Dan asked over on Andrews site if that was me in my avatar.

Definitely is. Here's the rest of the picture. Looks like something right out of the 1930's. It's 1960, but the neighborhood in Chicago near 22nd and Western was kind of stuck in the past. I'm 4 and my brother is 3. I haven't really changed much. Still cut my hair like that and wear the same type of coat and pants. Add a mustache and it's done.



Everyone in my family thinks those are palms from palm Sunday that my brother is holding. They're actually from what we called weed trees. They grew all over the place, especially the alleys. Tree of Heaven I think is their real name.

You take off one of the things that all the leaves are growing from, strip off the leaves and you have a whip.

We used to whip the crap out of each other with these things.

This was before I developed a crooked smile. Something that happened when I was about 17 and my brother punched me in the mouth while playing basketball. Seemed to have damaged something cause now I have that crooked smile. Which is why I grew a mustache pretty much right out of high school.

I got back at him. I hit him in the ear pitching a baseball at his head and he ducked. Took 4 stitches to put the top part of his ear back against his head.

Very Cool, i was also wondering if that was you in the picture

When this was taken we were living two doors down in a 400 square foot attic apartment with 5 people.
When I was 7 my little sister was born and we actually moved into the apartment where this picture was taken.
A little over 500 square feet, my parents could quit sleeping on a hide a bed in the living room, but their new bedroom was an enclosed, unheated back porch. My older sister actually got a bedroom she had to share with the little one, instead of sleeping in a large walk in closet like the other place. I never had a backyard, but in this place we lived on the second floor above an old store front that was converted to an apartment. My backyard became the roof of the store below us, which extended further back. Best yard I ever had. You could jump from the back stairs and porch that led down to the alley onto the flat roof of the garage.

Man, we were living high on the hog then.

Then we moved to the southwest side when I was 11. 63rd and Austin. A real house, with a front lawn and a back yard.

I hated it.

Nice! That's some serious old-school.

Thanks for the history lesson.

That was a time when a group of 9 year olds could hop on the "L", go downtown for the day, without adults, and think nothing of it.

Pretty neat!

Funny how things change.

Growing up in the Burbs I pretty much had free reign to go wherever I wanted...usually to the small patches of woods by the Izaak Walton League or down by the crick.

Nowadays I have a hard time letting my 13 yr old ride her bike a few blocks to her friends house and my 8 yr old isn't allowed out of my sight.

Darth wrote:Funny how things change.

Growing up in the Burbs I pretty much had free reign to go wherever I wanted...usually to the small patches of woods by the Izaak Walton League or down by the crick.

Nowadays I have a hard time letting my 13 yr old ride her bike a few blocks to her friends house and my 8 yr old isn't allowed out of my sight.

Dude!! That's exactly how I feel!!! LOL

Darth wrote:Funny how things change.

Growing up in the Burbs I pretty much had free reign to go wherever I wanted...usually to the small patches of woods by the Izaak Walton League or down by the crick.

Nowadays I have a hard time letting my 13 yr old ride her bike a few blocks to her friends house and my 8 yr old isn't allowed out of my sight.

I try to still give my girls that sense of freedom. I wonder if my parents worried as much as I do. I don't think they did. As long as we came back relatively intact, I don't recall ever hearing about it.

Then my 14 year old rolled an ATV a couple of months ago and came up laughing. I just told her "Now you know what not to do next time." Gotta learn your limits.