Dad went ahead of us and rented an
apartment. The
apartment was at the
corner of Southwest Canyon Way and Southwest 9th. Street. What school
you went to, in Newport, depended on what your address was.
There were three grade schools. On the North end of town there was Sam
Case Elementry School, in mid-town there was Central School, and on the
South East side there was Yaquina View School. My brother and I were
both enrolled in Cental school. I was enrolled in the 2nd grade and my
brother was enrolled in the 4th grade.
Our new Apartment was actually a commercial property.The front door was a swinging glass door, with a horizontal bar, like
you would expect to see on any storefront or shop. The shop area was
partitioned off, making a living room and bedroom. It had a huge utility
room in the rear of the shop that we converted into a bedroom for my
Brother David and I to sleep. The utility room was unpainted concrete block, gray in color. In the utility
room was a bathroom that had a small shower stall, sink, and toilet. The
utility room, because it was unpainted concrete block, it was cold, it
had no heat. This was just temporary. In a couple of months we moved to
a large, rambling, red house, next to K.N.P.T, the Newport A.M. radio
station at the North end of town, East side of Highway 101. We used to
spend a lot of time playing around a large pool of water that was
between the radio station and Highway 101. On the South
side of our fence was a long driveway leading up into a trailer park. I
used to ride my bicycle in that trailor park driveway. Up to that point
I had training wheels on my bycycle. I finally had the confidence to
remove the training wheels from my bicycle and ride without them.
The next street South was the entrance to San-Bay-O Circle. The house
was one story, two bedrooms, and large. It didn't have much frontyard or
backyard, but it had a large driveway. You could turn your car around
easily in the driveway. When you pulled out of the driveway, you were
pulling out directly onto Highway 101 and the cars were driving fast. We
had a few close calls pulling out onto the highway. We lived there for a
few months before moving over to Lee St., about three blocks west of
Highway 101. We lived in this house for a couple of years. We still
lived in the part of the town that meant that we still attended Central
Grade School. the backyard opened up into Nye St., which was a street
going North, and into 7th st. which was a short street going East. Ernie
Kehm and his family and the Gearins lived on 7th. Street as well. To the
North of our house on Lee St. lived the
Scanlon family, Dennis and his sister Sonja. To the south, a few houses
down lived the Jerry Miller family, they owned the "Jerry's Richmaid", and his
son, Jerry Jr.(Punky). One street to the West, on Cottage Street, lived
the DeJa Family, Henry, who was in my grade, and his older brother Tom,
who was a couple of years older. The Triplett Family lived on this
Street as well. We had lots of kids to play with in this neighborhood.
