Despite sitting up late Saturday evening as a result of my younger brother arriving home around 8:10 p.m. for the second consecutive Saturday from wherever it was that he had been drinking, I still managed to rise early and get myself away on a good, long walk yesterday.
But it cost me.
I left here at 5:48 a.m. and was back around 8:50 a.m., and put in a round trip of nine miles. And even though I never did any shopping, and thus never had to carry anything home, the trek wiped me out for the day. I had nothing left for any other fashion of exercise.
I need to try and do a little walking during the week so that these weekend undertakings are not as exacting as they are, but I just couldn't tackle an outing overnight when I rose late in the midnight hour this a.m. despite remaining up until maybe around 4:30 a.m.
I was just far too ill slept, and only craved my return to bed.
As for yestermorn's hike, I finally took the walk I have contemplated for the past couple or so years ─ I wanted to pass by the Surrey location where my younger brother and I lived from September 1, 1978 until into the early 1980s.
The house's actual address was 8205 - 144th Street as shown on this Google map.
Back then, there was no 82nd Avenue; and our two nearest neighbouring homes were a considerable distance from us.
Well, this morning I took three photos as I stood at that 82nd Avenue intersection with 144th Street. But I should have taken better note of the Google map before making the hike.
I mistakenly believed that our old address of 8205 should have been just above this intersection as one looks at the Google map, for normally street addresses would increase in amount as one proceeds towards the next avenue ─ in other words, 8205 should have been just above 82 Ave as you look at the map, and not well below that intersection.
Whomever did the street planning was messy.
So when I took this first photo, I was standing in that intersection and facing at the corner of 82 Ave that is 'above' the intersection on the map:
That should really have been where 8205 was. Yet when I looked at the house address of the first home fronting 144th Street, it already read something like 8259 ─ which should have put the house more than halfway to the 8300 block and thus any 83rd Avenue if one existed.
This second photo is the same view, but this time I was capturing the opposite side of 144th Street as well:
And this third photo is looking 'below' the intersection toward where I now realize that Google maps has my old address situated, but I did not realize that when I took the photo:
My walk was taking me 'down' 144th Avenue, for my ultimate destination was to be the intersection with 72nd Avenue. But back when my brother and I lived at that old location, we were very near to a stretch of electric power transmission lines ─ there was only one other home between ours and that array.
So when I reached those transmission lines, I took a couple further photos:
If you refer again to the Google map, you can see identified the paved walkway in the last photo ─ it is Surrey Lake Greenway. It never existed those many years ago, however.
I took one final photo during my walk as I was passing through Newton ─ believe it or not, this used to be the Newton public library:
If my research is correct, that library first opened on July 16, 1964 ─ and I as a 14-year-old lad was there to join, along with a younger friend (Ricky Dugdale, or however his name was spelled). I lived approximately 1½ miles away, and the two of us had cycled to it on our no-speed bikes.
Unfortunately, we were not allowed to sign up without paperwork containing a parent's signature.
So we ended up cycling back to my home ─ both of my parents were away ─ where we decided to each forge a signature for the other.
Then we cycled back to the library.
Despite all of the time this took, my library card number was still something like #111 ─ I can't remember just what it was exactly. But if not for all of the lost time that day, I might well have been among the first 50 people to join ─ maybe even among the first 25.
This old uncoloured photo of that library may have been taken back in April 1965:
The actual address is 13455 - 72nd Avenue (Google map).
I allowed my membership to lapse over the years; and thus when the new library opened up, although I did visit it a few times, I never became a member.
It is presently 7:45 p.m. and my wife has arrived home, so I must bring this post to a finish right here.
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