A Blast From Erica's Past
I woke up this morning thinking of Babylon, New York. One of the many places where I grew up. I believe we lived there during 2nd-3rd grade, it may have included 1st. Our address was 42 Tompkins Avenue, which I always thought was cool because it rhymed. Funny thing is that I just googled it and although there are no views of the home from the streetview, there are several overhead views. The home looks pretty similar from what I can tell as to when we lived there. The thing that I find fascinating is that the home is on a peninsula of a peninsula. I had no idea that we were that close to the water. The years that we lived there the water was closed due to some sewage spill or something like that, so maybe that was why. To me, my street was everything to me and anything beyond our little street was not part of where we lived.
Our Street:
Our street was filled with kids. This is where I learned how to ride my bike and also where I recall teaching my little brother, Bradley, how to ride a bike. I came home from school one day and just got on my bike and started peddling and I just did it. I am sure there was a lot of time and energy put in before that moment by a parent, but I just remember that magical feeling of that afternoon where I just started riding. I told Brad about it and he said something like, "Oh, really?" and then he hopped on his red bike, which was like the tiniest bike I had ever seen and he did it too. Riding a bike on that street was kind of a necessity. All afternoon the kids up and down the street would hop on their bikes and ride in the street and play a game where you could not run over anything like a stick or a rock or anything else in the street. We played that game for hours. Then my friend that went to some advanced school would have to go inside to watch mathnet or something like that and then we would all go in different directions. Other things that I did: Play hide and seek around the whole street. Go to the Cohen's house who lived on the corner house up the street. They had an above ground pool in the summertime that we loved to play in. We would play games like whirlpool and marco polo in there. I remember debating with their little girl one afternoon about how pink and red clashed. I am pretty sure my mom must have told me that they clashed one day when I was insisting on wearing all pink and red. Anyway my friend's mom attempted to stop the debate by going and getting one of her own sweatshirts that had pink and red wide stripes. I remember thinking, or maybe saying, "then your sweater clashes". The neighbor kids and I had started a clubhouse. It was in one of our friends' dank cement basement. We all had to bring little knick knacky things to add to the prize bucket. My brothers thought the whole thing was pretty stupid almost immediately and I don't think they joined. Stickers were really cool then and so there were a lot of stickers. I had a sticker album that I spent a good amount of time flipping through. Sometimes I would head to my friend's house, the one that lived in the house that had the steep front steps and play barbies. She had the most amazingly beautiful eskimo barbie with a beautiful, soft, furry, white coat. That one was my favorite. I remember the school bus rides home from John F. Kennedy Elementary School. It took me a whole school year to finally figure out what the word eh-mer-jen-see (my pronunciation) was. I would say it over and over in my head and try to figure out what that dang word was. Maybe I got it because I finally got past that word and got to the exit word... who knows. Halloween was magical when we were coming home on the bus and we could already see some of the little preschool kids walking around with their candy bags on the streets trick or treating. This is the place where I got baptized at eight years old. I remember being out on my bike and having to go and park my bike to go inside and get ready for my baptism. One of my friends from up the street asked where I was going and I told them that I was going to get baptized. They asked my why I was getting baptized at 8 years old and then they told me that they had been baptized as a baby. They probably thought the whole thing was just as strange as I thought it was strange that you would get baptized as a baby. My dad had worked with me in the halls of our home, lit by bare light bulbs, on practicing how to bend backwards to properly be dunked under the water.
Our Home:
Let me explain the bare light bulbs thing. We renovated this entire house. Meaning ripped out walls, changed plumbing, moved the main entrance to the home from the side to the front of the house. We didn't even have stairs for a good amount of the time. To go to bed we climbed up a tall ladder to get up to the 2nd floor and to our bedroom. Notice that I only said bedroom. For a while all five of us slept in one bed- a bed that was a water bed, with no water, just a foam mattress. I think we were in the middle of renovating all the other bedrooms. I remember needing to be careful when getting on and off the toilet because there was a large hole right in front of the toilet. I have memories of all of us wearing masks and getting to knock down a wall as a family with our assorted crowbars, hammers, sledge hammers, etc... My mom had the biggest muscles ever. I remember coming home from school one day and my mom was on a ladder all the way up to the ceiling and she was holding up a giant piece of sheetrock to the ceiling and hammering it in, all by herself. I thought to myself, "oh maybe this is what my friend was saying when she told me that she couldn't play at my house because it was too dangerous". Yes, you did read all that correctly- my mom was a muscle woman.
Anyway, 42 Tompkins Avenue was a really great place for a kid to grow up and I am lucky that I got to live there for a few years. If anyone has a photo of that house, I would love a copy. :)
While we were in Santa Cruz Leila was lucky enough to have her 10th birthday and spend the day with family. We spent the day at the beach and then out to dinner for pizza that night. Then ice cream cake for desert. It was great! 
