My father was career Army and we moved every two years to wherever he'd been reassigned, so we kids didn't exactly grow up in any one neighborhood. :-/

Well it was a small block. Old Mr. M. next door went on to the "new" people when I was about 12. The previous "new" people had built a house on a hill where others had said it couldn't be done. Last I heard two of the houses (E and W) belong to the second generation now. The one on the corner has passed hands a few times since Mr. & Mrs. L.'s time. The Q's (S) only left about a dozen years ago, but I heard the house has changed hands twice since (I only knew about the once). Mrs. Q's (S) housewarming antherium is still doing fine after being repotted a couple of times. I'm not sure about the Q's (N). My folks and the "new" guy next door are still there. Does it count if our family never left (and no one else has until death or nursing home)? 'Course, I don't know the names of the new new people who don't seem to stay very long...

I grew up in a very small town...at that time, I knew them all...and I can still remember their names.....but can not remember the name of someone I just met LOL. I remember going to their houses to Christmas Carole, Trick or Treat etc., who made the best cookies, the older lady who always had banana bread hot out of oven. Since I am 74 now, very few still living and if they are, they are in a nursing home. Good memories.

I grew up in an apartment in Queens. We lived on the 3rd floor, and my friend Pat and her parents and four siblings lived directly above us. Our other best friend Carolyn lived on the 2nd floor. Howie, another good friend, lived down the hall.

My parents were close friends with the parents of my friends, and often socialized together. Carolyn, Pat, and I were inseparable. Today, the three of us are still in close touch, and I have lunch with Pat a few times a year. All the parents are gone, of course, but thanks to my dad, an avid photographer, my friends have a wonderful collection of family photos taken over the years.

Howie passed away some years ago, but I'm still occasionally in touch with his son. We've never met, but he's happy to receive the photos of his father and grandparents when I send them. I'm still scanning my dad's vast collection of negatives and slides.

Here's Howie. :-)

The first 12 years of my life we lived in a little house with great neighbors, the Bleirs on one side & the Veldas in the other. Mrs. Velda was a seamstress for a high end store & said she'd always make my first formal which she did when I was a Jr. bridesmaid for my cousin.

I looked up the current owners of the house & found the man on Facebook. He divorced & his ex-wife lives there. He completely fixed up the house, found the original gas lines for lights & the original brass street numbers. I got hold of all the old pictures of the house & sent them to him. I would have loved to go inside when I was up there last year but didn't.

Like phoggie, I grew up in a very small town. I didn't move away until I was 26yrs.old, and then only a few miles down the road. As a kid, everyone in the neighborhood seemed part of your family, other kids' parents' watched out for you, snitched to your parents if you were up to something, welcomed you into their homes, etc.

My mother grew up in the same town, she's still there at age 86, altho not in the same house. It's been torn down (was a log cabin, oldest in the village), then the house I grew up in, then a newer house when she remarried after my father's death. She can still recite the names of her own neighborhood famlies when she was a girl.

Many of my childhood friends and neighbors stayed and created lives there, some moved away. But also many moved back.

We lived in Mass. till I was 9.5 YO, then my dad was transfered to Ill. The first house I lived in burned to the ground when I was 5.5 YO. I sort of remember the neighbors across the way, not their name but what they looked like. I remember more the 40 acres of woods and fields that we use to play in.

The second house we only lived in 4 years before moving again. I use to remember all the neighbors names and which house was whose, there were only 5 because we all had 5 acres, but now after 55 years I have forgotten most of them.

The third house in central Illinois I remember the neighbors best because I was there till 25YO. Most are gone now, either have moved away or died. Some of the houses have had 3 or more owners in the last 40 years. My mom was one of the few who stayed till she was 92, our next door neighbor, Ruth, is still there at 90. The neighborhood and houses still pretty much looķ the same exçept in decline somewhat. It was one of best neighborhoods in the 50's and 60's. Not so much any more.

Well Jim, you did jog my memory , but not so much to that of my childhood, but to the years I lived about 2 blocks from the Mentor, Ohio line. That was from 1965 to 1975. It was a great place to live then. We go back to the old neighborhood every few years. Much has changed, as it probably has most everywhere in 45 years.

