Historical March 1995 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Having acted on impulse, in July 1994, I went on the RAGBRAI, the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, survived 517 miles and downright enjoyed it. Having acted alone, not riding with an organized group, and inspired by a fellow member/rider from Houston I’d met, I decided to write an article for the magazine of a social group I belong to, to see if I could find others to. join me in 1995.
The article was published in January 1995.
The neatest and most unexpected response of the 14 I’ve received so far, the reason for this article, is now the most amazing “small world” occurrence in my life.
I received a phone call January 8 from an elderly woman, Mrs. G., who said her son in Littleton, Colorado, had read my RAGBRAI article and sent it to her.
I thought, if he was interested in riding, why didn’t he contact me?
It turns out that Joel G. does some local biking and a coworker, JoeB., had shown him the article for that reason. Joel sent it to his mother because he thought he had indeed LIVED IN MY HOUSE until he was 5. (He’s now 40.) Mrs. G.’s parents owned my 2 family in the 6000 block of McPherson from 1933 to 1959.
I bought it in 1971 when real estate companies were attempting to blockbust the neighborhood; an idealistic but insane urban pioneer (at least to my parents’ upwardly mobile generation where making it meant getting out of the city). Mrs. G. attended Soldan High School from here, and after marriage, first her sisters and later her family, lived downstairs, while their parents remained upstairs (i.e., in my flat).
They moved to Olivette after her father died.
She must be in her late 70’s now.
She described room arrangements: that the wall between my study and a bedroom used to have an arch which her father walled up (so well I didn’t know) to create another bedroom; that he’d had the wooden pillar for the screened porches replaced by brick; that the woodwork and the front doors were beautiful; painted after they moved. I’ve restripped most of it. And, many other details about a house and a city neighborhood I’ve loved.
We talked for an hour.
Her son and I have been corresponding and I sent them copies of the Times with Joan Bender’s recollections of a time in the neighborhood they missed: Joel’s memory of the teenager “Bucky” who loved cars, led me to call Mrs. P., my former neighbor–we talk occasionally–now in her late 80s and in Clayton, to share the reminiscence of her nephew who has grown children of his own. Isn’t that a gas? ‘SMALL WORLD!”
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, March 1995.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1995_03.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
