An Easter Sunday

Sundays were pretty much the same at 25 Vine Street.  Dress-up was expected, and Church was how the mornings were spent.  Easter was an exception.  On this Sunday morning you had a chance to enjoy one of those chocolate Easter Bunnies.  Of course it came with those Easter Baskets full of all those goodies.  Now, how a rabbit could lay an egg was not an issue.  The following picture shows one of those Sunday mornings.

Here we stand.  Just out the back door of our old Kentucky home.  Mom had her white gloves, Henry [my older brother] had his bow tie neatly in place, and I...well I had my Easter Bunny held close to the chest.  I guess Henry felt he was too old to participate in such excitement, but hey...it was Sunday, and I wanted to take my bunny to Church.  It was light blue, had long pointy ears, with a chest of pure white.  Soft and cuddly it was.  Only a ride to Church it got, since it had to wait in the car until Church was over.  Well, anyway, all those goodies still awaited, and I was going to feast after Church with my brand new bunny.  An Easter Sunday it was.

Shorts and Nothing Else

The summer months in Kentucky were spent in a variety of ways. Usual dress was shorts and...well nothing else. It was common to have the summer days interrupted by a photographer pulling a small horse, house to house, yard to yard, asking folks if they wanted their children's picture taken. Can you imagine the excitement that getting on a horse in the middle of the summer would produce. [Not that horses were anything special in the Bluegrass of Kentucky!]

The picture to the right shows my brother and me in such a pose. [I was 4 years and my brother was 6 years of age.] Danny was the name. A horse called Danny and us in the summer of 1955. We had just moved into our new house at 25 Vine Street. Our summer attire was spotless and our smiles expectant. My older brother Henry was a little more reserved, but he was sitting on the back edge of the saddle. My face certainly showed the excitement and joy that I was experiencing on Danny. Holding the reigns...ready to go...getty up! But where?

Snap, the picture was taken. Down we came. Back into the summer of 1955 and our new neighborhood. Only the picture remains.

Fences

Fences helped to define our neighborhood at 25 Vine Street. Everywhere you tried to play or wanted to climb a tree, there was a fence. The longest fence ran north to south along the middle of the block between Smith Street and Vine Street. It was generally the tallest with 6 foot wooden post and metal wire fencing material. There were a few placed you could go under or over, but these were kept a secret. In some areas tall trees lined this fence (always on the other side). These trees did provide some shade on our side of the fence on hot summer days.

Perpendicular to this long fence was a series of shorter fences that ran west to the sidewalk on Vine Street. From Broadway northward up Vine Street, the first fence was the one that separated old man Elkin's back yard from the Frazer's side yard. This fence line had all kinds of vines, grapes, two mulberry tress, honey suckle, wild strawberries, red rose bushes and lots of poison ivy. Half way up this fence was the Elkin's chicken yard with chicken coop and hen house. When we played kick ball, from home plate in our yard, to over the chicken coop was a home run. [The Elkins still raised chickens and there was nothing like watching a chicken running around with its head cut off!]

Frazer's, our yard, and the Hill's yard shared a section with no fences between. The only problem here was that the upper third of the Hill's yard was a garden. Mr. Hill planted this garden every summer which just made our "home plate" back up to the garden. Between Mr. Hill's yard and the Rankin's yard was another tall fence which was not easy to climb. I am not sure who placed this fence, but it was a good boundary keeping the Rankin's kids out of Mr. Hill's garden. Immediately next was another fence which separated the Rankin's yard from the Powell's yard. We were never allowed to play in the Powell's yard, and we called Mrs. Powell "witch Hazel" due to here pleasant disposition. She refused to let anyone play in her yard! Of course there was a fence on the other side separating the Powell's yard from the Hatton's yard.

The Hattons, Rankins, Frazers, and Joneses play together most of the time. For the 18years I lived at 25 Vine Street, all the fences remained intact. We got use to them being there. They were part of life. Fences setting boundaries. Part of my growing up was learning to live with fences.