I grew up in the '40s and 50s in a tiny coal mining town in central PA. It has changed, but not for the better. Any business there in the '50s, 2 gas stations, 2 grocery stores, a small hotel, 2 bars, the post office and a fire station are all gone. The school building that served all 12 grades has been gone for 40 years. There was then and still is 4 churches. A social event at any one of the churches would be attended by just about everyone in town no matter the denomination.

I do remember all my neighbors and they all had a part in raising me and all the kids in the neighborhood. It really was like one big extended family growing up in such a small town. Most men in town worked in the mines and Moms where homemakers. We kids played all over from one end of town to the other and one house to the next. The Mom at the house where we were playing on any given day looked after us.

I attended the funerals of many of those neighbors over the years. I read the area newspaper online daily to keep up on everyone back there as well as the paper in Ohio in the area that we lived. The neighbors in Ohio were the ones who helped raise my kids just as my childhood neighbors did me. They too are special to me.

I could probably name a least a baker's dozen since we lived on a great suburban street and were there for many years growing up.

I grew up in a small town surrounded by Cincinnati. The primary residential section of the town was 5 blocks by 10 blocks. The neighbor on one side was Mr. Schram who had a massive cherry tree in his yard. On the other side was Mrs. Stansbury and her grown son who was a returned veteran (maybe). The son had a large German Shepard Dog, named Ivan, that would lunge and bark at the tall, solid privacy fence between our yards whenever we got near.

The next house was the Walden's followed by the Dover's, both of whom had children similar in age to my older brother and sister. The Walden's also had a Corgi-like dog named Tater-Tot, which is the best name ever for a Corgi.

At some point we moved from that house, to a different one waaay on the other side of town, almost 8 whole blocks away. Our father continued to live in that other house until 2011 or so.

In 2014 when my father was seriously ill, we also visited the old neighborhood. The mother of the Walden family was still in the same house, and her daughter lived in the house we originally lived in. We visited briefly and much of the our old house was exactly as we had left it, including the kitchen cabinets my father installed. Although everything seemed much smaller than I remembered it.

My first five years were in San Francisco and I can still remember the neighbors. Harold across the street,Glen (Ginko) on the right and Barbara, the tween who lived upstairs. Later they moved and Roger( younger than me) and his mother moved in. There was Paul, the man who rented the granny house in the back with his mother. I don't remember her name because I truly beleived she was a witch. Not a mean witch, a Russian fairy tale witch. LOL She used to call me the Little Bolshevik because I loved the color red and would throw a fit if my mother tried to dress me without it. My playmates were Phyllis and Marty from down the block and Craig and Larry from up the street. There were brothers (maybe 9 and 11 or so) who lived up the street who were sort of tagged delinquents. Vincent and Alan. My older brother told me they scared him but Alan would come and play with me on the front stairs and was was always sweet to me. I wonder if they landed in prison or became model citizens. Don't know their last name. I think of Alan as my first thug protector. ;-) An slightly older girl Susan lived up the street near Craig and Larry.

When we moved to the suburbs I started school and went to school with the same group of kids more or less for 8 to 13 years so I remember dozens. The girl I played with most moved away when I was around 9 and we just recently reunited on Facebook. I was a tomboy so the other kids I played with were boy, Larry across the street, Ronnie who a was a couple years older next door and sometimes Linda's brother Bobby who was my age. I took my first roller skating lessons at a rink with Evelyn who lived up the street and she had younger brother named Davy. 50's childhood, in and out of each others houses and yards and playing in the streets until dinner or the lights came on. Parents fed us snacks and lunch and kept an eye on one another's kids. There was no epidemic of food allergies or intolerance and the rare child that had an allergy was taught to take responsibility for it by their parents. What a concept.

