73 Dexter Ave, 1964

by John Cardinal, December, 2006

This picture was taken in 1964. I am the 6 year old boy in jeans with hands on hips, glaring at the camera. My mother is talking to an unidentified man leaning on the Chevy. I think he's a tenant from downstairs, but I can't tell. The girl in the middle of the picture is my sister Ann Marie. I don't know the two other girls, the little girl near the car or the girl running away from the camera. I knew them then, of course, but memories fade.

One of the windows that was broken in the infamous golf ball incident in 1967 is just visible on the right-hand side of the picture. There is a railing outside the three-season porch on the second floor, and a sliver of the side window is visible.

The fence between the driveway and the sideyard was removed sometime between 1964 when this picture was taken and 1967. I think it was removed because it was life-threatening to kids playing basketball in our driveway. Sometime after this picture was taken, my father installed a metal screen over the window closest to the hoop because we were breaking that window so often.