Summers with our dad in Minneapolis meant the simplest joys — bright summer nights of tag and kick-the-can, running over the neighborhood with a pack of kids with no schedules or agendas, wearing clothes we could get dirty and shoes we could wear out, and of course riding bikes.
One of the great treats of our summers in Minneapolis with dad was the neighborhood park (Thomas Lowry aka Seven Pools) which contained a water feature you could play in — seven pools varying in temperature and depth strung along a manmade stream.
Thomas Lowry Park aka Seven Pools
The park was built on land donated to the city park system (at Douglas and Mt. Curve Avenues) by Thomas Lowry the man who built and owned the street railway system in Minneapolis. The neighborhood, Lowry Hill, was developed by him. The park had been called Douglas Triangle and then Mt. Curve Triangles (yes, plural for some forgotten reason) before finally being named for Lowry. Of course all the kids in the neighborhood just called it Seven Pools.
As it looked to us.
Another little piece of our childhood heaven in Minneapolis with our dad — much thought of and much missed after our return to our mother in New York.
One of the unexpected joys of publishing Chanel has been the unearthing of photographs from friends and distant relatives. (This one is from a series taken by an old Minneapolis friend one our last summers with our Dad.) As you can imagine after reading the book, not very many pictures or keepsakes made it through with us — things were lost in storage, destroyed by our mother or simply left or abandoned by us as we tried to run faster and faster from our past through a long series of houses, rooms and apartments.
My father’s hometown, Brockville, where he would take us sometimes in the Summer is on the St. Lawrence River in Ontario just downstream from The Thousand Islands and just north west of New York State. We called it Uncle Chuck’s River because our Uncle Chuck (my father’s brother-in-law) lived in a house on stilts over the St. Lawrence.
The days were long but our time was short with Daddy in the summers. The memories are just flashes now–moments, expressions, feelings, sounds and colors captured in my mind like this old square format Kodak print.
Flower Children: Striking a pose next to Daddy’s Mustang convertible.
One summer, before Mother took us away to London, Daddy had some time off from the Guthrie and rented a little place in Wisconsin. He’d drive along the back roads at what felt like a hundred miles an hour with the top down and Robbie and I jumping up and down in the back seat as the wind blew back our hair and rushed through our fingers. I still get that feeling of freedom sometimes on a long drive.
One of our summer babysitters, Beverly, with Robbie, her summer hair going wild, holding her teddy bear Guthrie (named for Sir Tyrone) and our friend Grettie. I think I took this picture. Daddy would hire a girl to watch us while he was in rehearsal. After a production started he’d spend the days with us himself and the babysitter would only come at night to put us to bed.
