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...