It would have been Christmas Eve, 1967, just at dark.  So I was eight, third grade. The last Christmas we lived in the house on Kensington. My mom had kicked us out – my grandparents and my aunt were on the way over, she had things to do, didn’t need a mess of Christmas-crazed rug rats tear-assing around the place. So I’d grabbed the kid next store and gone down to the park to go sledding. Now the sun was just about down and we were headed back, I couldn’t wait to make the corner at Kensington. I’d be able to see the driveway from there. If my aunt’s tan AMC Rebel was in the drive, then Christmas had officially begun.

There was a house at the corner of Harrison and Lakewood, a fifties ranch design, but one of the better ones. Dark brown cedar and stone, a big bay…