Memory Lane" was on the itinerary.
Which is what we literally did.
It's been my favorite staycation day so far,
but my feet are very tired.
(Warning to casual blog readers:
This is a long blog entry. Stop NOW!)
After continuing with our office fling this morning (still not done), we began our "walk down memory lane" by dining in the nostalgia booth at 'Heaps" Brick Oven.
Brick Oven was the major hangout for us in junior high and high school. Gary is pointing to a picture in the nostalgia booth that shows the back of his head. Here is a close-up. On the left is his cousin, Lynn, in the middle is Matt, and then that is the back of Gary's head on the right.
(Wow, what a claim to fame this is)
We then began our 3 hour walking tour by heading up the stairs to the BYU lower campus. Here is Gary standing at the approximate spot where, in 8th grade, we climbed trees after meeting at Heaps with a group of friends. I wrote something in my journal about that night, and in it said how handsome Gary looked in his cowboy boots and denim jacket.
In Jr. High we would all play on the rolling hills of lower campus.
(me reenacting playing)
We both attended BYU, but with so many new buildings and additions, it looks very different now. I should have been prepared, but Gary pulled his trick of acting like he hit his head on the door while walking into the Y center. I can't count how many times he used to do that.
After walking around the bookstore, we took the path I walked many many times to and from my home on
Cedar Avenue. Gary walked these paths every day on his way to Wasatch Elementary.
We got ice cream at the Creamery on Ninth
(aka known as Carson's Market when we were growing up)
and walked up Cedar Avenue to the home we moved into when I was in third grade.
I hardly recognize it now. There used to be bushes all across the front of the home. I couldn't bring myself to go by the house for years after Mom and Dad passed away. The loss was just too painful.
Where Gary is standing in this picture is directly across from the front of the home.
It is Cedar Circle (a cul-de-sac)
In high school I would sit in the living room and watch, for hours sometimes, for Gary to come by. He would drive into that circle so his headlights were facing the house. He would then blink his lights on and off, giving me "the signal." If I saw it, and flipped the porch lights on and off, he would come in. Mom and Dad would let me know if they saw the lights blinking also. I really have no explanation for such behavior.
We then walked through the tree streets south to Wasatch Elementary. I started there in 3rd grade and Gary started in kindergarten.
Here is Gary in front of his kindergarten classroom
(forming his arms into 0, meaning kindergarten).
as opposed to holding up 5 fingers for 5th grade class.
This is the first elementary class we had together.
Kiwanis park was the scene of many adventures for Gary and his friends. One night they drove on the lawn to scare some people who were in their sleeping bags. Gary is mimicking what the campers did as they attempted to jump out of the way, still in their sleeping bags.
This picture is for the benefit of Duke and Turkey Bowl/Kiwanis Dwellers.
These are the trees all of our friends planted at Kiwanis in honor of our friend, Matt Warner, after he died.
We then walked up to the duplexes Gary lived in after 9th grade.
First at 732 North 820 East
then north a few homes to 762 North.
We then walked over to ninth east and got a drink at
"Stan's Drive In."
(as shown on the sign, "Since 1950")
I remember as a little girl wondering why we couldn't just eat there every night. It was just a block from our house at 435 North 800 East. (It was grey when we lived there)
Here's the view over the back fence. Dad built the playhouse for Charlene and I and the basketball court for my brothers. He also added on the extension on the back of the house. We lived in this home until I was in the third grade.
We had almost gone full circle by now. Here's me showing where I went to kindergarten. The only problem is that Joaquin Elementary has now been torn down.
Gary wanted me to document this address. It will always remind him how the pigheaded neighborhood chair told him in a city council meeting he had bought a "pig in a poke" because the property was below the 500 North line which mythically divided high-density and single-family zoning standards. (Gary & Duke were hopeful of developing a twelve-plex on 350 North but unfortunately the council had other ideas--ah shucks!)
With tired feet, but warm hearts, we then met up with the car.
We snapped this picture on the way home to show where Gary's home was before
they had to move when he was in 9th grade.
It sat right there where the North West corner of the Marriott Center parking lot is now
Well, that was quite a walk that brought back a lot of memories.
We've been very lucky in the paths our lives have followed.
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