Tag Archives: Linda Sabo

Sabo

Summers Growing Up = Love of Water

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When you think of summer time, what is the first word that pops into your mind? For me, it’s WATER. While there is one kind of water that I don’t enjoy being in – ocean salt water – I have spent many hours, days and probably even months in lakes and pools.

I think I was definitely influenced by my mother, Doris, who was a strong swimmer throughout her life. My dad, who never learned to swim, but eventually would swim with a life jacket on, wasn’t ever quite so fond of it.

Mom started me out with baby steps for the baby:


c1953

I actually don’t recognize this yard. It’s definitely not our house in Passaic, but could be a corner of Grandmother’s yard in Needham Heights, Massachusetts as I have a few other pictures taken that summer while we visited.

I did have a small wading pool in Passaic and Mom invited over some of her friends (with their kids, who were some of my childhood friends) for a swim party.


Linda, on the slide

That’s me with Bruce, Greg and maybe Adrienne in the swing. Mom kept that pool for quite a few years:


Celeste, on what looks like the same slide, c1960

I have no idea when I had my first membership in the YWCA, but it was probably started when I was five or six years old.

I continued with lessons at the Passaic Y until we moved to Wayne in December 1963. This was my last membership card, but I had taken years of swimming lessons there.

By 1954, my grandparents owned their cottage on Little Sebago Lake, which led to many more hours of water fun, at first with a life jacket:


Grandmother and Linda

I was never the fastest swimmer, but I had endurance. See the white boat docked in the distance on the top left?


Linda with Candy, c1965

My friends’ cottage was just past that and we used to swim there just for fun.

When we moved to Wayne, my parents actually decided to add a built-in pool in our yard.


Wayne Home in Early 1964

I am amazed, though, because I don’t have a single photo of our backyard or of anyone in the pool!

I still enjoy the water, although I don’t swim much these days. We do have a pool here in Tucson and it comes in very handy for a quick dip during the hot summers. I mostly putter around in it to cool off!


A Tucson Necessity!

Don’t forget to share your own summer memories. Some day, our stories will be the ancestors’ stories!

Nowadays, a relatively new activity that Dave and I both enjoy is cruising. I love being on the ship enjoying the water views, but I still don’t like salt water on me!

Sabo, Stufflebean

Homes In Which I’ve Lived

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How many different homes have you lived? I’ve lived in nine (counting the three apartments I’ve rented), but can’t decide if that is just a few, in the average range for a retired person or a lot.

Here is my childhood home and the childhood home of my father, too:

House on Summer Street
49 Summer Street, Passaic, New Jersey

On Pearl Harbor Day, 7 December 1963, we moved to the suburbs:

4WintersDriveWayneNJForSaleDec1963
4 Winters Drive, Wayne, New Jersey

When I finished college, got my first teaching job and got my first apartment, I settled in to life in Rhode Island for three years:

270FruitHillAve
270 Fruit Hill Avenue, North Providence, RI
Source: Bing Maps

Next, I accepted a job offer in Mexico City, Mexico. I roomed with four other young ladies in an apartment just outside the boundary of the Polanco neighborhood. I can’t for the life of me remember the address, but I do remember the apartment was quite empty except for some beds and I think a small sofa in the living room. I was very suprised to discover the old mansion where I taught at Colegio Eton, Alpes 605, Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, is still owned by the school, but is now the preschool campus:

ColegioEtonAlpes605
Source: GoogleEarth

Notice the 25th anniversary sign on the left celebrating the school.

After my time in Mexico, I moved to Upland, California and rented my last apartment. At the time they were the Apple Apartments. I don’t know what they are called today, but they were renamed years ago.

UplandAptCrop
1334 W. Foothill Blvd., Upland, California
Source: GoogleEarth

My apartment was right downstairs from the one you see here and was located at the far west front side of the complex, right on busy Foothill Boulevard, which is the old Route 66.

