Needle Circle and life on memory lane

As we move into 2005, I still find myself asking the age-old question, where does the time go? And while time has always moved at the same pace, the environment we live in has not. The times they are a changing.

In 1975 the top rated prime time television shows included the Jeffersons and Waltons, today its Desperate Housewives. Thirty years ago my parent’s biggest concern was disco eight tracks being played too loud. Today I’m worried about my daughter’s cell phone, Internet use and keeping an eye on the movies she rents. And lets face it; these additional responsibilities haven’t come with additional time.

But even for me - whose role on these pages is to comment on life- sometimes it gets too over whelming. Sometimes I need to retreat from the hustle and bustle of life.

Tucked away west off Tudor Road down from the intersection at Lake Otis is a small cull de sac. This quiet and unassuming stretch of pavement host’s eighteen single-family homes that have been around since Tudor was a two-lane dirt road. Neighbors call it Needle Circle, but for me, this is my Grace land.

My family moved into a little white house on Needle Circle in 1966. I called it home until 1985. My parents continued to live there until 1995. My father still to this day describes the purchasing decision with the most important person in mind. “As soon as I saw it, I knew your mother would love it”, he says. And he was right, she did.

 The original floor plan was tight for a young family of six. So my parents sacrificed their garage in order to gain a master bedroom. Through twenty years of Alaskan winters without a garage, I never once heard my mom say a word about having to pre-warm her car every morning before leaving for the office. She always did whatever was necessary to make things work.

Life off Tudor Road was remarkably safe. Neighbors left their cars running and rarely locked their doors. I remember it wasn’t until I went away to college that my parents started locking the door. In hindsight, I figured it was a subliminal message to tell me that walking back through the front door wasn’t going to be so easy at eighteen.

When the homes on Needle Circle were initially built, city water wasn’t available. A working pump house was constructed on a landscaped island in the middle of the cull de sac. Years later when city water arrived, the pump house was dismantled. The landscaped lawn created one of the most unique cull de sacs in Anchorage with built in infrastructure for neighborhood games.

I remember leaping from the imaginary batter’s box, pretending to be Carlton Fisk in the 1975 World Series. Trying to use my body English to coax the wiffle ball from sailing into the neighbor’s impeccably kept flower garden. I remember the hide and seek games that would go on into midnight.

I remember blazing a trail on the newly opened bike path along Tudor Road. Back when the only thing at the end of the path was a Qwik Stop. Back when people had bumper stickers that read, “I drove Tudor Road and survived”.

I remember delivering both the morning and the evening newspapers. I remember sneaking snow peas from the Maakestad’s garden and strawberries from the Willis’s fence line. And I remember playing street hockey with my boyhood idols Jocko and Ricky.

In today’s complex world where so much happens so fast, the simpler times can be very therapeutic.

Today, the house at 4209 Needle Circle looks the same. In fact most of the homes on the street still look exactly the same. Trees are taller and some homes have been repainted. But cosmetic changes will never mask the memories.

Life will always move at the same speed; fast.

Luckily, I’ve found a brief respite by driving down my childhood street where the memories are good and time stands still. Whoever said you can’t go home again, obviously never called Needle Circle home.