Wendy (Beale) Needham has a rush of memories

OK, Rubys, and everyone else in the Green Valley Drive Universe:

Meagan has been overwhelming me with these e-mails today and I just can't hold off. I was going to try to compose a very thoughtful, evocative essay, but I'm just so happy to hear (read) all of this that I have to just let it out.

Walter, Danny, Joanne: I still remember your mother standing on the front lawn, calling your names for dinner. (Our mom rang a bell.) And, I have to admit, I was always hoping I could catch your mother saying Valter, since I knew she was German.
Danny--which is how I think of you--you were my first boyfriend, back in Northway Village (do you guys remember that, before Green Valley Drive, where our parents met?) I was 4 and you were 3, or something like that, but we played together every day. And we got in big trouble once because we let a housepainter in the complex take us for a ride in his car. I think I got a major spanking for that one...can you imagine how terrified our parents must have been?

Don't know if Meagan and Joanne remember, but they had matching doll strollers, that were pink metal and made the loudest, most annoying noise as they pushed them down the sidewalks in Northway.

Then we moved to Green Valley Drive. And you guys had the COOLEST cars ever--the Beetle, the first any of us had seen, and that wonderful '57 Chevy stationwagon...it was sort of maroon and white, as I recall. One of my clearest memories of all was standing out on your back lawn one night (yours was the flattest in the neighborhood) looking up at the stars...your father had rounded us all up to watch for a satellite (was it Sputnik? or Telstar? I don't remember) passing overhead. It looked like a star--very bright--but moving fast.

Yes, there was a Green Valley Drive newsletter, spearheaded by Danny, I think, but it was the boys (Peter, Walter and Tommy Thompson) who did the reporting. I'd forgotten that until today, reading Dan's e-mail. I remember big games of tag after dinner in the summer, with the sun going down so late, and of course riding bikes, especially down that big hill that ran from the Fishers' down to our house.

As you read in Meagan's e-mail, our mother passed away in October--it was quitebsudden--and Meagan has shared with me two letters from Linda Seidel and Nancy Thompson that were such wonderful memorials to our mom. So I have been thinking about those very happy days in the late 50s/early 60s on Green Valley (oh, hula hoops and flip flops--those were firsts in those summers), and now the Rubys appear!

Thank you all for sharing (ugh, what a cliche, but I mean it), and I am looking forward to spending some time reading your family blog. Joanne, I think we were all touched by your reference to Hodel's farm, and I am glad to hear from Walter that it is still there. Remember the sheep...and remember when they fertilized the fields? Actually, I met someone from Pittsburgh recently (don't remember where, though), who also remembered Hodel's.

SO, pleasant evening, everyone, and please feel free to write to me at wbneedham@comcast.net. It goes without saying, anyone coming through southwest Florida should give us a call!

Wendy