And to Think that I saw it on Glendale Avenue

Glendale Avenue is a quiet almost dead end type of street. You really would have to have a reason to be driving on it. It was kind of a strange area of Wheaton. The neighborhood had no direct connection to the rest of the city. The kids attended Glen Ellyn schools. We participated in the Glen Ellyn park district activities. Our address was even Glen Ellyn. Yet, we were in the city limits of Wheaton.

Glendale was a tree lined street that had hills on both ends and was only a block long. So, I really did walk to school uphill both ways!  Our simple ranch house was in the middle of the block in the valley of both hills. Thus, when it rained, we got water coming from both sides. Consequently, our yard flooded several times every summer, so did our basement.

The neighborhood streets were resurfaced in an unique way. They would spray the streets with a thick layer of tar, and then a truck, loaded with very small white stones, would spread the stones as it slowly went down the street. This leads me to one of the dumbest decisions of my childhood. My friend and I had this great idea of riding our bicycles through the tar. I am not sure why. It sounded cool. We mounted our bikes at top of the hill at the end of our street and took off. We instantly knew this was a bad idea as the tar kicked up from our tires and started spraying us. We only made it passed two houses when we decided to abandoned ship. We were already going pretty fast given the fact that we are going down a hill, so when we try to turn off the street onto a driveway, our tires slid out from underneath us. Did you know that black tar does not simply come off with a shower nor come out of clothes?  Did you know that you can slide really far on newly poured black tar? It was the summer, so we are wearing shorts. This leads me to one of the more embarrassing moments of my childhood as my mother had to help me clean the tar off my body including parts that are 'private'.  Have you ever heard of turpentine? Yep.

Being in the middle of the block with seven kids made us the focus of neighborhood activity. In the long run it made a great training ground for a youth minister. We played every conceivable large and small group game. We had the ability to adapt the rules of the game depending on how many kids showed up. We could play baseball with one person, two people, or more. There still is a strike zone painted on the back of my family house that my brother, the garbage disposal, still owns. You used it to play baseball by yourself. On the street in front of our house, was a sewer cover (first base) and a pot hole patch (second base) that we used to play a two man game that we called 'ground ball'. We played Capture the Flag, Bloody Murder, Kick the Can, Sardines, and every sport from baseball, to football, to softball, to basketball, and to hockey (in our basement). We had special rules depending on who showed up. We had yards that we used and yards that were 'off limits'.

Another unique feature of Glendale Avenue is the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad runs behind the houses. Between the houses and the railroad is the Prairie Path. These two features added another level of activity. Some of it was illegal. Between the Prairie Path and the railroad was a fairly wide ditch which was full of weeds. On the other side of the railroad ran College Avenue. During winter, if you were good enough, you could launch a snow ball over the railroad tracks, over a line of bushes and telephone wires and hit a car traveling on College Avenue. Of course, the ditch made a perfect hidden launching pad.

I don't recommend playing around railroad tracks. Yet, as children we spent a lot of time playing on the Prairie Path and around the railroad tracks. We did the typical activity of putting stuff on the tracks, and see what happens when the train runs over it. We threw rocks at empty box cars just to hear the loud sounds. We waved at train engineers and commuter trains. Yet, we also discovered something interesting. We discovered the switch on the tracks that causes the railroad gates to be activated. The switch was a good quarter of a mile away from the College Avenue crossing which meant perfect cover. We found metal strapping from the last time they replaced the railroad ties. It was just long enough to reach across the rails and make a connection. Yes! We were able to make the gate to momentarily go down.

The most eventful experience of my childhood was provided by the railroad. One night two train engineers thought it would be a great idea to have a race to Chicago. Two fully loaded freight trains traveling at a high rate of speed and heading for the sharpest curve on the line which was just a block from my house. One locomotive jumped the tracks and hit the lead locomotive from the other train. What a mess!!! Locomotives and rail cars spewed all over the tracks, streets, prairie path, and even some crashed into an apartment complex. Then, one railroad car was a tanker filled with pneumonia gas which was punctured in the crash. It spewed gas all over our neighborhood. Consequently, our neighborhood was evacuated. I ended up spending the night at my sister's friend's house. The site smelled of pneumonia for a long time. 

Glendale Avenue was an awesome street to grow up on. It was filled with children and great places to play. I learned a lot about friendships and having creative fun. I also learned what not to do. Dumb choices and the consequences that come with them. Like the time one of my brothers sprayed painted his name on a bunch of trees in our neighborhood. Really? Your first name? Grounded!! I even had my first evangelist moment in our sandbox as I tried to convince some neighborhood kids to become Catholic. All in all, there were a lot of great people and memories that could fill many blog posts.  
  
It reminds me of a story :
A little boy was so excited because his mom told him he is getting a baby brother. He repeated that to his teacher every day, when he came to school, “I’m getting a brother.”
One day his mom allowed him to feel the baby’s kicks in her belly.
The next day he came to school and didn’t say anything to his teacher, so the teacher asked him, what happened to his brother.
He replied, “I think she ate him. "