Love reading your memories. I live on the street I grew up on. There were many large families. We had 7 kids, Wilson's next door had 10, Chauvin's and Schiller's had more than 10 kids each. Never lacking friends or someone to play with in my neighbourhood. We had the best hide and seek games. IDA drug store on the corner that carried lots of penny candy and roasted nuts and ice cream that came in cardboard type rolls. If you had a dime to spend you could fill up a small brown paper sack full of candy. Mr. Coyle was a jeweler, I used to think his daughter Marlene was a princess because she was so pretty. Mr. Sweet across the street would call me Anna Maria All Spaghetti. My Aunt and Uncle lived across the street, The Tompkins lived on the corner and they had a pool. Mr. Tompkins was a dry clearer and Mrs. Tompkins sold Tupperware and I remember their basement was filled with the colourful clear plastic bowls. McKinnon's lived directly across the street, Mrs. McKinnon always chastised us for sitting on the front porch because we would get piles haha. I never knew what that meant. I remember on the dining room table there was a shot glass for each family member with their daily vitamins and cod liver oil balls. Mr. Sweet used to make us fried balogna. Mr Peck used to whistle for his kids to come home, Wilson kids were hollered for by one of the older siblings starting from the oldest to the youngest. My Dad hollered mostly for my younger brother and I. I could hear him blocks away. Anne, Paul SUPPER! Kempson's lived across the street. Ma Kempson would always offer me a banana. She was a big woman who gave wonderful hugs. Bob was always working on cars. One son had been in jail so wasn't really talked about. Critchlow's also lived across the street, they didn't have kids but they had a big collie named King. Mr Critchlow was kind of scary but once I got older and got to know him he was a gentle soul. Mrs Critchlow used to give me a ride home from Brownie's when she would see me walking home. She just died a few years ago and was always a good friend. Mr Quenneville down the street would sit on the front porch in the morning and when he would see me walking down the street to go to work he would yell out "Anne, you're late, you are going to miss the bus" My best friends parents were my second families. Mr Moore would call me his adopted daughter, Mr. Drouillard would make us late night meals when he came home from work, he died when he was only 50, just a week after my Dad passed away. He told me I was going to be like my sisters and never get married. Yep, that came true. He used to reglue the soles on the bottom of my platform shoes in the 1970s. Mrs. Drouillard would play games with us, I still go with her daughter her Mom's house to play Canasta and she gives me jigsaw puzzles. She was a young Mother, just a couple of years older than my oldest sister. Her Father lived with them. He used to walk around the house and say Well, well, well. He didn't like many of Vickie's friends but he liked me. My other friend's Mother used to bake all the time and made the best butter tarts and pies, and ginger cookies. She was a good cook too and always invited me for holiday dinners or just any day dinner. Kathy, her Mom and I laughed a lot. Mrs. Wilson lost her husband when her 10th child was only 7 months old. She worked to provide for the family and little Mrs. Fields from the next street over became the Nanny and Housekeeper. We had one lady on the block who didn't like kids. She was always threatening to call the police when we played baseball on the empty lot or playing in the street. i remember all my neighbours fondly and was sad when most of them eventually moved away or died. There are only 2 of us now on the street who were here from the beginning. My closest friends to this day are the friends I grew up with, they are family.

Great childhood memories here. I grew up in a really small town in Indiana. We had tons of kids on our street. We played kick the can, hide and seek and baseball along with many other games. We had an outdoor theater just around the corner and we often took our sleeping bags and layed on the front hump with the speakers along side us. I am still in contact with several today. The girl that lived next door to us as small kids is the one that introduced me to my hubby 48 years ago. My brother lives on the street right behind my old home. We lived close to our school so we walked to school. We had a nice park within walking distance, too. We had a lake just out of town that we ice skated on each winter. I had a boyfriend that road his horse in town most Sunday's and we rode around the lake. One Sunday he was riding in and fell asleep on the horse. When he woke up he was back home.

We lived in a small house until I was 9 years old. We had an outhouse out by the alley. I hated going out there after dark. We moved the little house over into the lot across the drive up on big beams and built a new house with indoor plumbing. YEA! I remember it getting knocked over at Halloween time.

i still have contact with 10 of my classmates. We have our 50th year for graduating this year. I hope to go in June. Once married I moved a little over an hour away due to my husband working at a GM plant. We would go home often. Since my parents and two sisters have died we don't go anymore. My husband's family all live down here by us.

i can say I had a wonderful childhood. My dad was a truck driver for a large furniture factory so most of my childhood was with my Mom. He would leave on Sunday night and come home on Friday. We would get our baths and our Jammies on and we would drive to the Dairy Queen for ice cream. Then we would drop my dad off at his semi. I married at 20 and moved. As far as I know there is only one family still there. Great memories!!

When I was 5 my parents bought a house in a brand new subdivision that had been farmland in west-central Ohio. At that time my father was a construction worker who had helped build many of the homes, which were basically two different types--3 BR ranches with an attached garage, or 3BR split entries with an unfinished basement, and no garage. My father eventually added a garage to our split entry home, and finished the basement. By the time we moved from that house when I was 12, I had one of the basement rooms for my very own--such a wonder to have my own room, away from my three younger siblings.

