Guy Sherborne Bryon
Places I have lived:
Nov 1936 - Spring 1938 (Age 0 – 2+)
Kew Gardens, New York
I think the name of the street was Austin, but I'm not sure. I've got the address around in an old photo album that my mom sent me I think. My parents had an apartment here, and this is where they brought me when I came home from the hospital. I spent the first night in a dresser drawer, so I'm told. I don’t remember a thing about this place. My mother had a terrier here, but he was jealous and tried to bite me so she gave it away.
Spring 1939 - Mid 1942 (Age 2+ – 5-1/2)
22 The Birches, Roslyn Estates, Long Island, New York
The house was on 3/4 of an acre of land, and there were about 2 acres of woods next door. I had to learn to walk my own way through the woods to get to the house where I went to nursery school. It was quite an adventure at age 4. It was a fairly dense hardwood forest and you couldn't see any houses or roads for quite a ways in the middle of it.
I think that is when I developed my ability to find my way. I always seem to have a good sense of direction, no matter where I am, and I never get lost when driving any where. I just sort of wander around a little bit and always seem to end up where I want to go.
Mid 1942 - Mid 1943 (Age 5-1/2 – 6-1/2)
Palm Beach, Florida
At any rate we were in Palm Beach because Father had been transferred there. He didn't know how long he was going to be there (the bungalow was rented from month-to-month I think) so my parents went to parties a lot because 'tomorrow we may be transferred to a war zone.' The older couple who owned the bungalow lived in a house next door, a Captain and Mrs. Fogerty. He was a retired ship captain, from the Merchant Marine I think.
My parent's friends were all younger than they were. There were two couples that we went to the beach with a lot. One of the women (probably about 21 or 22) looked polynesian, especially with a red hibiscus blossom in her hair. Her name was Larry, and I was in love for life. I begged her to wait for me to grow up soil could marry her. She didn't wait. She married George, the man she was dating. The last I heard they were both alcoholics and lived somewhere around Los Angeles. So much for young dreams.
I also spent my worst Christmas there. The Christmas tree was only about 2 feet high and was put on top of a table. Also, because of the war we couldn't buy any tinsel (made of real metal in those days) or Christmas tree balls. Our ornaments from home were in storage someplace. Mother and I made the decorations out of colored paper by tracing around cookie cutters and cutting out the designs and hanging them on the tree with yarn. And it was hot. No winter cold. No winter snow. As Christmas it didn't make it for me. Poor Mom, she tried so hard to make it special with what she had.
Mid 1943 – Mid 1944 (Qge 6-1/2 – 7-1/2)
38 Mulberry Avenue, Garden City, Long Island, New York
This was a small rented house, 2 bedrooms I think. We had some of the furniture from our 'real house' (which was rented out during the war - father couldn't afford to keep it up on military pay, and it provided extra income). I also got a black and white cat, but I really wanted a dog. And that was where we lived when your father [Ross] was born.
We had moved back to Long Island because Father was sent to London, and with Mom being pregnant she wanted to be near Father’s mother when Ross was born, I guess, so that Grandma Bryon could take care of me while she was in the hospital. I think Father made it home on leave when Ross was born, but I don’t remember the exact timing of his visit.
This was the house where I learned to ride a bicycle. Mother and I used to ride our bicycles to the movies in Mineola (to save gas). I also fell in love with my second love. This time she was my own age, a 7-year-old girl down the street called Judy. I think I fell in love with her braids first. She had a braid on each side of her head which came around and met in the back and became a single braid that went down the back over the rest of her hair. I was fascinated by that, and I remember talking her mother into letting me watch her braid it one morning before school. I think Judy's mother thought I was a little weird.
I missed a lot of school that year, I had pneumonia three times and the measles. But somehow I made it through 2nd grade, in spite of the fact that I found out about typewriters and adding machines and was totally incensed that my parents and teachers insisted upon my learning how to add and subtract and penmanship. What a total waste of MY time and energy when an obviously better solution was at hand!
Mid 1944 - Jan(?) 1945 (Age 7-1/2 - 8-1/4)
76 Boutelle Road, Bangor, Maine
My father was stationed at Dow Field in Bangor. Shortly after he arrived he was promoted to Lt. Col. and became second in commond of the base. I think by that time the Army Air Corps had become a separate service and was the Air Force.
It was the first two story house I'd ever lived in. It had a big front porch and ceilings that were slightly higher than normal on the first floor. The kitchen ceiling was covered in patterned metal sheeting which really bothered my mother. She thought that it looked so cheap and tacky. I remember thinking it was different but otherwise unimportant, after all it wasn't OUR house, it was just a place we were renting until we could go back to our REAL home.
Jan(?) 1945 – Jan 1946 (Age 8-1/4 - 9-1/4)
Orono, Maine
We lived right across the street from a big sloping hill that went down to the river. The river would freeze over in the winter. I went ice skating some times. I also tried to learn to ski down the hill, but neither my skates or skis were really anything but toys, so it was very frustrating and gave up those efforts for just sledding down the hill.
