Reminiscing…Back to the 1960s

What a great day to reminisce. My childhood friend, Sarah, and I took the day to visit the neighborhood we grew up, Bladensburg, MD. Or as we knew it, South Cheverly Forest. WOW! How small the houses are. They were so big when we were young.

We started up the street when I lived

Stopping so I could get a picture of my house.

As I’m snapping pictures, some blond haired lady comes out yelling and asking what were we doing taking pictures. It was Carolyn who lived 2 doors down from me.

SHE STILL LIVES THERE! Thank goodness we knew her or I think we might have been in trouble. She looked fierce LOL. She calmed down once we told her who we were and of course she remembered us. I didn’t have the nerve to ask her if she remembered how we used to taunt her so…..

Since no one lives in our house (we think it recently went to auction) we walked on up and around the back. The cement my dad poured to level our little swimming pool was still there!

Since there were no curtains on the kitchen window, we could peek in. They changed the old metal cabinets out for wood, the stove was missing and there were 2 refrigerators. Don’t know if they were changing the out or if they just needed 2 fridges. Carolyn said the inside looks like it did when we lived there. I don’t remember a tree planted in this location, but if it was, it certainly wasn’t that big.

As we walked up to see Murray’s old house,

I was reminiscing about our kickball games that we used to play in the street. Home plate was the utility plate in the middle of the street, first base was the curb crack next to the telephone pole, second base was the patch/hole in the middle of the street and third base was the curb crack opposite first base.

And the woods that we used to play in. Doubt that the kids play in the woods these days.

We walked by Hobar’s house Miller’s House

Breen’s house. It’s amazing that 10 kids and a mother-in-law lived in this house.

And last but not least on the houses, was Sarah’s house.

Looks like the owners are taking good care of her house. Some of the houses were well taken care of, while others needed a lot of work. We found this landscaping quite interesting.

We drove down the “third” street, but we weren’t sure which house belonged to the Goulets, Angers, Seeleys.

On our way over to area where the old Jr. High was, we passed by our favorite sleigh riding hill, known as “the three hills.”

Yep, we slid down the hill and right into the street. IF we had a lot of people and someone who had to share a sled, we would have a “lookout” for cars. Otherwise (which was most of the time) we just took our chances. It’s hard to believe that no one ever got hit by a car.

The Jr. High is now the Bladensburg Elementary School

As we rounded the corner, they were working on the “Christofane” house. Not sure if I spelled that correctly, but when we were growing up, a Mrs. Christofane used to live there and would let us pet her horses.

It is more commonly known as the Bostwick House, built in 1746 by Christopher Lowendes, a Merchant Shipbuilder, first postmaster, and prominent citizen of Bladensburg.

As we sat at the corner of 57th Avenue and Rt. 450 on our way to the High School, we noticed that our favorite building was torn down.

We called it the “WPGC” building because that’s where they used to broadcast from. It was our stopping point in the winter so that we could warm up on our way to school. (Back then we had to walk to school, don’t think kids do that anymore).

Seeing the new building they call Bladensburg Sr. High School was a depressing experience. They tore down our beautiful school and replaced it with something that looks like a jail.

We didn’t get to see everything we set out to see, so we’ll have to take another trip. Stay tuned for Reminiscing Part II.