March 28, 2024

Growing Up in Montgomery

Posted on May 1, 2014 by in EdNote

This month, syndicated national columnist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Rheta Grimsley Johnson contributes a special story just for readers of Prime! Rheta, who grew up in Montgomery, details her memories of living in the city’s eastern Dalraida neighborhood in The Neighbor in the Neighborhood (page 10). It’s a must-read.

Although we didn’t know each other as small children, I grew up right around the corner from Rheta and we both attended Dalraida Elementary School.

My parents bought our house for $9,000 in April, 1952, and we lived in the sweet little home aptly situated on Honeysuckle Road for nine years. Whether it was because I spent every possible minute outside, or because children find close quarters comforting, I never once considered our 1,500 square foot home cramped – despite the fact that by the summer of 1961our family had increased to five.

It was quite a trek from Dalraida to the intersection of Air Base Boulevard and Fairview, where my dad and his brother Gus established the Riviera Restaurant in 1955. Never one to suffer in silence, Dad regularly urged Mom to look for another home, across town and closer to his business. My brother and I were scared to death our parents would do the unthinkable and move us into one of those sprawling, upscale neighborhoods. Thankfully, saner heads prevailed.

The Honeysuckle house was situated at the top of a hill with a road that wound down to the Three Mile Branch, where my brother and his buddies caught tadpoles each spring. I was fascinated by these cute little creatures, and spellbound by their willing transition into ugly frogs. When Mom learned I’d secretly followed Vic down to the branch one day, my obsession with tadpoles and daydreams of a career in biology ended. Very quickly.

Not far from the Three Mile Branch, Eastbrook Shopping Center created quite a stir when it was built in the mid-to-late 1950s. Dalraida was still a new development with few nearby shopping opportunities. When Eastbrook brought Montgomery Fair, Woolworth’s, a grocery and a toy store, we knew we’d all died and gone to heaven.

During the shopping center’s Grand Opening, promoters even held a “Little Miss Eastbrook” contest, and I participated. In those days we all watched Miss America competitions and the pageant’s lessons were not lost, even on a six-year-old. I did my best to impress the judges by smiling and blowing kisses at them (really) and was shocked to the core when I didn’t win.

Dad couldn’t bring himself to sell the house when we finally moved in 1961, so he kept it as rental property for 18 years. Lucky for me the house was empty when Bob and I married, and I asked my father if we could live there. Always sentimental, he was thrilled at the prospect of family living in the Honeysuckle property again.

But walking into the house again felt strange. It had definitely shrunk over the years. The single bath stuck out like a sore thumb, and there was no dishwasher. Thinking I might withdraw my request, I walked out into the single car garage. Looking up at the unfinished wall I saw my name, along with my brother’s. It was still there, where it had been spray painted many years earlier by a young father, pulling out all the stops to entertain his children.

It was good to be home again.

 

 

One Response to “Growing Up in Montgomery”