Friday 5 - Legend and Lore

TGIF amirite?  This looks like a fun Friday 5,  so I'm going to give it a go.  Feel free to play along in comments or in your blog.  You, too, can become the stuff of legend!

1. Most neighborhoods have at least one place that’s (according to lore) haunted. What the haunted place in your neighborhood (or in the neighborhood where you grew up), and what’s the story?  I don't know any haunted places where I live now.  However, when we first moved to Glendora in 1988, we lived in a house in an older neighbohood with lots of homes built in the early part of the century.  This one huge place needed paint and always looked deserted, although it was clear someone lived there.  The neighborhood kids all said it was a haunted house, mostly because of how it looked.  They had a story about how someone had hung himself in the carriage house located at the back of the property.  When I took my little boys for walks around the block, they would always run quickly past that house in nervous excitment. 


2. Most neighborhoods have at least one place where some kid (according to legend) did something daring, dangerous, and most likely stupid. What’s the place in your neighborhood (or in the neighborhood where you grew up), and what’s the story?  Where I grew up, we were right near a little range of wilderness hills. One was called Pee Hill.  Honestly, I don't know where it got the name Pee Hill, but I have my theories.  Anyway, the main thing about it though, was that it was really, high and steeply inclined, but pretty smooth.  Kids always went up there with cardboard and took wild rides down.  I am pretty sure there were quite a few broken arms associated with Pee Hill. 

3. Most neighborhoods have some lame building (like a bank or a gas station) where there used to be something much, much cooler. What’s the place in your neighborhood (or in the neighborhood where you grew up), and what’s the story?  I can't think of anything that was ever much, much cooler near anyplace I've ever lived :-)  The closest thing I can think of is where I live now...there is this building, and I actually don't know it's original purpose.  It looks like a ski lodge or something, which it clearly is not nor ever was.  Anyway, for awhile it was a kind of knock off Chuck E. Cheese type of restaurant.  It was weird though, because it was all chopped up into a little warren of rooms.  Kids were everywhere and it was hard to keep track of yours, because of all the different places they could be stashed.  It was kind of cool, but it didn't last long.  It became, at one point, a gym of some sort.  Again it was brief...I don't think it is occupied now.

4. In most neighborhoods of our youths, there are a few places that almost always cause us to say, “That’s the place where I _________.” What’s one such place in the neighborhood where you grew up, and what’s the story?   Where I grew up there was ALWAYS something that everyone did at Rimgrove Park.  You went to preschool there, summer day camp, played on the toys, rolled down the grassy hill, walked your dog...when you were older it was yours after dark and you kissed your first boyfriend there, got drunk, got high, told secrets. 

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5. Where in the neighborhood where you grew up would you most likely run into someone today who knew you when you were a kid?  I think if I just went and walked down the street I grew up on (yo, Samgerry!) I would probably run into people who are still living there.  It is one of those places, because it is kind of poor, that people end up coming back to, to stay with their family...or they never leave.

Oh, I really enjoyed doing this one!  Brought back lots of memories, in a good way.  Have a legendary weekend!