1995
Chasey Boy
Two pages down!! Woo!! Let's keep going, but before I go AHEAD I must go BACK just a bit!!! I did not mention the house I was born in and initially grew up in at all in the previous two pages, which is something that just CANNOT be allowed to happen if telling the STORY of my LIFE (WOAH! That was A LOT of ALL CAPS!)! This was intentional though since my MEMORIES did not really begin to form until 1995 or so (the year in which the "Baby Chay" nickname was replaced by "Chasey Boy" to coincide with my status as a baby coming to a close!)! Anywho, these MEMORIES that I have from around this time mainly took place inside of This "Old" HOUSE; MY "Old" HOUSE!
The house in the above picture is the house that my earliest memories stem from and it has thus always been known to me as my "Old House" since it was the first house I ever lived in. My family moved into this house, located at 1871, Taylor Drive, Center Valley, Lehigh County, PA just before I was born. Prior to this my Father, Mother, and Sister lived in a small trailer next to my Paternal Grandmother's house in the town of Trumbauersville, which is located just outside of Quakertown (Bucks County, PA). The arrival of another "Bundle of Floyd" meant more space was needed though (yes, this was a reference to me being a MASSIVE BABY!), so the cross county move was meant to accomodate this!
As I alluded to above, all of my earliest memories are obviously from this house, its yard, and the surrounding areas I visited while growing up. This house thus holds a very special place in my heart. We would eventually move from this house in June of 1998 with the primary goal of obtaining more land though, but despite my fondness for this house and the memories I have there I have yet to return!
This has been intentional though, since I do not want my memories to be "tainted" at all. The entire "Allentown Area", which as far as I am concerned includes all of Bucks and Lehigh County, has changed A LOT over the years mainly due to an increasing population in relatively nearby Philadelphia. I thus imagine all of the places I REMEMBER, such as the EPIC Hellertown Park and Pool, the LANE-CO & Kings Shopping Center, the BLUE STORE, the BARBELL Area, the DQ, the CARP PONDS, the DINO-SPONGE BROWN BUILDING, and others have changed so much that it just would not be the same. I guess what I am trying to say is that sometimes it truly is better to just leave certain things in the past if you want them to remain the way you remember them...!
1995 was another great year though, and one of the highlights of it (aside from being able to finally have MEMORIES!) was when my family got our first DOGS! Now, prior to my being born my family briefly had a Black Lab named "Blackie" as the family pet. Note that I once had a picture of Blackie, but for the life of me I just cannot seem to be able to find it! Blackie was, from what I have been told, similarly difficult to find since he was always running around and getting into trouble! Blackie was a puppy though so this was to be expected, but apparently after biting my sister's arm my parents felt that we were not ready for a dog yet so they gave him away to another family. A few years later though, around Easter of 1995, we would eventually not only finally get A dog but we would get TWO dogs; CUTTER and CHEYENNE!
I do not recall exactly, but I think Cutter (our Male, Yellow Lab), and Cheyenne (our Female, Chocolate Lab) were our first pets and thus members of our family before our birds "Chuckie" and "Chi-Chi" (who like Blackie also appear to have not left any pictorial artifacts behind but unlike Blackie will be mentioned again in more detail on one of these pages!). Due to the fact that my memory is flawless and that I did not have to call my Mother to ask her clarifying questions about my youth prior to writing any of this I am confident when I say that Cutter (our Male, Yellow Lab) and Cheyenne (our Female, Chocolate Lab) were my family's second set of pets after our birds "Chuckie" and "Chi-Chi" which were brought home from my father from work one day as a family gift purchased by my mother at a pet store but unfortunately did not live long due to suffering from heart attacks. I do not know for certain, but perhaps the birds, blue and green Parakeets, were meant to be "practice" pets if you will. Despite having a little bit of Family-Pet Experience though, there were still a lot of family "Growing Pains" (a nice word for doggy messes, puppies falling down steps, kids getting bitten, and having to figure out how to take care of two new beasts!) around this time as there often is in a family welcoming new members of any species, but I remember all of these fondly!
We kept Cutter and Cheyenne in this awesome little outdoor pen that connected to our basement doors, which allowed us to bring them inside our house's basement whenever we wanted or needed to. They were mainly what one would call "outside" dogs though, but this worked quite well for them since Cutter and Cheyenne were originally born on a FARM!
You see, Cutter was born on January 29th 1995 and Cheyenne was born a little bit later on February 15th on an Amish-Owned farm located in Lancaster, PA. (Note that we were told that Cutter and Cheyenne were related and they were probably DOG-COUSINS!)! When my family chose to begin looking for a dog the search was directed towards finding just one, but when we found an article in the paper stating that TWO full-breed lab puppies were free to a good home we just had to go investigate this offer. And investigate we did! I remember my entire family piling into my father's Blue Long-Bed Chevy Silverado and driving for what seemed like hours on a Hot-Spring-Day over to Lancaster to check out these dogs, and upon arriving there we were treated with some amazing hospitality from the Amish family who lived there. This family had two children close in age to my sister and I, and their names were "Boy-ie" and "Girl-ie". Yes, that is NOT something that I just made up! Boy-ie and Girl-ie were some of the NICEST kids we ever met, and they each gave my sister and I STUFFED BUNNIES as gifts since if I recall it was either Easter weekend or just after Easter. These bunnies, an Orange one for me and a Purple one for my sister, have an EPICALLY SAD story of their own, but this is something that is going to need not only its own page but also a whole bunch of tissues to wipe my tears away with when I finally get around to telling it...
Any who, the entire Amish Family told us the dogs were both very nice, and when my sister and I met them this was confirmed with all of the puppy kisses and hugs they gave us! We were smitten as a family from the start, so needless to say we packed up the mini-sized Cutter and Cheyenne into a big cardboard box, placed them in-between my sister and I in the backseat, and headed home! The ride was not all smooth though, since I distinctly remember them escaping the box, jumping and accidentatly scratching my sister and I, and even trying to eat the "John Smith" action figure I had brought along to play with as we rode home!
Eventually we would make it home though, which is something that would be a theme throughout the year of 1995; going places as a family and then going home (or to our EPIC mobile trailer aka BILLY'S now FAMOUS trailer!), but also finally REMEMBERING it to BOOT!
