31 Barton Road

The time is the summer of 1955. I was only four at the time we moved to 31 Barton Road. It was a low income housing tract intended for veterans and their families. As a kid I remember spending bucolic days playing on the communal driveway that the twenty two single floor three bedroom units on the spine we lived on. If needed, the chain across the street end could be moved and vehicles could drive up to your door. That was usually whenever someone was moving in or out. It was a different kind of place for my older brother and I. We moved from the lakeside to this city dwelling. My brother quickly made friends with all the boys in the neighborhood. I felt like the odd man out. There were very few girls my age around. I found myself mostly playing by myself. 

Then one day I met Leslie. She was one year younger than I, but that didn’t matter. Leslie and I began to spend all day together. It was nirvana. I at last had someone who enjoyed my company. Day after day was spent out on the grass next to her apartment playing with her dolls. Sometimes we were in my backyard. That was not so common because my baby sisters always wanted to play, too. I never really minded that, but Leslie was my best friend. Sometimes I didn’t want to share, but my Mom insisted on letting the babies join in. They always made such a mess of the toys that they played with. My dolls bore the tale well. I felt like they were constantly destroying my dolls. Leslie never seemed to mind. She was an only child. I envied that and she envied me with my three siblings.

Winters found us sledding down the hill from the A and P market. Sometimes on pieces of cardboard or whatever else was handy. When we tired of sledding we climbed up on the retaining wall behind Leslie’s apartment. One winter, we noticed trees on top of the apartments. Parents throughout the complex had placed the Christmas trees on the roof so that Santa could deliver the tree along with the presents. 

Other winter days found us ice skating on the pond in the woods behind our half of the complex. Those same woods in the summer would find most of the kids in the neighborhood tramping around exploring them or playing some sort of games amid the trees. Life was much simpler then.

In 1963 my family moved 3,000 miles west to California. Leslie and I tried for several years to keep up the friendship by writing letters. By the time we were in our late teens the letters stopped. Life marched on for me. High school brought new friends and new things to occupy my time. I mourned the loss of the friendship I had with Leslie.

Days became months. Months became years. Even the century changed. It is now spring of 2013 and I find myself once again in the town where I once lived. Fifty years have come and gone. I’m in town on business but decided that I could take some time to explore the city. The school that Leslie and I attended has been replaced with another school. It is no longer an elementary school. It is a high school. I drive in the direction that I hope is towards Barton road. The highway we walked over to and from school every day is still there but has grown from two lanes in each direction to six lanes in each direction. The small city I spent so many years in has blossomed into a megalopolis. I really didn’t expect to have anything remain the same. I wasn’t disappointed.

The A and P market is gone. It is replaced by a shopping mall. I didn’t even recognize the area because so much has changed. While I was driving around I wondered what had become of my friend Leslie. The hill was still there, but the woods were gone. They were replaced by a condominium complex. I tried as hard as I could on my own to find Barton Road. It, too, had been replaced.

By now my rental car was nearly out of gas so I pulled into a filling station. The young man behind the counter must have realized I was from out of town. He asked if I was lost. I explained to him that I was trying to find a fifty plus year old apartment complex that was on Barton Road. He just smiled and took my cash for the gas I was about to buy. I went out and filled the tank and then returned to collect my change.

Unknown to me, he had called his grandmother and asked her if she knew where Barton Road was located. She did and gave him directions. He relayed them to me explaining that he remembered his grandmother talking about that road at their last family gathering and that the road now has a new name. I thanked him for the directions and left him a healthy tip for his effort and headed out to follow his directions.

I had gotten myself so turned around that I was across town when I got the gas. A short drive down the highway, take the proper exit and make all the turns that he gave me. In about a half hour I was on the street that had at one time been named Barton Road. 

As I round the corner I was remembering the buildings that I had at one time lived in. Each spine had eleven apartments on each side of it. The one my parents had rented was in the middle of the second spine. Leslie lived at the far end of the first spine. Each apartment had at one time a service yard that was enclosed by a cinder block wall and chain link fence separating the yards for each tenant’s use. We had closelines for drying laundry. Each unit was separated by cinder block walls, too. They were painted olive green on the outside with brown trim. What I saw was quite different from what I remembered.

The spines had been demolished. In their place were rows of apartments that had been angled on the diagonal. Instead of eleven units on each side, there were only eight units per row. The space between the rows was greater than what I remembered because one half of each spine no longer existed. My curiosity was getting the better of me and I sought out the complex’s management office. I thought I would see if there were any vacancies and maybe get a tour of one of them. Inside the office is an elderly woman sitting behind the desk, She looks up and asks if she can help me. I explain to her that I once lived in the complex and moved out about fifty years ago. That seemed to get her undivided attention. It was at that time that I noticed her nametag. It identified her as Leslie. I just had to know, was this the same Leslie that I had known so many years ago? I asked her if she went to Fiske Elementary in the 1950’s. She did, so I asked her if she lived on Barton Road. She did. She asked me why I was asking about her childhood. I then said, “Les...it’s me!” and I pointed to the birthmark on my right cheek. It took her a few moments to realize who was sitting across her desk from her...her best friend from her childhood. And the rest, they say, is history.