On Rabbit Hill

It’s high time I retold this story that I first told on 1 November 2010. My childhood neighborhood was packed tightly along steep, narrow streets with thinly built two- and three-bedroom houses. These weren’t anybody’s dream homes; it was optimistic to call them modest. But they were attractive to working families getting their start. I was on the way in 1966, and Mom and Dad’s apartment wouldn’t accommodate three. Dad’s wages stretched just far enough to buy one of these homes. A whopping 31 other children were born along our street within a few years of me. With a wink and a smile, the neighbors all came to call our street Rabbit Hill. Summertime children on Lancaster Drive: Darin, Colleen, Christy, David, Mike, and two others partially hidden. Summer, 1976. Nearly every house contributed someone to the pack, and age differences of two or three years barely mattered. Kellie lived next door; when her family moved out, Jimmy’s family moved in. Robyn and Sally lived two doors down.…