[This third installment by Kit Bowen was submitted to us via gardenhomehistory@gmail.com on April 28th, 2024. Thanks for this new chapter, Kit! You can read Kit’s first chapter Kit Bowen and his second chapter Wobbling Into My Past by Kit Bowen.]

The Portland Golf Course was the only thing that separated the two pioneer towns of Garden Home and Raleigh Hills. The front nine was in Raleigh Hills, and the back nine was in Garden Home. I could walk out my gate and be in Raleigh Hills in 5 minutes just by walking down a fairway or driving it would take 10 minutes.

Garden Home was the ‘Sand Trap’ that no one wanted to get out of surrounded by fields, forests, abandoned dairies and sawmills, horses, and actual hitching posts at the store. Raleigh Hills was the “Putting Green”, with private schools, private clubs, and beautiful homes with swimming pools. There was no winner on the fun meter of childhood between Bel Air and Mayberry, and I was lucky to have been part of both worlds. There was one scratch-your-head moment difference, in 1956 Garden Home was pretty much built out, but Raleigh Hills seemed to still be in its teenage years even though it was founded 14 years (1892) earlier than Garden Home in 1906. Once I got my brain out of granny gear, I came to a startling Einstein moment. If it takes a 5-year-old baby boy to pedal his trike the full length of Garden Home in 45 minutes, how long would it take the same Hell Kitten to peddle through Raleigh Hills which is at least 5 neighborhoods larger?

Never happened, because when he got to Gable Hill whether going up or down it, his ability to breathe would leave his body. On a sled, or the lid of a garbage can, in the winter snow, it is horrifying. I have only done it once in 60 years on a motorcycle. You had to stop at the top where all you could see was sky. You can’t use your foot brake only your right hand front brake, as your left hand pulls in the clutch, and you left foot pushes down the pedal into first gear.

Now you have to release everything at the same time while pulling back on the throttle and still holding back a half ton of iron with just the puny front tire brake.

Oh yea that’s a whole bunch fun right there.

If you miss a step, well, Ya Phuken Die!

Both Sylvia and Anne lived on that Paved Goat Trail of Death, and because it was so steep they both fell numerous times just getting out of bed.

Garden Home and Raleigh Hills had one thing in common both their schools were built before there were children to fill them. I have aerial shots of both of them. Garden Home is definitely a wooden country schoolhouse that sprung up in a forest, and The Panthers Home is a classic brick structure or a Mini-Me Grant High School, which resembles Dorthey’s home after it landed in a cattle pasture. This Pasture would turn into a My-Tee Fine Grocery Store.

Fred Myers, the future hang out for all the Hot Rodders in the hood. If I wanted to find Hughes or Watson I went to the magazine section, FOR YEARS!

Beyond my future baseball field was a very large old Farm House set on a gravel driveway that stretched to Beaverton Hillsdale Road, which was a straight 8-mile shot to OZ {Portland}.

I think (which is starting to be a chore) that Jimmy’s grandparents lived there, help me with this one Debbie. If you took a left, going west, this pasture was a 3-mile crew cut to our 1906 Beaverton Oregon High School, which resembled Rocky Butte Prison. It’s in the process of being replaced by an oversized chrome garbage can with holes cut into it for long windows about a foot wide. I believe the planning committee was drinking Night Train when they approved it.

There’s much more exciting news taking place in this new utopia in 1956. Don’s Burgers stuffed behind the one-hose gas station, a greasy brown paper bag with the BEST BURGER, topped with fries too hot to handle, but when fanned melted in your mouth.

Kienows (the friendliest store in town) was linked to Rexall Drugs, who dealt in Candy that all the land urchins on bikes craved. Jaw Breakers for a penny, and every candy bar for .05 cents! The most exciting thing about my new Play Land was that it had oodles of money flowing in from all of our parents returning from war. Most everyone was moving over from the Eastside with pockets full of change when more bridges were built.  Dr. Burns parents, Kay and Watty Eastman, Stamms, Savinars, Irruelies, Siddels, Shankers, and many more. Take a look at the homes on the Eastside, Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Alameda, and Grant Park. When our Grandparents and Parents left those homes and crossed over more bridges, they went up and over Portland Heights, where some jumped off, while the rest didn’t jump off their boards till Lake Oswego or Raleigh Hills.

Some of my early fun zones were the barn-like structure that sat on Miss Gables Day school. Filled to the top with trapezes and nets, old wooden TALL stilts, and more stuff that I didn’t care about because the trapeze was screaming at me,  (‘Trapeze with Burt and Gina 1956)

“Hey Tony try this bad boy out!” I climbed the ladder, threw the rope over the swing, pulled it to me, hung on while I swung then put my legs over it and continued while swinging upside down. The funny part was that a man was screaming at me on the barn floor, and he was also upside down. I slowly did an air sit-up, grabbed the bar, and dropped into the net. The man who was so excited and YELLING things I didn’t understand. This creation was not a normal human being, he was like a gorilla minus the hair.  I wanted to respond with, “Hey Jumpin Jack Flash put a muffler on it, you’ll wake the termites in this infested home of yours!” But of course, I was only 7 and that flowing poetry would not come naturally till I was 8. That being said I never did get an invite back.

Another life blessing for me was seeing how new houses were built and I had a huge Pallet. Raleighwood, Montclair, Raleigh Park Grade School, and then my Creme de la Creme Jesuit High School. I would spend hours playing in a house and guessing what would go where. I have always been in love with architecture and have been in some pretty cool digs. I was pleasantly surprised in one home in particular back in 1976 when I delivered a universal Gym Machine to Gabe Kaplan in Beverly Hills.

He had bought it from ‘THE BEST, FROM ALL THE REST’ MYRNA  LOY.

In my opinion Miss Loy, and Jimmy Cagney, were the the best who ever strolled the boards, whether the cameras were rolling, or swinging on a hammock!

There were some great traditions at my new school and one was Hot Dog Day. Once a month on a Thursday our mothers would dish out hot dogs, chips, and Dixie cups of white and orange ice cream to the whole school. This was a day we all looked forward to and a nice break from peanut butter and jelly all year long. On a stranger scale was the YoYo man. Once or twice a year this Odd-Job Asian man would appear out on the playground at recess with pockets full of yoyos. He would start off with walken the dog, the triangle, loop the loop, and finish off with around the world where he would let go of the string and send it sky word while opening his sport coat and have it land in his breast pocket. He would then take out a knife and carve beautiful etchings on the spools then sell them to us for 50 cents a pop. My gut says this scenario probably wouldn’t play out very well with present-day Mommy’s and Daddy’s. “Hey, Mom and Dad there’s this really cool China Man who’s hanging around the schoolyard with yoyos, and sharp knives, is it ok to play with him at recess?” “Why of course it is sweetie, but if he ever wants you to play Humbly-Peg or chicken with the knife you’re on your own.”