After breakfast on Thursday, I decided to walk across town to my old house on Eddy Street.

1265 Eddy. It was part of a first time home owners project. There were six homes to be built, 3 each on two different streets. The future homeowners took part in the construction process.

I recall afternoons after school visiting the work sites where my mother was busy hammering nails and hoisting lumber.

After construction I lived in a big two-story home with a nice yard, a tree out back and my dog. I had my own room, we had a guest room for company.

A friend of my mother visiting from Canada stayed with us once. And another friend lived with us for a time in the guest room. She had a little one-eyed cat, I think it’s name was Fafnir.

I would ride my bicycle to Grant Street where I attended an alternative school program called ICE. It provided some classroom instruction for home schooled children. After graduating ICE, I attended the local high-school through my sophomore year. From then on I rode the bus most mornings, unless I slept in.

My mother worked at the nurse’s station at Jefferson hospital for a awhile but she couldn’t continue.

The housing was an inventive idea, but we couldn’t make the payments on the mortgage and sadly had to sell the home. We got very little after paying the bank back. After that we lived in a single-wide trailer outside of town on a gravel and dirt track named Hidden Trails Road.

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Continued in On Walkabout: Hidden Trails Road