot – they played the event on the radio over and over – I don’t recall when I heard that Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, but I’m guessing it was in that kitchen…..and John Lennon for sure..the morning of I’d just driven home from Jasper.

My first two wheeler…boy did that ever start a journey huh?

I remember that bike, 2nd grade, I used to ride it to school…that;s with my buddy Rodney, he and his sister Valerie lived across the back alley from us….

Man, Dad eventually built a pool table for the basement, so became a hang out, but, fun times…music playing all the time…I remember this one time, me and some high school buddies, skipping school, I had to break in (for some reason I didn’t have a key…I just knew how to sneak in through my bedroom window) one of the neighbors must of saw me crawl in…we were shooting pool, I turn around and a cop was coming down the stairs…yikes!

I knew all the ways to break-in..yep we had a milk shoot right next to the back door….through that window, and there was a basement window that could be jammed open as well..

I’ll alays remember the one day I was at the mall, locked my keys in the trunk for some reason…instead of taking the bus home to get the spares (there were no cell phones then) it was about 4 kilometers….I walked home, broke into the house, and of course walked back….I knew all the short cuts across the railway tracks and back alleys…

I used to walk a lot…….to the bar (my car wouldn’t start)….to the local swimming pools..evertually we all had bikes to make that easier..

But that house…my parents we’re very social, so lots of parties…backyard, house, the downstairs rumpus room…..legendary..eventually I got to crank my guitar at a few of them

The fireplace was a later addition/renovation..that house was constantly being redone….before anyone had heard of Mike Holmes….

My mom, for some reason threw out all of our family photos. I have a few that I’m trying to dig through, and I’ve got a stack of super 8 home movies to dig through once I can either get them converted to digital, or find a projector…

I learned to play guitar in that house….hated the one telephone in the kitchen (there was a secret code?) at some point was terrified of that basement….we used to listen to scary Alfred Hitchcock stories, but sang along with the Monkees and the Partridge Family….watched a lot of hockey…

The 1972 Canada Summit….it was a fantastic neighborhood to grow up in, back in the 60s especially….

There are so many stories, stories I’m not sure I’ll ever share with the kids, and pretty much never with the parents..

It was the 60s…I remember when our neighborhood rock star, Wes Henderson moved in..his hippie wife, Lynn moved on a few months before…and yes, all us pre-teen and teen boys fell in love….

There were kids everywhere…and so many places that we could get into..lots of open spaces…

Finding a half botte of win in a park nearby the morning after a music fest, assuming it was wine, climbed onto the top of a bandshell and we shared it…..was it wine?

The Kinnard Ravine, which was actually called Rat Creek….we explored every inch of it….cause, we were an easy bike ride to the Edmonton River Valley .. and yes, spent days and days down there……even when the water was running high and our parents told us to stay away..

But back to that house..it was the 60s, and it had that look…

I’m sure memories will flow until and possibly after it’s gone in a few months..just like any house, there’a a lot fo unpack.