Family Friends

Category: Friend House

Dot and Bill Swinburne (and their children Kent and Patti) moved to their house on 17th Avenue and 32nd Street in 1950, about a year before my parents. Their house was the exact model of ours (except reversed). Dot and Bill and Annie and Alf Pettersen were fast friends for almost 50 years. Their daughter Patti and I continue the "fast friends" tradition to this day. Patti remembers scurrying up the alley behind their house to my house one day in March, 1953 to see the new baby- that was me! We've been scurrying back and forth between our houses ever since!The houses on that block (the Swinburne's house included)were torn down about ten years ago to make space for a strip mall. A Dry Cleaners now resides on the Swinburne's lot. Reminds me of Joni Mitchell's sentiments from her song "Big Yellow Taxi":
"Dont it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot"