Wisconsin Six - Text
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One of the things I liked, the place that we lived the longest, I was from age five until the summer I turned thirteen. We lived in a part of West Dallas that was sort of on the edge. And this was in the fifties, (um) late fifties. An—which, now, you-- figure out my age if you wanted to, but anyway…
You could go-- we lived around a block area that was off of Highway 100, which was the major thoroughfare —before expressways— and you could walk from my house —the equivalent of about three blocks— and you’d go past where the houses were built up, which had lots of kids, and –very suburban, very post-World War II— to what we called Green Hills. It had been a farm. We thought it still was farm, just because there was all this greenery. In fact, I shouldn’t even say “we,” because I went up there mostly by myself. I’d walk up, the top of the hill, lay on the grass, and, in the distance ahead that —I didn’t walk that far, because I didn’t think it would be allowed— you could hear cows mooing. And I remember laying on my back in the summer and watching the clouds, and telling myself stories. That’s one of my favorite places in the world.
Another place-- Milwaukee does have a good park system. And there was Greenfield Park, which was bike-riding distance from my home at that same time. And I would—by telling my mother I was going to the swimming pool, only I hated swimming, it was really for the bike ride— and we’d go biking through the woods, and the road was winding, and you could just coast. (Um) Back then – well back the whole time I was growing up— my bicycle was what I tell now to my children, you know, I had a no-speed. (Laughs) You know, there weren’t hand-brakes, or anything like that. It was either you were biking or pedaling, or you weren’t going anywhere. And (um) – but I remember going down, you know, biking along there, on the way to the pool. And then I would just bike back again. And the times that you could coast, and there were all the trees overhead, that you know, the sky was sort of-- The sunlight would dapple in and go out again.
Those are my favorite places.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JACQUELINE BAKER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR TRANSCRIPTIONS, October 25, 2007