When Dave and I got married, we bought our first home in Alta Loma, California:

6637JasperStFrontYard
6637 Jasper Street, Alta Loma, California

Dave named our first cat Jasper after the street name. Today the house sits about three properties south of the 210 freeway. We lived there for five years before moving a bit northward – 3/4 of a mile – but still in Alta Loma.

6245CelestiteAltaLomaCA
6245 Celestite Avenue, Alta Loma, California

This was home for the next 26 years. When we retired, we headed to Oro Valley, Arizona, following Dave’s brother-in-law and his family, who settled here in 2003.

We’ve actually lived in two houses in Oro Valley.

OVHouse1
Arizona House #1
Source: GoogleEarth

I just realized that I don’t have a good photo of the front of this house, so GoogleEarth will have to help out here. See the tall tree on the left? That is the tree made famous as the header photo in my blog. You can’t see it from this angle, but it has the big dead branch in it. We lived here for four years, but I couldn’t keep up with all the yard work. I never knew that picking up and trimming cactus was so much work! The new owners stripped out every single cactus on this one acre property so it looks very different.

We’ve been in our current house for two years and it’s a lot less work, being on a half acre that includes the house, a pool and part of a desert wash.

MooreHouse
Arizona House #2

There you have it – six houses and three apartments covers my lifetime. Which is my favorite? I have to admit, it’s my childhood home in Passaic.

In how many different homes have you lived?

Sabo

Snowsuits & Winters Long Past

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My family didn’t take very many winter photos. However, when we did, most were taken in our backyard on Summer Street. Our backyard was very small, so there really weren’t many options for unique backgrounds.

The sidewalk in the photos ran parallel to the back of our house.

The yellow arrow is pointing to the back yard sidewalk that goes to the garage. Actually, the garage, which is detached, originally housed a carriage or sideboard wagon because the house and garage were built around 1895-1899, before automobiles were invented.

When I was growing up, the tree, noted by the purple arrow, was a crab apple tree. It looks like it has brown enough to completely obscure the view of the garage, which is located right at the tip of that arrow.

First, here is my dad, George Sabo, bundled for a blizzard in his high chair and then in his little walker.

SaboGeo2Hat1926
Winter 1926

GeorgeSaboInBabyWalker1927
Winter 1927

Fast forward 26 years:

GeorgeSaboHoldingLindaInAirPassaicWinter1953
Winter 1953

GeorgeAndLindaInSnowsuit1953
Winter 1953

It couldn’t have been that cold outside because my father isn’t wearing gloves or his scarf. However, it looks like I am ready for the coldest weather possible.

Guess it was a good thing I had that outfit, though, because on the same roll of film was this picture:

GeorgeLindaSabo2SummerSt1953
Winter 1953

Did you ever have to wear one of the snowsuits? They were/are common back east for infants and toddlers, but they also came in children’s sizes. I distinctly remember the girls’ snowsuits being onesies that zipped up the front. I think they might even have had buttons on top of that for good measure.

I hated those things because my mother made me wear them to walk the four blocks to school on cold winter days. Yes, they kept us warm, but we probably looked like Teletubbies waddling around in them.

There were two other reasons to hate those things. First, they were a pain to put on. Skirts and dresses had to be crumpled and stuffed inside them.

Second, and much worse, was the fact that my school didn’t have any cafeteria for students to eat lunch. There were also no students who rode a bus. We ALL walked. That meant stuffing myself into the snowsuit before leaving home, prying myself out of it in the girls’ cloakroom at school, along with all of my other unfortunate classmates who were also trapped in a onesie, getting back into it at 11:30 for the walk home, getting out of it for lunch at home, putting it on for the return afternoon walk to school, taking it off for afternoon class, donning the hated garment one more time for the 3:30 walk home and, finally, getting out of it for the last time as soon as I walked in the door.

I always hoped the weather would be better the following day and Mom would say no snowsuit needed. 🙂 I wish I had a picture of me in one of those, but I was probably too cranky whenever I was in it that my mother (rightly) decided it would be a waste of film.

Maybe, just maybe, those snowsuits were one of the reasons that, to this day, I am still not fond of snow.

What winter memories of growing up do you have?