1964 07 04 Sandia Base Albuquerque

1964 07 04 Sandia Base Albuquerque
Originally uploaded by g_suttenfield

This post is especially for my lovely daughters, Laura, Johanna, and Clare:

This picture was taken, I believe, by either my grandmother (G-G) or grandfather while they were visiting my mother soon after I was born. The date on the picture, July 4, 1964, means I was just 5 or 6 weeks old!

My father was in the military at the time and was stationed in Albuquerque when I was born. My birth certificate says the doctor who delivered me was a Capt. Marx.

The tricycle you see in the front yard belonged to your Uncle Matt who would have been just a little over 2 years old then.

I don't remember anything about living here. I think this must have been the last leg of dad's military duty because we all moved back to Burlington, NC not too long afterwards, and I think that was so that dad could finish his college work. I don't know exactly when we moved back, but Uncle John and David where born in Burlington in November of 1965, so my guess is that we moved in time for dad to start fall classes, probably 8 to 10 months after this photo was taken.

In fact, I don't remember living in Burlington, either. Dad graduated from college (I think with Master's Degrees in Math and Physics) about 2 years later in the Spring of 1967, found a good teaching job in booming Florida, and moved the family down there by June or July that year. So, almost exactly 3 years after this photo was taken, I had two more brothers and was living in Florida! Its amazing how much things can change in a short time...
So here I am with Uncle Matt (I'm the cute little one on the blue bike) not long after we moved to Florida. That's our house on the right in the background. Remember the street was a cul-de-sac, a circular dead end, which is where we rode bikes and played games like Roll-A-Bat (thank you Matt). The batter would stand right in front of our driveway and hit out toward the street. I'll write more about that soon.

I think it strange I don't recall anything about these bikes, nor does Uncle Matt (his bike is brand new in this picture, mine is his old bike - sound familiar girls?). I suppose I would inherit his red bike in a year or two, but I can't remember it at all. The first bike I remember: my groovey red Schwinn Stingray! It had a "banana" seat, slick rear wheel, and regular front wheel. That bike I remember as if I rode it yesterday...

So my father became a teacher of Math and Physics at Edgewater High School not far from our house, the same school I would later attend. I would live in this house for the next 15 years until I graduated from high school and moved to Raleigh, NC to begin studying architecture at NC State in the fall of 1982.