<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How many places have you called \u2018home\u2019? \u00a0This popped in my head when I found my old American Federation of Musicians Local 219 card in one of my high school yearbooks. \u00a0I was sixteen in 1970 when Mike, Gene, and I applied for membership the summer before we started playing paying band jobs as The Twig. \u00a0The AF of M president at that time, John Majors, lived on Kaye Street two houses west of the first house I remember living in when we arrived in Marquette circa 1956. \u00a0Two of the questions on the application asked, \u201cWhere did you reside before applying for membership?\u201d and \u201cWere you a member of AF of M at your previous address and if not, why not?\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0Mike had picked up the application forms and Majors told him to bring them by when they were ready. As he scanned the information on our forms, he noted that Mike also lived on Kaye Street, albeit on the \u201cother end\u201d east of Front Street. \u00a0When he noticed my previous address, he asked me, \u201cWhich house did you live in on Kaye Street?\u201d so I pointed a couple of doors down and said, \u201cBut that was when I was 3 or 4 years old, which is also why I didn\u2019t join the AF of M when we lived there.\u201d \u00a0\u201cRight,\u201d he said, \u201cYou probably weren\u2019t gigging back then.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Being born into a State Trooper\u2019s family in the 1940s and 1950s was not much different that being an Army brat or a P.K. (preacher\u2019s kid). \u00a0Back in those days, one expected to be moved around a few times before getting to set down more permanent roots. After doing a couple of transfers between posts in Lower Michigan, Dad was stationed at the L\u2019Anse Post. \u00a0I was born in 1953 and a year later he was transferred to Manistique and then to Marquette in 1955. Understandably, I don\u2019t remember anything about our living arrangements in L\u2019Anse or Manistique. My earliest remembrances all start with the house on Kaye Street in Marquette. \u00a0We lived a short block from the Northern Michigan University campus just around the corner from the Forrest Roberts Theater. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the earliest things I remember from our Kaye Street house was the coal chute. \u00a0Long after we moved from that house, Mom used to grumble about how much she hated the automatic feeder on the coal furnace. \u00a0When it would jam up, she would have to go down and poke and prod at the stuck chunks until it started feeding again. Standing on a bed looking out the side window as the truck poured coal through the chute door into the bin in the basement was a big event. \u00a0Perhaps that is why I have always had a fascination for big trucks and construction vehicles. For obvious reasons, \u201cStay out of the coal bin\u201d was the law of the land for us.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Everytime I look in the mirror, I have a visible reminder of another Kaye Street memory. \u00a0It has faded some, but I have a scar in the middle of my forehead from my first two stitches. \u00a0The next door neighbor girl and I were playing outside one day and for some reason, she lobbed a brick my way. \u00a0When my brother came home from school, he found me standing in the driveway with blood and tears running down my face. \u00a0For many years, anytime I got bonked in the noggin a very noticeable goose egg would form in the middle of my forehead. I was half convinced that one day it would sprout into a unicorn like horn. \u00a0I don\u2019t even remember her name, but when I learned that her father had gone to work for the Green Bay Packers, I used to kid that she probably could have played linebacker for them (or with her arm, maybe quarterback)!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At age three going on four, I wasn\u2019t old enough to be the \u2018helper\u2019 yet, but I remember being a key \u2018watcher\u2019 when my dad set about doing home improvement projects. \u00a0The first one I remember was building a garage set back just behind the house. I may not have helped pound a nail or set a cement block then, but that didn\u2019t keep me from playing in the work area. \u00a0The other major project I remember from Kaye Street was the fieldstone fireplace dad built in the basement. My memory banks fail to recall if he was the prime builder on this project or if he hired a mason and assisted him, but I do recall hauling the rocks. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t so much made of \u2018fieldstone\u2019 as it was really made from \u2018lake stone\u2019 we gathered from a beach on M-28 between Marquette and Munising. Lake stones had been smoothed by water and wave action and when a beach is lined with them, they act as a natural rip-rap that makes the beach very stable. \u00a0I distinctly remember playing on the beach when dad was loading rocks and maybe helping throw a few smaller ones off the truck when we got home. What pops to mind most vividly is the windy ride in the pick up box nestled between the load of rounded rocks and the cab of the truck.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During the summer of 1974, I worked at NMU\u2019s Field Station at Cusino Lake which is located some miles east of Munising and a bit south of Pictured Rocks. \u00a0Early in the season I had one weekend when I didn\u2019t have to stay at the station, so I hopped a ride back to Marquette on a Friday night so I could bring my truck back out on Monday morning (I had to drive out in a university owned vehicle with supplies when we first opened things up). \u00a0I left bright and early Monday to get back for my 9 AM Field Geography class. Not too far beyond Rock River, I passed a car that was stuck in beach sand on the lake side, just off the highway. There was a young man trying to push while his wife tried to rock the car but they were buried up to the hubcaps. \u00a0I did a u-turn and went back to see if I could help but no amount of shoveling or pushing gained us enough traction on the slippery beach sand. The man mentioned he had some clothesline in the trunk but I knew that wouldn\u2019t work. They had a baby and another young child with them and at 8:00 AM, none of them were enjoying this little tourist adventure. \u00a0I took the father down the road to a restaurant where he was able to call a wrecker and then deposited him back with his family to wait. Before departing myself, I took a little walk down to the water\u2019s edge as I had driven by this spot numerous times but had never pulled over to take in the view. It dawned on me immediately that I had been here before: \u00a0sixteen years earlier gathering rocks for dad\u2019s fireplace project. My NMU advisor, professor, field station boss, and Norway Avenue neighbor Pat Farrell was angry when I arrived an hour plus change late for class. He cooled down quite a bit after the delay was explained, commenting, \u201cTypical Yooper Finn – driving around looking for someone to help.