Some years ago I posted here some of the boyhood stories I wrote about my brother Leon and I growing up on the streets of San Francisco.  Some of you may remember them.  This is the last chapter.

Me and Lee and Larkin Street...Epilogue

It has been over 7 decades since I left Larkin Street and ventured out into the world to make my own way.

My life took lots of twists and turns during it’s journey to where I am now.  Enough sorrow and grief to sharpen the good times and loves and joys.  I never had a job I didn’t like and never awoke in the morning dreading to go to work.  I raised a family and had a wife who stood by me for 60 years until she passed away.

My Larkin Street stories depict a rather carefree childhood with my brother, full of fun and lack of responsibility.

In a sense I have, at 90 years of age, returned to Larkin Street.  Although the street is now named West Country Club Road.  My brother is no longer here to share the carefree hours such as the ones we enjoyed on Larkin Street.  No home where Mom and Dad took care of us.

I now reside in  Peachtree Village and my neighborhood gang has been replaced by my neighbors, mostly women.  Lucky me!

Less responsibility than I had on Larkin Street and playtime isn’t quite the same with ball bats and footballs and mischief.  But I have returned to a life of carefree fun and no future to think about or prepare for.

Television every day with Gunsmoke available on two channels.  Dime Bingo two or three times a week.  A social hour with ice cream treats on Thursdays.  Poker on Friday evenings where we play for dimes and joke some and laugh a lot.  One of ladies and I play Scrabble almost every day.  And from time to time a game of Skip-Bo with the ladies..

Once a month the bus takes us to a local restaurant for lunch

We talk a lot about the old days when we grew up and when we started out on our independent lives away from Mom and Dad.  Like most of us I remember them with fondness.  For most of us those were the best of times.  For me it was Larkin Street and the city of San Franciso.  But what I have now ain’t bad either.

Noel

 

Noel,

As we say in the UK, it sounds like you now have a life of Riley.

I love reading your posts, good luck with everything .

All the Very Best Noel

Phil

He's nickle and diming the other residents ! 

Take care Noel

Great story Noel, i can feel it!
I guess we all have our own Larking street.

For the gang and me it was in the north of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Amsterdam was building completely new spatial residential areas with lots of green in the 60's there. Most people who moved there, like my parents, were young people with kids. So there always seemed to be a billion other kids on the streets to play with, cowboys and indians, hide and seek etc.
Needles to say when we grew up and got in our teens we became more mischievous...to say the least. Oh, the adventures we had there, in the 8 floor buildings still under construction (about the highest we had in Amsterdam back then) we climbed them illegally to the flat top just to sit there smoking and looking out over "our" part of the world, in the quicksand where several guys got stuck up to their waists and sinking deeper and deeper by the minute, and we just couldn't get them out, calling the firefighters and getting locked up for a day by the police to give us all a stark warning.
And it seems in my memory that the sun always shone back then, but that can't be, not in Amsterdam.

As Bob Dylan sings about his youth: 10,000 dollar at the drop of a hat...i'll give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.

All the best, Noel. You've earned it.

 

Bill W