Senior Moments

The Court House Square, Crown Point, Indiana, circa 1963.

This is my post for the My World meme.  Last week there were over 120 people sharing their worlds.  To see more of our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

The picture above is not very good, but it is a scan of a slide taken in the mid-1960s.  The scene is the Court House square of my hometown of Crown Point, Indiana.

I actually lived in Crown Point for a little more than five years.  I lived on the small farm outside of town (see that post here) all through the time I was in the first grade until I graduated from high school.

Crown Point is the county seat of Lake County, Indiana.  Although a new county administration center has been built on the outskirts of town, the courthouse is still standing and is now a mall with small shops.  But it was still the courthouse while I was going to school.  But to give you an idea of how long ago that was, during Christmas they would play Christmas carols from the courthouse which could be heard throughout much of the town.  Can you imagine that happening today?  My Latin teacher, Miss Swartz, would get very upset with Bing Crosby’s pronunciation on his recording of Adeste Fideles.

Crown Point was noted for three things when I was growing up.  One of the first road races in the Midwest was held at Crown Point  on June 19, 1909.  The race, a forerunner of the Indianapolis 500, was won by Louis Chevrolet.  The Chevrolet automobile was later named in his honor.

Crown Point was known as a marriage mill in the 1920s and ’30s.  Rudolph Valentino, Red Grange, and Tom Mix all got married in Crown Point.

On January 30, 1934, John Dillinger, escaped from the Lake County jail located in Crown Point.  He escaped using a fake gun stained with black shoe polish.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to my world.

My boyhood home near Crown Point, Indiana.

My World Tuesday is a weekly meme in which bloggers show their parts of the world.  To see more of our wonderful world, or to join and post your views of your corner of our world, click HERE.

The picture above is a scan of a slide made over 40 years ago.  This is where I lived from the time I was in first grade until I went off to college.

My Dad built the house, mostly by himself.  He started building it the summer before I was in the first grade.  He finished the basement before Christmas and we moved in.  He then worked his way up and we moved up as he finished rooms on the upper floors.  By the time I went to college the house wasn’t finished, but there were bedrooms on the second floor for us kids.  My parents’ bedroom was on the first floor, but the kitchen and living room were still in the basement.

We lived on a small ‘farm’ — a little over five acres.  The picture was taken from the orchard where we had apple, pear, and peach trees.  Our vegetable garden was to the right in this picture.

On the other side of the house were two fields.  One was a pasture and the other used for growing grain, usually corn.  We alternated the fields every couple of years.  Out of the picture behind the house was our barn and chicken coop.  We usually had a milk cow and one or two steers and sometimes we had pigs as well.

Our farm wasn’t very big, but it kept us busy (and fed) and was a very important part of my world for 12 years.

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Just a reminder that you are invited to visit my photo blog, Photos by Senior Hiker, by clicking HERE.