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It was 1965 and we moved back to Fairfield. Initially we rented a house in Forest Hills. My Dad was building a house in a new subdivision called Fair Oaks. I don’t recall a whole lot about that house but I do remember it was set on a hill. Behind me lived a girl named Karen Smith. We didn’t live there very long since the house was ready fairly quickly.

In 1965 there was still segregation going on and the next four years I went to school with all white kids but I’ll get into that later. Outside of going out back to play with Karen I don’t remember much about that time.  It’s funny how certain memories, weird memories, do come back though. I don’t know how it was or why they did it but I recall being hit in the side of the head with a rock while living there. I don’t know why and I don’t recall the pain so much but I do remember this kind of spinning my head did when it was hit. Not a dizziness really but like a bell ringing almost with the sound slowly fading out. Nothing after that. It didn’t knock me out thankfully and there was no real permanent damage done.

We didn’t live there long and soon we moved into the house where I truly grew up. 7101 Pine Tree Lane there in Fair Oaks. I still know our old phone number even. 786-3363. I didn’t know it then, but it was a wonderful and thrilling place to grow up. So many memories flood back as I think of that time.

We were the first house to be completed in the neighborhood and we were the first to move in. One block up one way ended and one block down the other way the road ended. The rest was woods and the woods were my playground. Often times I would leave in the morning and not be back for hours. As the subdivision grew the woods receded and I had to resort to my backyard. That in itself was not a bad thing give the fact that we had a huge backyard that was mostly a thinned out wooded area. In the very back I built a fine tree house. At least to me it was. It had one wall that would fold down and I could look out over the surrounding area for miles. It wasn’t particularly high but it was great. The city eventually carved off the back corner presumably to provide a better view for the traffic and with it took my tree house. I built a couple more but none compared to that one.

The very best thing about growing up there was the pool. Fair Oaks Swim and Tennis Club. Never was much of a tennis club but the pool was the greatest thing ever. During the summer I would spend hours and hours there, It was an L shaped pool with a fantastic high dive. I learned to do a lot of tricks off that board. A gainer (where one would spring forward off the board and flip backwards), the swan dive, the flying squirrel ( grab both ankles and pull back while diving head first), flips, can openers and all sorts of things. It was great fun. The down side to it is the fact that I paid for all that time in the water with ear infections that lead to my hearing problems. But if I had it to do over again I would in a heartbeat. I lived there until I got married the first time. It was a marvelous and magical place. Not without it’s problems however….