That's One Billion, 210 Million Watts!

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about how nice it was that my children had friends on this street. My younger daughter, in particular, has become very good friends with a girl just a couple of houses down, and I find her and her family very intriguing. Here's why. There are eight members of the girl's family: the father, the mother, and six children. In descending order, there is a son, two daughters, and then three more sons. All of the children are two to three years apart with the exception of the last two boys, who are slightly more than a year apart.

So what? Here's what: That is almost EXACTLY the make-up of my family growing up. There was my father and mother, my older brother, followed two years later by my older sister, who was followed three and a half years later by my younger older sister, and then three years after that I came along, and three years later my younger brother Kelly was born, followed by Donald 14 months later. This family up the street from us is almost exactly the same!

One of my favorite genre of movies is science fiction movies, and I especially love time travel movies like Back to the Future or Hot Tub Time Machine  or pretty much every third episode of any Star Trek series. And in every one of those shows, there's always the moment when the main character who has traveled back through time comes across HIMSELF in the earlier time. And the character always has this dazed look on his face as he realizes, That's me! That's me in an earlier time, and I'm watching myself!

I get that same feeling two or three times a week. Every time I see the fourth child (the second boy) in this family up the street I think, That's me! That's me back in 1974. It works out almost perfectly. In October of 1974 my older brother Tom would have been a sophomore in high school, which is the grade today of the older brother up the street. My sister Jane was in the 8th grade, the same as the older daughter up the street. My daughter's friend is in the 5th grade, just a grade ahead of where my sister Ann would have been, and every time I see her friend (which is about 5 times a week) I think, "There goes my sister Ann!"

And it's the one just below her that really intrigues me. He's six, the same age I would have been in 1974, and he rides his bike up and down the all of the driveways in the neighborhood, plays in the street with friends, and (to my chagrin) occasionally throws pebbles at cars as they pass. All things I would have done in 1974. And the two youngest children are toddlers, just as my brothers would have been 36 years ago.

And it's not just the children that are the same. Their house is a lot like my parent's house. Sure, my parents had a ranch house and this house is--like almost every other house in my neighborhood--a Cape Cod, but stand in the front yard of either house and look at them and the same thought will strike you: How do that many people even FIT inside that house, let alone LIVE in it? And the stay at home mother up the street has the same look of exhaustion that my mother had for pretty much my whole childhood, and the father, who works six days a week just like my dad did, has the same look on his face, too, one that says, "There are WAY too many people in this house for me, and I have a handle on what's happening at work, but at home things seem just on the verge of being out of control!"

So I don't have to pull out old photo albums. When I see the older brothers and sisters pushing the two younger children, both toddlers, around in their strollers, or when I see my daughter's friend and the boy right below her (Me!) chasing one another around their yard with sticks in a fit of anger, or when I see the mother running after the toddlers as they head towards the street, I don't see them--I see MY family 36 years ago. I've been transported back in time...and without needing to find 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.