from Maria Chism --

I stumbled on your website on accident. I was looking for Joelle Hymel and your website with my nick name came up. I was really surprised. I want to thank you for the beautiful website that you put up. It was a wonderful reminder of things that were very much part of my life growing up.

I lived at 13806 Barrydale Street. My parents were Bill Chism aka Tiny and Maria F Chism. My dad told me that when I was growing up that the ladies would just walk in the house, no knocking necessary to go have morning coffee. I guess kind of like Ethel on the I Love Lucy Show. Joelle Hymel was my best friend and I would spend endless hours together, with her playing in her front yard. She had her sisters and I had my little brother David. Of course I would have preferred no little brother being a tag along, but now I wish he was around. 

 I spent so much time riding my Schwinn Bike around and around the blocks I would go. I was all over that neighborhood. I never seemed to tire of riding around those blocks down by Van Wig. I used to love to cut thru Flanner because there were two entrances and they were a short cut down to the liquor store. Also there was a little boy I had a crush on. I would go down to his house and drop little toys in his mail box, which was right on the porch. Of course I would never leave a note. Now I think about it and his mom must of thought who is this putting little cracker box toys in the mail box. One time Jayleen and I rode all the way to Don Julian to go see a game. 

I think about that now and wow that was a long way. We would go down to the baseball park, down by the Vineland Theater and we would watch the baseball game, sit up on the scoreboard and change the scores. Of course, having a snack bar down there was great. I still to this day think The Vineland Theater was something. You had two movie screens showing different movies and in the middle they had the snack bar and best of all a playground. Imagine that, a playground that your kids would play in if they got antsy. I really loved Flanner. It was so cool to live right across the street from the school. So many memories. You have inspired me to look for some photos.

I Thank you for giving me the opportunity to stroll down memory lane, thru your webpage. It makes it nice -