Escape

In April I will visit my friend and former colleague in Schwyz along with her husband and daughter. In her last email she said she had a friend who lived in Reading on Forrest Street. Did I know it.

Know it?

It was around the corner from my Grove Street home.

On a visit back a couple of years ago I had ridden down both streets. The houses were the same.

Mable Fairclough's, my grandmother's friend, still perched on the hill. Her husband used to leave nails pointed up on boards to stop the cat from jumping on the windowsills. She died in a car crash after surviving another.

And Daisy Hodges with the huge bust and sweat smell, her house was still there. Her husband Ben took the photograph I still have of myself sitting on a piano bench covered with a red tapestry. My shoes are red with straps, although the photo is black and white.

There's Jeff Smith's house, one of a series of Cape Cods built after WWII. He sometimes went with me when I took photos in my job as a cub reporter for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune.

Maisie Tucker was a recluse who lived next door. She was a recluse, but the house two years ago looked like it could be a design magazine.

The Horne's house was the first one built on land we sold. I dated their son, just back from Germany. He took me to see an Army buddy, whose wife warned me as she changed diapers not to marry young. My life would be over.

Or the Bronk house. Their son Bunky was born on my birthdate on year later. We once wore yellow brother and sister outfits at a shared birthday party.

My house is gone, although the Robert Frost stone wall and the pine grove are still there, along with the boulders where I used to play.

No one who lives in those houses now have any idea of the lives lived before them. All the people I mentioned led full lives. Some may still be alive. I don't know. Their grandchildren or maybe even great grandchildren are now living lives in different houses.

When I was growing up I wanted nothing more than to escape Reading. I wanted to be what I am today, a writer, journalist living in Europe. It took a long time to escape, but as the email from my friend in Schwyz jogged my memory, I realised, I haven't escaped at all. That healthy childhood stayed with me. It was Reading that escaped me.