I Can Tell You How To Get

... how to get to Reformatory Street

because I lived there until I was about 5 or 6 years old. Our house sat on a wide street on a block of about 10 houses and at one end of the street was the entrance to the Reformatory. See the guard tower? The noon whistle would blow each day and it seems like each day I had to make a conscious effort to trust that the whistle was blowing because it was noon and not because a horrible prisoner had escaped and was heading my direction. Even with the perceived ever present threat of danger the time of my childhood living on Reformatory Street was a special time.

*I remember sharing mumps and measles with my older brother (Maybe that doesn't sound so special, but our Mom knew how to make our sicknesses seem almost like a treat with all her TLC!)

*I remember getting a baby brother, playing paper dolls with my neighbor, having to get my tonsils out, staying clear, but wanting to be part of the fun when my older brother and his buddies were having dirt clod war or cruising down the school sidewalk with skateboards.

*I remember my Grandma coming home from a visit to Ohio wearing a pretty red hat.

*I remember my Aunt Arlene and Uncle Doyle coming for a visit and the spank my Aunt gave me for disobeying her during our weekend at the lake when I went down to the water's edge without asking. (It's funny how I remember that and how her love for me and the danger I must have been in spoke volumes!) I adored and respected her even more than I already did after that spankin!

*I remember my Mom and Dad loving me and giving me sweet security.

*I remember Vernie, a young man who lived in our basement for awhile. He was like an uncle, except he "sided with my Dad" and "made me" eat my mashed potatoes at a particular mealtime.

*One day I sat on my neighbor girl, Deena's front steps. She was telling me about her supper called "sloppy joes". I thought she was makin it up and couldn't quite imagine what they were. It was quite a few years later until I had my first sloppy joe!

*We had a very small grocery shop about 5 blocks from our house. Whenever Grandma and I would walk to the store, she'd let me walk on the house curbs some 3 to 5 feet from the sidewalk. When I got tired of that, I'd hold her hand and walk with her, or skip along.

*The store had a pop machine that was like a carousel. The pop bottles were in a cooler and hung by a revolving "chain" and after you'd plopped in your 15 cents, you could open the lid, the revolving would stop and you could pick your pop! Strawberry Crush was always a treat!

*Another treat was the frozen pond in front of the Reformatory open for ice skaters in the winter. I remember skidding on the ice. They have since closed this aspect of the prison. These are random remembrances. There are many more. I am surprised of memories from so young. They are mostly sweet ones.

There's really no reason to go there, but I can tell you how to get to Reformatory Street.