Warming Up - Exercise 9

I’m from Minnesota

My name is Sandra, and I come from Minnesota.  I think that is the simplest way to begin my story because I’ve lived in enough different places to know that places become significant characters in my life. 

One of my most important places in my life is Dudrey Court, a two-block long street, spanning 3^rd to 5^thAvenue South, in my hometown.  It was at the time one of only two streets in town with a name instead of being numbered.  

But though Dudrey Court was short in length, and therefore small in stature, it played an enormous part in my life.

You see, people who live on Dudrey Court don’t really ever move away.  Take my family, for example.  My parent's first house was 307 Dudrey Court, a two-bedroom bungalow.  My parents had always planned to have five children, and Dad turned the bungalow into a three-bedroom story-and-a-half by converting the unfinished attic into a third bedroom when there were four of us.  That meant Mom and Dad had a bedroom, the two boys had a bedroom and we two girls had a bedroom.  And once the planned fifth baby got too big to remain in a crib in my parent’s room, they planned to put bunk beds into one of the rooms to accommodate the third boy or girl.  But my parents’ plan to have five children collided with the reality of my two youngest brothers arriving a month early as unexpected twins.

Twins complicate things.  My parents realized neither bedroom was big enough for four children.  And there wasn’t enough room on the small lot to expand the house.  In fact, none of the houses on Dudrey Court in those days had more than three bedrooms, but the houses on the east side sat on bigger lots.  So when the family in 312 Dudrey Court put their house on the market, my dad bought it, knowing he could add bedrooms at the back of the house.  And “voila.”  Our previous “across-the-street” neighbors, the Simonitsches, became our new “next-door” neighbors.  And our former “next-door” neighbors, the Colemans, became our new “across-the-street” neighbors. 

Since then, three other families have moved from small to larger houses on the street, or vice versa, as family sizes increased or decreased.  And families in those days, in that place, generally did increase.  The Simonitsches had eight children, spaced so that there was one of them corresponding in age to each of our six kids.  Margaret was my age -- and therefore my best friend.  The Colemans had four children, including twins a year older than my twin brothers; their oldest, Steve, was the same age as my brother Wayne, making it a virtually certainty that they would become best friends. 

Because Dudrey Court was so short, it wasn’t on the route to get anywhere.  As a result, it was a safe playground.  We played our version of baseball in the street. When we played kick-the-can or hide-and-go-seek, we set the goal in the middle of the street.  One of Mr. Carlson’s driveways had enough of a slope on it that we used it to launch ourselves on skates into the street.  So long as we stayed away from the avenues, we were safe. Perhaps because the street was our playground, we were referred to by outsiders as “the Dudrey Court Gang.”

Occasionally a family had to move from the neighborhood.  Our next-door neighbors, the Simonitsches, moved to Wisconsin Dells when Mr. Simonitsch changed jobs. Their oldest daughter, Margaret, had completed her freshman year of college in town, so the family agreed she would remain in the finished basement apartment of the house to complete college.  They rented the rest of the house to a young couple. Margaret asked me if I would like to share the apartment, rent-free, as she wasn’t sure she wanted to live entirely on her own after having been surrounded by so many siblings. But even though my parents could have kept nearly as close a watch on my activities by just looking out the dining room window into the basement window next door, they wouldn’t allow it! I have often thought that my apparent wanderlust may have started then – as a way to get even with my parents for not allowing me to move out of their house.

In August 1969, I finally did move away from Dudrey Court – at least I moved away physically. But when Margaret Simonitsch’s mother Mary passed away in a small town in Wisconsin a few years ago, the Dudrey Court gang reunited online, in spirit, as we mourned together the passing of one of Dudrey Court’s matriarchs, even though more than forty years had passed since she moved from the neighborhood. Then when my brother Brian died, the Dudrey Court gang reunited at his funeral in person. And this summer, many of us gathered for a picnic - just for the pleasure of seeing one another.

Dudrey Court is still a character in my life.  It always will be.