Jan 1946 – Jan(?) 1961 (Age 9-1/4 - 24)
22 The Birches, Roslyn Estates, New York
Well the war was over, and my father was finally getting out of the service, so back HOME we went. I took my first airplane flight with my grandmother, Sha-Sha, from Maine to New York. I was going home ahead of my parents to stay with friends of theirs so that I could change schools at the semester break. I went to a Friends school from the middle of the fourth grade through the sixth grade.
I remember that one of the first things I learned in this new school was long division. I loved it! I kept pestering 'Aunt' Connie (my parents’ friend) to give me more and more problems so that I could solve them using this amazing new technique. I think that was the first time that I realized that I really liked mathematics.
Other than the time I spent away at school, this was where I lived until I moved out for good at the age of 24.
Sep 1953 – Jun 1955 (age 17 – 18)
Admiral Farragut Academy, St. Petersburg, Florida
The education wasn’t that great, with a few exceptions, but that didn't seem to stop me from getting into Webb Institute with apparently very high SAT scores, so I guess I did all right.
Aug 1955 - Dec 1955 (Age 19)
Webb Institute of Naval Architecture and MarineTechnology
Glen Cove, New York
This was a novel school. The total enrolment was 60 students, and it was on an old estate on Long Island Sound. It had a 40' yawl for the students to sail. And at that time it had one of the three fully equipped water test tanks in the US for testing hull designs. It had been written up in the old Post Magazine as the hardest school in America, a few years before I went there.
Sep 1956 – May 1957 (Age 20)
236 Dunn Hall, University of Maine, Orono, Maine
Beginning to see a pattern here? Problems with my relations with my father were leading me into some pretty self-destructive behavior. It took quite a while for me to work this out. I don't recommend this course of action to any of you. Believe me, it really isn’t worth it.
Jan (?) 1961 - Oct 1961
West 81st Street, New York, New York
This is where I lived when I moved out of my parents house and moved in temporarily with my friend John Melancon (whom you met, Peri). It was on the north side of the second block from the park, but I don't remember the exact address. It was a small studio apartment with lots of cockroaches. Sometimes I think we spent as much money on bug spray as we did on food.
Oct 1961 – Sep 1962
62 Barrow Street, Greenwich Village
New York, New York
I married Jay’s mom on October 14th. We spent our wedding night at the Waldorf Astoria, and the next day we flew to Rome to start a 3-week honeymoon in Europe (thanks to Sha-Sha). When we came back we faced all the boxes that we had moved into our new apartment just before we left. We eventually got it all unpacked. It was a wonderful little one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. Fourth floor walkup with a working fireplace.
Oct 1962 – Sep 1964
Spring Street (now Soho), New York, New York
We lived here in a fourth, or maybe it was the third floor apartment, but this time with an elevator. It was a newly renovated building in an old Italian neighborhood, with walls and floors and ceilings that were easy to hear through. The annual Italian festival was held right outside our building.
Sep 1964 – Jul(?) 1972
45 Silo Lane, Levittown, New York
My first house of my own. A little Levittown Cape Cod with no improvements. I could afford it and it was a great little first house. Jay was born while we lived there.
July(?) 1972 – Nov 1972
20 Fairview Ave, Port Washington, NY
[and]
1701 Beach Ave, Beach Haven, NJ
Suzy and I were breaking up during this period, but I wasn’t ready to admit that it was really final yet. After selling our house with the intention of moving to California in the school bus that I was converting into a motor home we stayed at her parent’s in Port Washington for awhile while we finished working on the bus.
Nov 1972 – Jan 1973
280 Richardson Drive, Mill Valley, California
This is where I stayed until I found a job at the Bank of America in January. It was a friend of mine from Roslyn High School, Chris Wagner.
Jan 1973 – ??? 1974
Berkeley, California
A one bedroom apartment in an apartment house filled mostly with UC Berkeley students.
??? 1974 – Nov 1975
Lafayette, California
Karen and I lived here for a year both before and after we were married in January 1975. It was a delightful two bedroom condominium type place with a running stream just below our first story balcony. A working fireplace and white shag carpeting.
Nov 1975 – Feb 1979
Panoramic Drive, Concord, California
Karen's and my first house of our own. Three bedrooms with a small pool that took up the whole back yard. Not a bad place except that sometimes the wind from the oil refineries really stank up the air, and we were robbed three times, probably by the teenage boys that lived next door. This motivated us to look for a new house.
12 Feb 1979 – Today
5727 Laurelwood Place, Concord, California
Our current home-sweet-home. Four bedrooms (actually three plus a den-computer room), a larger yard, nicer neighborhood, and a bigger pool (that at the moment is filled with algae and several small but very loud frogs). This house is at the base of the foothills of Mt. Diablo (which got a little dusting of snow just a couple of weeks ago — that happens about once or twice a year at the most).
And nearby there is open grazing land with cattle on it. One morning a couple of years ago, while driving to work, I almost went off the road because I looked over and saw actual cowboys on horses herding the cattle across the fields and into pens to be shipped off to market. Made me feel like I'd slipped into a western movie or something. However, more of the open land gets 'developed' every year so I suppose that won't last forever.
Well, this has ended up being much longer that I thought it was going to be when I started it. Maybe it was sort of a dumb idea in the first place. I hope it hasn't been too boring.