The Road to Here

Life

Mar 23

A Google Streetview timeline of all the places I’ve ever lived.

1961–1966 981 Meadow Drive, Battle Creek, Michigan

The house I was born in. I believe it was newly-built when my parents bought it. It was painted white back then, with black shutters. A good old fashioned split-level ranch. We had a black-and-white TV, too.

1966–1970 3414 Bevann Drive, Farmers’ Branch, Texas

Like so many in the lates ’60s, my family left the Rust Belt of Michigan to head for the warm weather and abundant opportunity in the Sun Belt. We arrived in suburban Dallas in 1966. We briefly lived in a rental nearby while this beauty was being built. It is an attractive house, but there were several almost exact duplicates of this and the other models spread throughout the neighborhood. (I don’t know who “Bevann” was).

1970–1980 6038 Woodland Drive, Dallas, Texas.

This is not the McMansion I grew up in. My house — and so many others in the Preston Hollow neighborhood — have been bulldozed and replaced by much bigger houses as property values skyrocketed over the past 20 years.

1980–1981 Twin Towers dormitory, Ole Miss, Oxford, Mississippi

My freshman year at Ole Miss was spent in the tower on the right. My roommate was a guy from Coral Gables. He seemed normal for the first few months, but by the end of the year, he had turned into a Timothy McVeigh-type. I would not be surprised at all if he is currently incarcerated.

On non-football weekends and during the winter, this was one of the loneliest places you could ever imagine.

1981-1982 554 Hathorn Road, Oxford, Mississippi.

Known as the “Roundhouse Apartments” (guess why). I shared this off-campus luxury villa (not) with my brother, CO, for a year.

1982–1984 The Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house, Ole Miss, Oxford, Mississippi

Yep, I was a frat boy. Everybody at this school was. I have a lot of great memories there, along with a few not-so-great ones. There’s probably a future post about this chapter of my life.

Summer, 1983 3600 Southwood Road, Memphis, Tennessee

I interned that summer at the (now-defunct) Memphis Press-Scimitar, the city’s evening newspaper. This accommodation came about thanks to my friend, Allison Rudin, whom I had met at a sorority party at SMU the year before. She invited me to stay with her and her Dad in Memphis for the summer.

It didn’t end well.

Summer, 1984 1337 Clinch Avenue, Knoxville, Tennessee

My first job after college started as an internship. The company, 13-30 Corporation (later Whittle Communications), kept a couple of intern apartments in this building. I had some great roommates and made some life-long friendships that year. My first year salary: $12,000/year.

1984–1985 1000 Thompson Place, Knoxville, Tennessee

My first real home as an adult was a small studio apartment in this house. My place faced the back and shared parking with a Pentecostal church. That church got loud a few nights every week, and featured snake-handling and speaking in tongues.

1985–1986 701 Cedar Lane, Knoxville, Tennessee

My last year in Knoxville was spent at this luxurious complex. It was everything you’d imagine ’80s apartment complex living would be: singles, pool parties. All the things. I had a pretty cool party there myself once.

1986-1987 Beauregard Drive @ Bandera Avenue, Dallas, Texas

Tired of my low wages and ready for a new challenge, I took a job at my hometown newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, as a designer for the Sunday magazine. I also doubled my salary from my previous job, raking in $30k/year. Sweet.

This area, known as Preston Hollow, was known for its blocks of pre-war apartment buildings. You know the type: red brick with white wood trim, two-story buildings, usually filled with old people. They’re all gone now, replaced by modern condos. This was a very desirable neighborhood and people are willing to pay tons of dough to live there.

Not only is my building gone, but so is the street. Guess they didn’t need that anymore either.

1987-1988 7474 Skillman Street, Dallas, Texas

This is where I carried my bride across the threshold. One of a thousand condo complexes in Dallas’ Lakewood neighborhood, we rented this a few months before getting married, and stayed until I accepted a big, new job in …

1988 257 West Brown Street, Birmingham, Michigan

… Detroit! I was determined to be a full-on Art Director by the age of 25. And a few months after that birthday, I was offered that job title — and a lot of creative freedom — at the Detroit Free Press. Just months after setting up home in Dallas, my new wife and I were off to the Great White North. Literally. We pulled into town in the middle of a February blizzard. The windows, doors, locks, and wiper fluid (water, as we do in the south) on my car completely froze.

We found this apartment in Birmingham, about 20 miles from my downtown Detroit office. Memories from this place include hearing, on hot summer nights, the neighbors engaged in enthusiastic, vocal, even narrative, sex. “Did she just say ‘Hit me!’???”

1988-1989 451 North Eton Street, Birmingham, Michigan

We later relocated across Woodward Avenue to this more quiet, pre-war apartment. I was living here when I began a friendship with my long-time mentor, Hans Teensma. Hans changed my life (more on that later), which led us to New England in the summer of 1989.