Overcoming Fear

    Okay, so maybe fear is too scary a word to use here. Let's just say an uncomfortable spot to put yourself into.

   Following in the wake of the first post on "207 Tunnel Blvd.", I screwed up my courage and knocked on the door of 207. Carolyn was there for support, albeit from the sidewalk at the bottom of the front steps. 

   I could hear dogs barking inside, Through a window in the front room (sun room back in the day) I could make out two canines, both large looking out of the raised window on the left. As I rapped on the front door (after trying the bell), both continued barking, now looking through the glass portion of the front door. 

   It looked as though no one was home at this 3pm hour of the afternoon.

   Retreating to the front yard, I took a few shots of that area with its huge oak tree near the house. There will be a separate post about this tree later.

   Walking down to the south edge of the front area so that I could take a picture of the garage (the subject of a more detailed blog post later also), I spotted a car in the back of the house. 

   Thinking someone may be home, just not wanting to face a strange man with a camera on a tripod standing on the porch. We were walking toward the garage when a lady appeared coming from the back of the house. 

   Debbie, on the left, talking with Carolyn on the now remodeled badminton court.

   Immediately, I launched into my spiel about growing up in that house before she could tell me to get out of her yard. She listened politely then welcomed us to look around. She asked about my family and I, and what life was like back in the 40s. She really wanted me to tell her about our lives.

   Debbie was a nurse, half of a two-person, family that had lived in 207 for about 10 years. She and her   friend were not from Chattanooga, or even Tennessee, but from the North. 

   Shannon, an artist with her studio in my old bedroom, arrived home about that time, and the four of us had a good conversation about the property, the dogs, and some cats, the neighbors then and now, and how different the whole yard area looked today from what I had described from my childhood.

   Shannon showed us the dollhouse she was finishing right where the badminton court used to be behind the garage. There was color everywhere in the yard. 

     Shannon is in the dollhouse facing toward the camera. 

From the thought of just taking a few shots and getting out of there, Carolyn and I spent an hour looking at what the ladies had done and explaining about life in the late Depression and World War II eras. We enjoyed our visit a lot, and I believe they did also.

   This proved to be a great start to our investigating the surroundings of my childhood. If everyone that we visit on this nostalgic journey turns out to be as welcoming as these two, we have many good adventures in store.

   As we leave the old homestead, where the brave settlers lived while cowboys and Indians roamed the neighborhood, I consider an old retaining wall, crafted by earlier people, which flanked the north side of the court. The shouts and laughter, the sounds of shuttlecock meeting racket, are still to be found if you listen hard enough.

   Stay tuned...

   

Let's Start at the Beginning

    There is a line from The Sound of Music:

      "Let's start at the very beginning,

       A very good place to start."

   

   207 Tunnel Blvd. Chattanooga, Tennessee

   Telephone 2-3348, then MAdison2-3348 or MA2-3348 or 622-3348, a party line for a little bit, then a straight line. A two-party line I think, and an adventure in itself.

   This house was built in 1931. Nana and Papa were married in 1931, and bought the house in 1934. Just for comparison's sake, the down payment was $1200 and the monthly payments on the loan were $24 a month. 

   I have my parent's budgets for the years 1932 through 1945, meticulously kept by Nana down the the last penny. 

   Nana's expenditures for 1932 totaled $1868.40. Her grocery bill was $245.50 which would be about 2 weeks for Carolyn and I right now.

   The above shot showed my Mom on the front porch with the dog, which I don't remember at all.

   In May of 1936, their first child was born.

   My Dad holding yours truly at 9 weeks.

   My brother David would be born in 1939 and my youngest brother Bill in 1946.

   But this blog will feature my memories about life and growing up, from my 84 year old memory, which can be suspect at times. These particular memories will not be in any particular order chronologically, just as they fall out of my brain.

   As I was looking at old photos, most taken by my Mom, one particular memory jumped out at me. 

   These concrete steps, leading up to the front door, were the focus of many hours of play by a youngster who loved all kinds of sports. Like many others, baseball, became a major fascination, and, lacking a field nearby, and neighbor's kids who were, for the most part female, these steps became my playing field for many games of solo participation.

   The needed accessories were few. An old tennis ball and a baseball glove were all it took to make the game come alive. 

   It unfolded like this:

   The human player took the roles of the defensive team in the field and the steps became the batters. The field of play included the sidewalk to the street in front of the house and all the surrounding territory that a ball thrown against the steps might venture into.

   The pitch was the key. The pitcher, standing on the sidewalk, threw the ball against the steps. Where the ball collided against the concrete determined how the batter hit the pitch. Sometimes it would be fouled back onto the front porch, sometimes a line drive, or a pop up or a ground ball. The pitcher then became a fielder and had to make a play on the ball, either to catch it in the air, or to field it on the ground then throw (again against the steps) to a baseman to get the out. There were no strikeouts or walks. Every batter hit the ball somewhere. 

   The action:

      The pitcher throws.

      The batter hits.

      The fielder catches.

      The fielder throws to a base to get a runner.

      Next batter.....

   Innings were played, score was kept, and a game completed by the one-man team on the sidewalk.

   The field was always ready for play, anytime, and, as long as the pitcher's arm held out, the games could go on, and on, and on.......

   Refreshments were ready in the fridge when hunger or thirst called.

   There is no telling how many hours were spent in play right there.

   And, when at last darkness obscured the flight of the ball, the glove was hung up, a chair pulled up to the edge of the porch, the radio turned on, and the play-by-play of a Chattanooga Lookout's game filled the air with the exploits of real players.

   It was a great time to be alive.

A Nostalgic Tour of Sorts

    Driving home from church the other day, Carolyn and I took a quick jaunt down Tunnel Blvd. , to the neighborhood of my youth. 

   A little backstory on why: 

   Carolyn and I both were born here in Chattanooga in 1936, but our paths never crossed until the early 80s when our families both attended Brainerd Baptist Church. 

   She lived in East Ridge, then near Lovell Field, the Chattanooga airport, then off Lee Highway near the Tennessee Baptist Children's Home, then off Bonny Oaks Drive near Oakwood Baptist Church where she attended after her marriage. She attended Tyner High School.

   On the other hand, I spent my early years on Tunnel Blvd., a couple of blocks from Brainerd Road, then out in the "country" on Hickory Valley Rd. in East Brainerd. I went to McCallie for my high school years.

   Interesting to me is the fact that all of this growing up time took place east of Missionary Ridge in the Brainerd Section of the city, but we never met. We could have possibly been in a lot of the same places, maybe even at the same time, but never knew it.

   As an aside, when Mayre and I moved back to Chattanooga from Knoxville in the early 60s, we lived in Lakeshore Estates, which is less than a mile as the crow flies from the property she and Bruce owned in Harrison, and where they built in 1971. 

   After we married in 2019, we have had a lot of time to reminisce, and it has been fun to relive our separate lives.

   

   My plan for this journey into the past is to begin here on Tunnel Blvd., in this house built back in 1931, and share things that come to my mind.

   Come join me in the attempt to remember my early life, the people and places that impacted me, and, in general, how we lived back in that "before TV and plastic" era.

  Stay tuned.