Florida 2023 : Burnham Woods

 Now this was the neighborhood that was my true childhood home from age 6 to when my parents moved in 2008: Burnham Woods.  My students always thought it was funny that I grew up in this neighborhood because it is named after the woods in Macbeth.

 And here is the house at 8301 Southwest 20th street,  North Lauderdale Florida.  The same female ficus tree is out front. But the front of the house looks totally different. It used to look more like a barn with large wooden x's at the front of it. And the 2 windows above the garage were not there instead it was a porch.

 I can't tell you how many times I played Chinese jump rope and jacks on this driveway.

 This fence is definitely the one that my mom put up herself in the early 2000s. You can tell because it has a bottom 2 / 4 at the bottom to try to keep cats out from getting her chickens.

 And here you can see the porch and the sliding glass door that leads to the master bedroom.

 And here was my backyard with many palmetto palms and it used to have a great fruit tree in the back corner. It also used to have the 2 stories swing said that my dad moved from the townhouse.

 When I was in high school and we had our boat, my parents had this side of the fence rigged to open up fully so we could pull our boat in its trailer into the backyard. Mom used to have pineapple plants growing here inside these little cement edgings.

 Finally I had to take a picture of our kickball field. Home plate is in the bottom picture. The sewer grate in front of my house was first base and the manhole cover was second. I was a typical Gen X kid growing up in the suburbs, so I knew to come home when the street lights came on.

 And finally come up to take a picture of Allison's house!  I spent more times than I can count walking from my house to hers on 20th street and playing with her cats in the yard going to birthday parties and learning to dance to The Beach Boys. I even saw baby kitties being born in her garage!  I sent this picture to Allison over Facebook, And her response was, "Why is it blue?" I have no idea, but my guess is that it is to keep the bad spirits away.