Hoover forever
Monday, March 19, 2007, 7:56 PM

I was going to write about something else entirely, but when I Googled highway 27 in Fort Wayne, I came across Hoover Street. This is where I grew up.

I sat at my computer, staring at the satellite image of my old stomping grounds and I started remembering stuff. Some of the best times I remember happened on my blue and white bike cruising around the parking lot that surrounded the pool and club house. A bunch of us would play Village. We had to obey the red lights (whoever was standing at the corners of the parking lots wearing the red t-shirt), we were often pulled over by the cops (whoever was wearing the sun glasses) for running those red lights, and we had to pick up the little kids from school (they rode on the handlebar of our bikes). Ah, good times, good times.

A bunch of us held a play once at the end of the building on the left. We wrote it, staged it, then acted it out. I forget what the play was called, but the highlight was the candy we threw at our audience.

It looks like the playground is gone, which is a shame. I remember tying blankets from swing to swing, which created a cocoon for someone to get into. So...theoretically, one person could swing in the cocoon while two others swung on the swings. It was crazy fun.

And I remember when we were out-of-school-for-the-summer kids too young to go swimming by ourselves, so we'd stand outside the fenced area of the pool and try to catch some stranger's eye, the better to beg them to watch us swim. (I only remember one person ever falling for this scheme, but Oogie shot down that idea. She was such a mean, mean, mean mom.)


2 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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