Childhood Home

I grew up in a home on south Corona in Denver, just one block west of Washington Park.  Yesterday we rode the light rail from Lincoln Station near our apartment in Lone Tree to the Louisiana-Pearl station near that home.  We walked four blocks east to see the house.

Here I am, standing in front of the house, next to the present owners' concrete horse.

The present owner, Darrell, was sitting on the front porch and invited us to join him there.  He had met my parents at some point before he bought it.

Look at the quiet, shady street.  Who wouldn't want to grow up in a place like this?

Before walking down Corona, we walked through the alley between the houses on Corona and Ogden.  Many of the garages face this alley.  We are certainly glad we don't have to drive our big pickup down this alley and park it.

 We walked down to where I attended elementary school at McKinley.  At this corner I had served on the safety patrol.  We wore a white belt that included a shoulder strap.  We would stop the children wanting to cross the street until there was a break in the traffic, then we would go out into the street and stop any approaching cars.  Now there is a stop light with pedestrian crossing signals.

Here is the stone sign identifying the school, now McKinley-Thatcher Elementary.  Thatcher was another nearby school that closed and the students in the areas served by that school now attend this school.

The building I attended was old, 3-stories high.  It had no auditorium or lunchroom.  For assemblies, we sat in chairs in the hallway and the landing at one end of the hall, where the staircases to the third floor came down, provided the stage.  In the late 1950s Denver was booming.  New homes south of where I lived had families with children.  Before new schools could be built, those children were bussed to Mckinley.  They would bring a sack lunch, since there was not kitchen in the school to provide food.

This is what the current school look like.  I'm sure it provides many great amenities, but it doesn't have the history or great architecture of the place I attended.

This sign shows the school is an outstanding one.

Pearl Street is now a hip commercial area, it appears.  When I lived there, the building on the left was a drugstore.  We would stop there after school, sit on a stool at the soda fountain, and order a phosphate.  The building on the right was some sort of bar.  I have never been inside.

We had a good, memory-filled walk before getting back on the light rail to Lone Tree.