looking back

After visiting my parents yesterday, I decided to drive around Ashland for a while and see if I could remember where all the things were located that were part of my childhood.

Bad pic as I was driving of the house I grew up in on Rt. 250

Gerwigs White Barn is the grocery store that was the nearest grocery story to us growing up

A & W Rootbeer stand was the highlight of childhood

This shop used to be a restaurant, Ron and my first date

This house used to be a silk flower shop, way back when you couldn't buy a very big selection of silk flowers I made all the flowers for our wedding.

I headed first out past the house I remember from when I was really small.  It's hilarious what you remember from being a kid.  Here are the memories that are most vivid to me.  When I was a kid it seemed so much larger and further from the road then it really is!

• I remember being super sick with Old Fashioned Measles, laying in my parents bed and the whole room spinning - high fever.
• My sister and I would always lay on the floor upstairs when my parents had guests and drop bobby pins down through the floor register - we thought we were pretty funny.
• I remember swinging a pillow around in the living room and of course loosing my balance and falling into a table
• We used to get milk delivered and the Milk Truck ran over our Collie and killed him.
• My dad decided to demonstrate why we shouldn't use firecrackers, put them in a can and lit them while we all watched from a safe distance on the porch.  They proceeded to blow-up and the metal can sliced him wide open.  We are scared for life but never touched firecrackers.
• I remember playing on the swing set and helping in the garden (at least I thought I was helping)

Groceries

• My mom dropped my sister and I off to pick strawberries when we were pretty young, I think we got paid 25 cents per quart.
• Things were crowded, overlapping and dingy inside, but we didn't have to drive far so we didn't care
• We knew the family that owned it - so it was fun to go there

A & W Rootbeer stand

• We NEVER went out to eat, so it was a real treat
• It was located across from the only Drive-In Movie theater, so we'd stop and get coneys and root beer and take it to the drive-in.  The traumatic part was my dad took 1 bite out of every coney before passing them out.  I still haven't recovered from that!

The small business

• This was were Ron and I had our first date - following a football game we picked up some food from it when it used to be a restaurant or sub-place.

The blue house

• Back in 'the day' there weren't very many places that sold silk flowers except the Florists, and this house sold silk flower kits to make.
• I made all the bouquets, and flower decorations used at our wedding.

 It was good to drive around and remember, to appreciate how hard our parents worked.  The town has changed a whole lot, but to me it will always hold many fond memories of public swimming pools, and summer soft ball games - simple pleasures like sipping root beer and making new friends.

And now I find myself back in Ashland just a day later, up in the hospital with a momma who is really sick.

How quickly things change ...