From Park Avenue to a Life of Serenity Married to a King

No one would ever  believe that I lived the first 12 years of my life on Park Avenue!  All my childhood memories are from that little house on Park Avenue.  Ok, so to set the record straight right off the bat, Park Avenue, Columbia, Mississippi!  We lived on Park Avenue extension that went out into the country.  Our house was on a one acre lot in a curve.  The road went in front of our house and then down one side.  We had a garden on the other side and in the back.  I grew up in a simpler time with gentle parents and 3 siblings that were my best friends as we grew up. 
 I never saw or heard my parents yelling or arguing about anything.  I always tell people I lived the "Ozzie and Harriet"  life.  I don't remember seeing any of my aunts or uncles arguing either. 
My dad started out as a service station attendant.  He went into the store that was close to the station, which had a soda fountain, and there he met my mom. Dad had 6 siblings and 5 half siblings. We visited each of them a couple of times a year but they didn't have family get togethers very often
 My mom was the 3rd child of a tenant farmer who had 10 children by my grandmother.  He had been married before and had 6 children with the first wife.  Yes, I had 16 aunts and uncles and about 75 cousins.  Easter and Christmas at my grandmother's house was a blast.  
The house on Park Avenue was a 2 bedroom block house with one bath at the end of a long hallway. I remember sharing a room with my 2 sisters until after my brother was born.  That is when Dad decided it was time to add on.  The first addition was to the back of the house.  A new bedroom for Mom and Dad and the new baby boy.  I, being the oldest,  got their old bedroom. I loved it until a year later they closed in the porch to make my sister a bedroom.  You had to go through my room to get to hers!  After a couple of months, she decided to change rooms with me.  Once again, I could shut my door and read without any interruptions.
The house was heated at one time with a wood heater and later with a propane gas heater.  There was an attic fan in the long hallway that kept a breeze blowing through the house in the summer. After the add on we had air conditioners in windows in the living area and back bedroom. The house withstood Camille (a furious hurricane in 1969) in August and my brother was born in September.  That was a long night. It was the first hurricane I remember.  My grandmother stood at the back door and watched it.  We were out of power for a couple of weeks and had to go into town to get water.
I have many fond memories of that house on Park Avenue.  My sisters and I playing with our Barbies, making straw houses in the yard, the switches Mom made us go break off the plum tree, shelling peas and beans under the mimosa tree, and lots of love from my parents and siblings. 
That house on Park Avenue set the stage for what I wanted for my life.  We moved a couple of times during my teen years but none of the houses hold such a special place in my life as the house on Park Avenue.  My life has has come full circle.  I don't live on Park Avenue, but I have the simple life with a loving husband, whose last name is King, in a life of serenity.