Duff Drive

In addition to the seed and straw needed to put in a relatively large lawn, my father hired landscape architect John Gill to design and plant an extensive variety of trees and shrubbery, which grew into a well-coordinated family garden of colorful flowering plants and trees.

It was an amazing expense back then and his only significant extravagance (see above invoice). For ten years we had by far the best looking spread in the SE quarter of Ashland - Frederick Olmsted in the middle of Ohio. It is almost entirely gone now, as best I can tell only the three Norway Spruces and the Crimson Maple remain.

The basement seemed cavernous to me as a child. My father had installed the black floor tiles himself just after we moved in, reasoning that it would serve mostly as a play area. Because it was a walkout basement with large windows he went with the darkest color. Note the wooden clothes chute at the top of the chimney, and the studio couch. The studio couch could be converted into a bed, but it was worthless as a couch and uncomfortable as a bed. As cheap as they were they never wore out because nobody was stupid enough to sit or sleep on one. Our basement was totally open for most of the ten years we lived there, with six lights - five of which could only be turned on by reaching up and pulling down the chain. This meant groping around in the semi-darkness five times and then doing a circuit of the basement to turn each one off before going upstairs. Woe to the child who left a light burning in the basement. Toward the end my father put up peg board (painted yellow) around this area and a drop ceiling. It was a lot of work that achieved nothing other than to make it more difficult to move from one part of the basement to another and harder to find the light chains in the now pitch black areas in the unfinished portion.

My father in the back yard with tiny bushes and trees. The two houses in the background are still on Jackson; back then the Jeffersons lived in the one on the left and the Mitchell's on the right. That is my brother with his back to the camera and probably Craig Martin shielding his eyes from the sun.

My first bicycle, a new 20-inch Schwinn Speedster. Technically it was my second bicycle, it replaced the 24-inch beater Schwinn my father thought a six year old would be able to ride - a brief account of my exciting 14 hours of ownership can be found below and a more detailed account near the bottom of the 2013 section.

The bike is sitting in our driveway with the upper part of Duff Drive and some of Luray Drive in the background. Gaylord Miller and Bob Howell have not yet built their custom houses at the top of the hill, they had cherry picked the best (?) lots in this subdivision of spec homes, although I still think the four lots on our side of the street with walkout basements and a view of the east side of town are better.

Although mine had the old-style seat the curved support bars and longer front fender distinguished it from the slightly cheaper Tornado model.

At age six I was taught how to ride on a 16-inch Pixie with the training wheels removed by John Ivansic's little sister, when I wanted to stop I just dragged my feet. My father took my word on this new skill and soon came home with a used 24-inch bike with balloon tires and a big basket on the front. He released it at the top of the hill and watched as I rolled down to the bottom and then crashed it into a curb and a telephone pole because my feet were too short to reach the ground and I had never been shown how to use a brake. It was a terrifying moment for both of us. I had been afraid that if I said it was too big I would never get another one. His attempt to save money by skipping over the 20-inch earned a scolding from my mother.