4010 Curtis

Over the summer (2011), while Suli and I spent some time in the States--Seattle, Montana, Milwaukee, and Chicago,--more than a few times, people I respect told me that I need to make certain that, during the 2011-12 school year, I post more blog entries to keep people informed. The 2010-11 school year was rather full, primarily because of the birth of Oswin, our first son. However, I do not wish to use the little guy as an excuse not to write, so during this school year I hope to post at least one blog per school quarter. This is the first.

I created the following short personal essay as one example of how my speech students could present a self-introduction essay. I have performed no revisions on the piece, and I think it could actually be part of a longer story. Because the story does not take place in China, there are no pictures. However, if you have not seen the blog entries about visiting Suli's hometown, you should look through the archives for "How To Be A Bigshot On Your Old Campus" and "He Kou." Both of these give a written glimpse of life on the China/Vietnam border and include pictures of that place. I hope you enjoy this picture-less glimpse at life in North Omaha.

Westridge Drive is where I learned that, for an upper elementary student, I had been fast. Lost Lake Blvd. taught me I could live on my own. Iowa Avenue revealed my willingness to do almost anything to remain in a place I loved. Big Mountain Road presented me with my love of nature: its beauty and its silence. Wilderness Lane and Beaver Lake Road reminded me that I love being a twin and hate living alone. Er Huan Lu proved to me that I can accept change much more easily than I had previously thought. All these streets taught me something about myself. However, when asked on what street I grew up, I will almost always answer Curtis Avenue.

4010 Curtis Avenue, to be precise.

For this reason, during the summer of 2009, the summer I finally got married, I made certain I took my new wife, Suli, to see the stree on which I spent the first eight years of my life. We were in Omaha, Nebraska, the city of my birth, attending a wedding of Suli’s former roommate. And being back in this Midwest city provided me with the perfect opportunity to give Suli a glimpse into my childhood.

Earlier that same year, Suli had taken me back to her hometown and had shown me where she grew up—a tiny, three-room home with bare, concrete floors and rat droppings on the bed linens. She had shown off her foreign husband to the small school children that now attended the boarding school she had gone to so many years before. We even spent time playing mahjong next to the single-lane, paved road that climbed gently and quietly passed her home and into the surrounding rubber tree terraces.

Now in Omaha, I received the opportunity to present Suli with Curtis Avenue and its surroundings.

“There’s Fontenelle Park, where I learned to ice skate . . . on that pond.”

“This intersection is where the police caught us selling produce we had stolen from our neighbor’s garden.”

“Down that street is MacMillan school, where I learned to swim. Remember I told you about the mean instructor who kept slowly walking away from me, saying ‘just a little farther,’ as water gradually crept into my mouth and lungs, choking me. I thought I was going to drown.”

“That’s the burned out house (even I could not believe it was still there thirty years later) where the bullies had come from who tried to beat up Robert, but Daryl came from over there to chase the bullies away.”

“That’s the dairy shop my family would sometimes walk to and get double-scoop ice cream cones.”

All of this happened on (or around) Curtis Avenue, and I relished being able to transport my wife back in time to see my childhood.

“So which house was yours,” Suli finally asked, just as we passed by 4010 Curtis Avenue.

“That one right there, but back then it had mint-green aluminum siding, and there was a tree house in the backyard.”

When I looked at the house again, it really did look very much like I remembered it. My parents’ bedroom over the single-car garage. The rock retaining wall with concrete steps leading from the driveway to the front door. The living room window box that extended out over the rose bushes. The stoop on the west side of the house where we used to play with the neighbor children. It really did appear much the same as when I had lived there.

Suli interrupted my reverie. “It looks a little small,” motioning up toward the house.

“Yeah. That’s one of the reasons we moved to Westridge Drive, but it was big enough back then. And it’s much bigger than the house you grew up in.”

“True.”

On that trip, I had not been back to Omaha for nearly two decades, but Curtis Avenue had felt the same—a special world unto itself. And, in remaining the same, it had also managed to remain home. So it is without any shame that I can say, “I am from 4010 Curtis Avenue.”