Living in Mankato as a little kid in the early 1960s

My memories of Mankato, Minnesota, are hazy, which you should expect, as I only lived there until I was four. Well, maybe four-and-a-half, but since I attended in Kindergarten in Minneapolis, I figure that I was under five. That's me on the left on the trike.

I wish that I could tell you exactly where this photo was taken, but I can't. It was a new neighborhood, built in the 1950s, and the house (the one on the right) was a big two-story. I did visit it once when I was all grown up, but that was also a long time ago, and my attempts to find it on Google maps have failed now for years. I'll keep trying!

There weren't, and presumably still aren't, any sidewalks in that neighborhood. Tiny kids like me were just expected to share the road with cars. I still see old neighborhoods like that in the Phoenix area, where I live now, and I wonder about it. I suppose when the houses were built they were "way out in the country", so there weren't many cars. I'm glad to see neighborhoods with sidewalks now, where children can ride their tricycles.

I wish that I could tell you more about it, but like I say, I was four. I did go back there, on one of my visits to Minneapolis, and a good friend of mine drove me down to Mankato to look for the house. We found it.

My friend is a shy and retiring person, but I'm not, so I walked up to the house and knocked on the door. I simply said that I had lived there as a kid, and as the conversation progressed it became clear that the current owner had bought the house from my dad. I got a tour of the house, and the only thing that I could remember was that the bathroom had dual sinks. Luxury!

Sometimes I think about what my life might have been if we'd stayed in Mankato. There are a lot of "what ifs?" in life, and I guess we'll never know.

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