\u201d Finns never failed to perplex poor Pat.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Having a fireplace in the basement became an unending source of fun. \u00a0My brother and I had a great time making various primitive wooden structures in the fireplace just to burn them down. \u00a0Dad\u2019s woodshop had plenty of scrap wood so as long as we didn\u2019t burn the house down or set ourselves on fire, dad was okay with it. \u00a0We spent a lot of time playing with cap guns so we also investigated using the tiny dots of black powder used in the cap guns as fuses or igniters. \u00a0The basement would at times have the perpetual smell of burned cap gun powder and a layer of haze drifting in the air. I had gotten a little metal fire truck with a black rubber pump ball in the center that allowed me to suck up a glass full of water and then squirt it out the hose using the same pump ball. \u00a0Thus began my fireman phase: Ron would light one of his little structures on fire and I would wheel in with my firetruck and try to put it out. The fire truck and the burning game was one thing I remember carrying over to our new house but the fireplace there was in the living room. Mom would only allow so much blue smoke in her living room before chasing us outside. \u00a0Dad just said, \u201cWhatever you do, don\u2019t spray any water on the metal fireplace liner if there is a regular fire burning – if you do and it cracks, you will find how much work it will be to take apart and repair a fireplace.\u201d I took this to mean it would be more work than just building one! All of that burning fun and neither of us ended up to be an arsonist or fireman.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There were other interesting things about the Kaye Street neighborhood that kept us busy. \u00a0There were quite a few empty lots on both sides of the street and on the south side of Fair Avenue which was the next street to the north of Kaye Street. \u00a0Marquette was expanding to the west so empty lots meant new construction. For us kids, new construction meant \u2018temporary playground\u2019 as soon as the day\u2019s work ended. \u00a0If it wasn\u2019t piles of sand to dig in, it was piles of bricks or lumber to climb on. We were mildly disappointed when the new homes were done, but there were always more being built. \u00a0Finished homes also meant new neighbors and in this growing part of town, that also mean new kids to play with.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A block to the east of our house, one crossed North Seventh Street. \u00a0There was a cedar hedge there that ringed a bowl-like practice field just behind the Don Bottom University Center. \u00a0NMU\u2019s football team practiced there and we spent many days alternately playing hide and seek in the hedge and watching the team practice. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I have no recollection what prompted mom and dad\u2019s decision to build a new house on what would become the corner of Norway Avenue and Center Street. \u00a0I only remember occasional trips to the building site and a carpenter that was doing the building with assistance from dad. The area was so new to development that the one block of street between our new house and Whitman Elementary School hadn\u2019t even been cleared yet. \u00a0We hadn\u2019t been on Kaye Street long enough that I was sad to be moving, but I remember my sister was quite upset that she would be farther from her friends. My folks pointed out that we were moving exactly two blocks west and three blocks north for a grand sum total of five blocks and that she and her friends would still be going to Whitman School together. \u00a0As with all moves, this one wasn\u2019t devoid of a little unplanned drama.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The folks put the Kaye Street house for sale before the Norway Avenue house was completed and it sold almost immediately. \u00a0Delays in the construction of the new house ran about six months behind but the new owners of the Kaye Street house weren\u2019t swayed. \u00a0They had a closing date and expected us to be gone by then. This is when I lived what my wife refers to as my \u2018Prince Kenny\u2019 days. When we were first dating, I mentioned that I had lived in a castle for six months while our new house was being built. \u00a0She had her doubts until I finally found a picture of the Old Castle Brewery that was located across the street from where the current Jilbert Dairy facility now stands. We rented the old office building turned rental unit that was built from sandstone replete with the typical turret block roofline found in medieval castles. \u00a0Part of the main brewery building was still standing (and it had an actual castle turret that towered several stories high) and was being used by the Clairmont Trucking company as a warehouse. The larger brewery building is gone now, but the old castle house is still there, now housing a business instead of serving as a rental property.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There were adventures at the castle house (like swimming in the ditches when it rained and dodging bumble bees along the garden path), but I don\u2019t remember anything about the actual move to Norway Avenue. \u00a0I suspect that it was done a few pieces at a time as the cost of a moving van to transport our worldly goods barely two miles over Lincoln Street hill would not have made sense. State Troopers were also famous for mounting \u2018moving parties\u2019 so I suspect there was plenty of help available when the time came. \u00a0Very few things about the Norway Avenue move pop in my head so I also suspect while the final move was taking place, we kids were out and about exploring the new neighborhood. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I began kindergarten in the fall of 1958, so I had the run of the joint for most of a year before I had to start school. \u00a0Not only was it exciting to have a new house, we were only the second house on the block and we got to watch seven new homes and families join the the neighborhood over the years. \u00a0The next fifteen years living on Norway Avenue were full of fun and adventures, but that will have to be a tale for another day. I still like to drive through the old neighborhood once in a while and remember what an exciting time it was to watch west Marquette and the western campus of NMU grow. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Okay, so I didn’t live in a council flat and I am not British . . . but is there a better HOUSE song than Suggs and Madness served up?\u00a0 I think not!