We lived about mid-block, among many young families, and many kids. After we moved about 3 hours from 'the plat', as everyone referred to the neighborhood, several of the families came to visit us on numerous occasions. My late husband and I once took our kids back to see the house where I had lived, the park where I'd played, and the elementary school I'd attended. I can see by googling, that the school is now gone, but the house hasn't changed much. I kept in touch with one of my friends well into adulthood, but when I became busy with my own children, we lost touch.

I remember almost all of the neighbors on the street, even those that weren't friends, from walking or riding bikes past their houses on the way to school--one year the school was too small for all the students enrolled, so temporary schoolrooms were set up in several unfinished ranch houses on the other, newer, end of the plat. There were two school rooms in each house, with a bathroom and coatroom between them. Although we walked to school each day, we rode buses to the main school for lunch. After the 3-year-old school was enlarged to accommodate all of the students, those houses were remodeled into family homes. I even remember our old telephone number, because it's the first one I ever learned.

Our relaxed household was often the gathering place for the neighborhood kids, even the ones who were old enough to babysit us. No one had to take off his shoes when entering, or use a coaster for a drink. We had bonfires in the backyard and fireworks on the 4th of July--I don't know if either was legal back then, but no one ever reported us. They probably just shook their heads, and thought the 'briarhoppers' were at it again.

I have the other usual memories of childhood, but I can't think of that time without a tinge of sadness. It was during the Vietnam era, and news always traveled quickly--first when the neighbors' sons, and my schoolmates' older brothers, received the dreaded draft notices, and then, too often, the devastating news of loss of a young, promising life. Those memories can't be separated--they are all part of me.

Thank you, jim, for this thread.

My earliest memories are of the 4th floor 4 room apartment, with the outside loo. We had two bedrooms, the kitchen and living room. Housing was still scare, since WW2. Our building was across from the Catholic church, which we used a lot as a play ground. The building is now gone, and there is a parking lot.

Our next door neighbor was our principal, which explains why we never got in trouble at school. Herr Sarg. They had a son and a daughter, that moved away before we did... as they were older. Across the street was the Wolf family, and down the road was Mobius, which had a daughter in my class. Then there was the Glass family, which moved to the same area as us, after we had our house built at the edge of town.

There we had the Hassemers, with a boy and a girl the same age as my younger sister and brother. Next to them was the Materners, also a girl the same age. A few more houses down was our uncle, my mothers brother, with two girl cousins, and two houses from them was the Glass family.

At the other side a 18 family apartment house was built shortly after ours, and all the evacuees from the east were moved in. Lots of kids to play with.

I've been torn on posting to this thread because my emotions have been uncertain this week. My mom has dementia and although she doesn't have much to say, she understands everything you tell her. But, on occasion, she will have a day and talk nonstop, stuck in the past. She will still think we are living in the Panama Canal Zone and we need to get ready for the fish fry, or to camp at the beach, or any of those things we did on a regular basis in Panama. Sometimes I am so homesick but know I can never go back to a way of life that no longer exists. So, I'll post a few photos and maybe come back and tell a little bit about my childhood at a later date.

For any of you that have gone through the Canal, from Atlantic to Pacific, may have seen this lighthouse upon your approach to the Gatun locks. This is a before and after. My house was at the top of the hill, kind of behind the lighthouse. The lighthouse is still there, but my house is now gone.

Here's a better pic from a little different angle of one of my best friends, the Lighthouse. :) That's my house in the background.

Coco Solo Elementary School

i grew up in Maryland, in a suburb of Washington, DC. i remember a lot of my neighbors . Two boys my age lived on the street, and we hung out. i also babysat a lot, so i met neighbors that way.

i moved to California 40 years later. My parents sold the house and moved away. Just for fun, i tried to find the house online. Not only didn't the house exist anymore, but the whole zip code has disappeared. it made me sad that it wasn't there anymore, but i got over it.

Well, I bought my parents' house that I grew up in and lived there until I was 33 with most of the same neighbours so yeah, I remember them!

But from age birth to 5 we lived in another town. I still remember a couple of neighbours from that town.