Birthplace:
125 Madison Street

This is where it all began. It was originally a 2-family colonial, but my parents converted it to a single family, although my mother's parents lived with us for a number of years. It had (what was to my child's eye) a huge backyard with a playhouse that my father built me, a vegetable garden, a garage, and an old barn that still had metal rings to which horses had once been tied. It was here that I presented my circuses, puppet shows, and expositions, and played cowboys-and-indians and cops-and-robbers in the twilight hours of summer.

Belmont Elementary School,
Cross Street

Here I spent my first six years of public school. Children rarely went to kindergarten in those days, so you got your first taste of education in Grade 1. I still remember the names of most of my teachers: Miss Hartey, Miss Lynch, Miss McDonald, Mrs Gould, and Mrs Clifford. Those were my "wild days", and I stood in the corner, was sent to the principal (Miss Desmond, a fearsome blue-haired lady), and suffered detention at almost every turn. But somehow, for some strange reason, they were some of the happiest times. .

Leighton's Variety Store,
Madison Street

This store was just across the street from my house, and I spent a great deal of time there buying penny candy, comic books, and other treasures. It was also the site of my first "job" -- I'd sometimes help the owners out, waiting on customers during the noon lunch rush, maintaining the comic books and magazines, and the like. My payment was soda, candy, and comic books, but that was OK.

Uncle Jim and John's House
7 Kearney Street

About three blocks up the street was where my great uncles, Uncle Jim and Uncle John, lived. They were my mother's uncles and lived bachelor-style during their later years. About once a month I would go up to visit, and Uncle Jim would give me a haircut and afterwards treat me to green sugar-free Dezzerta gelatin (he was a diabetic, but managed to live alone into his 90s with little if any help from the doctors). He had an old Model T in the garage, which I often rode in to Revere Beach; later he offered to give it to me, but as a teenager I wanted something sportier and eventually had someone haul it off to the junkyard. He ended up leaving this house to me in his will, but I sold it soon afterwards.

Bellrock Park,
Wigglesworth Street

Besides McArthur Park, this was my main playground. It was a frequent stop on my way home from Belmont School, and countless afternoons I scaled the lofty heights of the rocks and walls you see in this photo. One could pretend to be a mountain climber, a James Bond (although he hadn't been invented yet), or some other kind of daring adventurer. This is one of the few sites that has withstood the ravages of time, and remains almost exactly as it was 50 years ago. In colonial times, it was the site of an early church, and a huge bell was mounted on the rock to call the faithful to services, hence the name.

Malden High School
Salem Street

This is the only one of the three schools I attended that is still standing and in use. The headmaster was a character straight out of the classics, Mr. John Matthews, tall but stooped, and always dressed in grey herringbone. A veritable Mr. Chips of the "old school". He had a gimlet eye, but seemed to see and observe everything. We called this building the "new high school" (the "old high school" stood beside it, later torn down to build an even newer addition) and is now named in memory of Arthur Boyle, who was a coach and gym instructor in my day, but later took over as headmaster.

The Last Family Home,
Holmes Street (West End)

When I was in High School, we moved to the more upscale "West End" section of Malden, close to Clifton Street and the Fellsway. It was a fairly new Cape with a fireplace in the living room. My bedroom was to the left of the front door. My mother died here back in 1965, and my father in 1971. Once again I inherited a house and immediately sold it, as I was in the midst of building a new ranch house up in Chelmsford.

Malden Square

The "Square" doesn't look all that different from when I was growing up, only the residents have changed. The big building in the background was originally Joslin's, later Jordan Marsh. The brick building in front of it once housed a Brigham's, an ice cream shoppe where I brought my first high school dates for a soda or sundae.

The In-Laws House,
114 Webster Street (Maplewood)

This is where I lived shortly after I married, up on the second floor right over my in-laws' apartment. My wife, Margarete, was from Heidelberg Germany, and she and her parents had migrated over just a few years earlier. Her industrious father had bought this house shortly after he landed in the U.S. I remember the little gas stack heater I had to fire up if we were planning to wash dishes or take a bath in the evenings, but other than that it was a very economical and cozy place to live, with the added benefit of being frequently invited downstairs to share in my mother-in-law's German cooking. How well I remember those dinners of noodles and lentils, or sauerbratten and sauerkraut, topped off with ice-cold bottles of beer!

My Own 3-Family,
Lebanon Street, Malden-Melrose Line

Inspired by my father-in-law's idea of letting the tenants pay part of his mortgage, I naturally decided to buy my own 3-decker some years later. I purchased this 18-room house after I'd sold the ranch in Chelmsford, moved to upstate New York for a few years, and then returned to my native soil. It had a 2-car garage and a good-sized side yard, and a decent basement. It looks the same as it did then, except the subsequent owners removed the porches that once graced the front.

St. Paul's Episcopal Parish,
Washington Street

This is the church in which I was baptized, confirmed, and married, and where I served as Sunday school teacher and assistant superintendent for several years. It is a "parish", not a church, which means it is under the care and guidance of a larger institution, in this case, St. Paul's Cathedral in Boston.

At one point an assistant rector, the Rev. James Thompson, thought I'd make a great priest and offered to be my mentor in pursuing that goal. However, I soon became bored with that particular denomination and since have been a Pentecostal lay preacher, Baptist Sunday school teacher and youth leader, Methodist, Neo-pagan, and New-ager. "Variety is the spice of life," even in religion.

Father's Apartment House,
35 Wolcott Street

My father being a small-time real estate owner, this was another of the family's houses. It had five apartments and on Saturday mornings I would occasionally accompany him to do some repairs, collect the rents, or whatever else needed to be done. And so, after he passed on, this was the third Malden domicile I inherited. I wasn't interested in being a landlord at that point, so I sold it too, as I had the others. If I'd kept all of them, I'd be a real estate tycoon myself today.