Tag Archives: 29th Street Boise

My Folks #23 – 29th St #7- Our Playground 3 – Swings

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After setting up the north half of our property for a trailer rental business and getting grass to grow on the south half, my dad got busy with metal pipes and his welding machine. 

Before long a structure set in concrete towered over our playground. Two swings hung on long chains between two posts. Steel rings on chains hung on the south side of one post and a monkey bar suspended between two other chains tempted kids on the north side of the other post.

  Across 29th Street to the west of the swings was a grocery store. Typical of neighborhood grocery stores this family-owned shop was small, in this case a one story stucco building. Also typical, a Coca-Cola signs with the store’s name was displayed over the door. Pumping our tall swings until we could see the flat roof of the store became a popular challenge as every kid in the neighborhood grew stronger.

My Folks #22 – 29th St #6 – Our Playground #2 – Barrels

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Before long dad figured out empty 50-gallon oil barrels were better at keeping kids busy and active than most playground equipment. One barrel became two. The heavy steel barrels were great for walking on, like lumberjacks staying on top of rolling logs. That could be augmented by one of we kids folded in the barrel, heads and heals and butts tumbling over one another like a dryer drum. No matter how evenly we tried to fold ourselves into the drum one end of us was always heavier than the other. Whoever was walking on top of the drum was challenged with lifting the heavy parts of the inner child  to the top of the barrel only to instantly shif to holding the barrel back while the inner child’s weight sped the barrel out from under them. If the kid walking on top of the barrel should loose control and fall forward the barrel and its occupant would roll over them and walker would instantly be dead. It all made perfect sense to us. 

We all got quite good at walking on those two barrels.  

None of us got good at walking the barrels down the two-foot slope of the berm surrounding the house, but rolling down it while being inside was a thrill! 

An endlessly interesting science experiment — although we did not know the words “science” or “experiment” — was filling a barrel with water from the garden hose. With great effort against the weight we would push the barrel over and witness a mighty flood fanning over the yard. 

Yep. I learned early that water is heavy and runs downhill …

My Folks # 18 – 29th St #2 – Filling Room

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Nothing about building our new home south of State Street remains in my memory, but then I was one year old at the time. I presume most of those days and evenings were spent with my mother at our tiny home on 30th Street north of State Street while dad spent evenings and weekends five blocks to the south, turning half of Mr. Corbridge’s farm into gravel and lawn. 

The block slanted from the northeast to the southwest. A level pad had to be created before construction of a combination machine shop and living space could begin. 

On the north half of the building, this pad left the three large doors of the machine shop essentially level with the gravel lot. The southern half of the building extended onto a two-foot berm that leveled the slopping ground. This berm was soon covered by lawn where we toddlers spent hours rolling down this gentle slope.

If only my folks were still with us so I could ask, but I think scratching the northern quarter of the block into gravel for renting trailers and leveling a pad for an extended building would have been when my parents thought it prudent to invest in a Ford N Series tractor. They soon found the requests to rent the full-sized tractor were as insistent as those looking for trailers. 

By as early as I remember we were watching two Ford N Series tractors driving away in the hands of strangers. Some helped with the large gardens people were still maintaining. Some were turning those gardens and Boise’s surrounding hills into home sites.

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