My childhood home sits at the end of NW 63rd Ave in Gainesville FL. The address is 6715 NW 63rd Ave. When I was young, our zip code was 32606 but later it was changed to 32653. From Millhopper road (which is actually NW 53rd Avenue) if one is heading west, a mile or two after the entrance for Devil’s Millhopper Sinkhole, a right turn on NW 71st Street was the next move. There stands a blue University of Florida / IFAS sign which used to be made of wood with kitschy wooden letter and number fonts that one day vanished and was replaced with a more sophisticated minimalist design which is still used today at the University to mark their various halls, extension offices and REC centers (research and education centers). The University of Florida IFAS (Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences) sign came up often. We refereed to it as if it were a life saving light house steering weary anxious passengers in the right direction. 6715 NW 63rd ave was, and still is, in the woods on the outskirts of Gainesville, Florida.

Technically the house is not in Gainesville although the address is officially listed as Gainesville, Florida. The next city closest to the home is the city of Alachua which was also the name of the county it sat in. Gainesville is also in Alachua County as is the small town of Micanopy. I’m not sure if my parents thought everyone coming to our home was inept at following directions or if most of the people who came to our house was actually inept at following directions. Either way the blue sign was always mentioned, re-mentioned, metaphorically highlighted in the conversation and finally brought up one last time as a punctuation mark of sorts. This was before electronic devices and wireless technologies were in the palms of our hands. If a person or party of people were to navigate to our home we would typically know significantly in advance.

There were also the random stop in’s or drop by’s which, as of this writing, don’t seem to exist in the manner they did at one time. If you were out and about, and in the area of someone you knew, stopping by their house to say hello was quite common and very normal. If you called someone on the telephone, but got no answer, that doesn’t mean they knew you were calling. The phone simply rang and the receiver of the call would have no clue who was on the other line until they actually picked up the phone and started communicating. People could pay extra money for “caller ID’ which was a small box with a digital screen which would integrate with your actually phone line and reveal the phone number that was calling. As technology advanced and cordless phones became quite popular, the caller ID option was on the cordless phone itself in some cases. We didn’t have a cordless phone. We had two phones; one in our kitchen and one in my parents bedroom which sat next to their water bed on an end table. This was more than what was needed and certainly more than average which gave me the feeling and impression that we were sufficiently prepared no matter the time of day or night. If someone called and we weren’t home, the phone wasn’t answered and that was that. It wasn’t until later that we got an answering machine. Why we didn’t have one for years and years was likely due to budgetary restraints but that is a guess on my part. People simply didn’t typically have answering machines in their homes in the early 1980’s.

According to my mother we didn’t own a television until my Aunt Nancy gave us one. She was very enthusiastic about us watching Sesame Street and other PBS programs which would help us learn and educate us while entertaining us as well. I don’t recall getting our first Television but I do know it was black and white. My memories are not as clear as I’d like them to be from that time period but I can certainly say I do remember when we got a color television. It was huge, 18 or maybe even 20 inches of beautiful color screen. When I ran my hand over the screen the static electricity could be heard and felt. I stared at the small vertical rectangle lines with my face mushed up close, nose touching.

**************************************If one continues north on 71st street they will eventually get to the IFAS Hatchery and turf grass REC Center. The Research and Education Centers are located in every county in FL. Each one served a different role in the research for the University. 71st Street, as long as I could recall, was always paved. Our road was not.