The house on Jackie Lane sat about halfway down the street on the left-hand side. My parents bought it in 1960, just before I was born the following year. It was a classic three-bedroom ranch with a full two-car garage tucked underneath—a nice house for its time, nothing fancy, but solid and full of promise.
That house holds my very first memory.
I must have been around four years old. I remember standing in the kitchen, watching my Grandma Lubker make breakfast. She was making what most of us today would call French toast, though she never did. To her, it was always “egg bread”—a plain but perfectly accurate name, and one that’s stuck with me ever since.
In those days, she was at our house a lot—probably too much. My dad was her only child, and her husband—my Grandpa Lubker—had died just a few years earlier. Lung cancer took him quickly. He was only 61. Sadly, I never knew him.
In my opinion, she never fully got over it.
She had her good days and her bad days—though if I’m honest, probably more bad than good. Being with us seemed to help. She’d stay for a week at a time, sometimes even longer. I think being around the noise of Carole and me and the routine of family life gave her something to hold on to.
Despite the grief she carried, Grandma was a lot of fun and one of the most caring people I have ever known. I remember her carrying us around on her shoulders much like a human amusement park ride, singing an odd little tune from her own childhood:
“Rags, bottles, bones today—who’s gonna come and take Billy away?”
I didn’t know what it meant exactly, but she sang it with gusto, and it made us laugh every time.
That house—those moments—are still with me. The smell of egg bread, the sound of that strange old rhyme, the feel of her steady hands lifting us up. It was the beginning of memory for me, wrapped in the warmth of a woman who loved deeply, even through her sorrow.
Welcome! 