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Simple trip revives memories of Brandon's past

 
Published Sept. 24, 2016

BRANDON

Everything I'm about to write is true to my memory, even the part about my sister riding her horse bareback on Kings Avenue across State Road 60 in the middle of "rush hour" traffic.

But before I get to those memories, I must explain that this particular column was born over breakfast last week with my sister at the Egg and I restaurant on Bloomingdale Avenue.

Sipping coffee, it dawned on us that we moved to Brandon exactly 50 years ago, in 1966. I was 2. My sister, Susie, was 10.

With those numbers in our heads, we decided to finish our omelettes, jump in the car, and take a drive down memory lane, or rather down Kings Avenue, John Moore Road, Victoria Street and so on.

Why not? Susie, who now lives in Apollo Beach after decades in Connecticut, hadn't seen Brandon High since she graduated in 1974. And I, a longtime South Tampa resident, hadn't seen our first or second house in 30 years.

So … we drove straight into a time warp.

We first stopped in front of our first house on Westwood Lane, built in 1966.

I looked at the porch and thought: That's where I walked out the front door one day with my hands crammed tight in my pockets. I tripped, but was unable to pull my hands from my pockets, and fell flat on my face in front of our neighbor, Phyllis Warren, who couldn't stop herself from howling with laughter. I wanted to yell at her. But I was just a kid. So I cried.

Funny what you remember first.

Anyway, the house, which cost just a few thousand dollars when my parents bought it, was much smaller than we remembered. But it was, as my mom described it, "our little palace."

The next few hours, Susie and I overflowed with memories: That's where I played my first baseball game (South Brandon Little League); and there's Brandon Swim and Tennis Club, where Susie performed synchronized swimming (insert joke); and look at how huge those oak trees have grown around our second house in Hickory Creek; and wow, Brandon High's football field looks gorgeously the same, but the high school itself looks much smaller; and isn't it too bad that some great businesses have left, but the same old buildings remain — Scogins clothing store, the Brandon Twin movie theater, Brandon Lanes, What-A-Burger …

On a few occasions I had rushes of very sweet memories, such as: That's where I kissed my first girlfriend on the last day of ninth grade at McLane Junior High, my heart leaping out of my chest when my lips connected every so lightly, for just a second, to hers, and then, thank God, she smiled.

A few minutes later down the road, Susie had a beautiful memory on Kings Avenue in front of a sprawling neighborhood, where once was an endless, sloping field of grass sprinkled with horses, one of which was Susie's pinto, Shawnee.

In those days, Susie would step through the gate of the barbed-wire fence and let out a shrill whistle. From a half-mile away, Shawnee's head would raise up and spot us, and then he would run like the wind toward us, the happiest horse greeting the happiest girl in the world.

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Susie would throw a halter around his neck, hop on his bare back and take off — without a bit in his mouth — and run and run and run around that field — a field that is now a massive subdivision.

As we drove on, Susie remembered that she used to ride Shawnee all over Brandon back in the early 1970s, from a friend's house on Lumsden Avenue to Brandon Swim and Tennis Club, to the field that is now Westfield Brandon mall, to across State Road 60, where rush hour was barely a car or two.

We said if you rode a horse through Brandon today, you'd get run over or, at the very least, committed.

At the end of our little journey, I thought of how back in the day I wanted nothing more than to get out of our little sleepy town named Brandon.

But what the heck was I thinking? Brandon was a great place to grow up. Great people. Great pace. Great freedom.

That's how I remember it now, and that is the perfect truth for me.

As for trips down memory lane, I highly recommend them, especially if they are with your wonderful sister.

And remember: Sometimes all you have to do to travel back in time is travel down the street.

Pretty cool.

Contact Scott Purks at hillsnews@tampabay.com