Eastmoor

My dad, who began his career as a teller at First Security Bank, accepted a job as the manager of the Zion's Bank branch in Tooele sometime in early 1983 and decided he wanted to move closer to his new employment. My dad's job was in Tooele and I believe my parents focused their search there, but never found anything they felt right about. So they expanded their search to Grantsville.

Toward the east end of Grantsville, there was a fairly new development, on a street that had been named Eastmoor Drive. The street ran south from Main Street, maybe a quarter mile east of where Main Street intersected with Highway 112 (the Tooele Turn-Off), which ran southeast to Tooele.

(Eastmoor lay in a section of Grantsville that had been known coloquially as Stringtown. There were few houses along Main Street on the east end of town in a "string." Stringtown ran from Willow Street east to the turn-off onto Erda Way, more or less. Matthews owned the land east from Willow Street to the Family Dollar. Alex Johnson owned everything south of Main from Family Dollar east to the turn-off to Erda. The Ratcliffes owned North of Main from the Booth Farm east to Vern Fawson's. And then Fawsons owned on the north side from Vern's east to Tooele Valley Meats).

The street was distinguished by the red brick walls that ran east to west along Main Street and then curved south around the corners of Eastmoor, terminating in large brick pillars with streetlights atop them. My parents found a red-brick house on the corner of Main and Eastmoor, on the east side of Eastmoor. It had originally been lived in by the Reber family, but they had moved and were selling it and my parents knew it was where they would raise their family.

(Eastmoor was developed on land owned by Verl Johnson, by his daughter Tanna and her husband, Bob Hicks. It was Tanna who chose the name Eastmoor. I don't ever remember seeing or knowing Bob, but it was a name we all knew. At some point one of the neighborhood kids was sitting on the wall bordering our property and my mom told them to get down, which they did. But then when my mom went back in the house he climbed back on the wall and told me defiantly that only Bob Hicks could tell him to get off of the wall).

When we moved to Granstville in June of 1983, there were only four homes on Eastmoor. The house my parents had just purchased on the northeast corner, Johansens (Christy, Rachel) next to us on the east, then Tripps (G.A. (at the time), Jake, Jeff) on the west side of the street across from Johansens, and Proctors (Teresa, Lori, Andrew) across the street from us on the northwest corner.

Behind us on Main Street lived the Youngs (Vicky, Bobbie, Danielle, Lucas - not long after we moved in, Danielle, who is around my age, was celebrating a birthday. I heard what sounded like a good time from my backyard and so climbed up on the wall to investigate. Mary, (Danielle's mom) saw me spying and invited me over to the party, such a kind gesture to the new kid that I remember to this day) and a couple houses east of them were the Henwoods (Chad, Bill, Angela). These are the houses that initially made up what I would call our neighborhood and the kids that I would play with throughout my childhood.

The street would grow over time, but looking back it was pretty gradual. Bolinders (Michelle, Aubrey) built a home south of Tripps (they would later move further south and to the east side of the street and Garry's mother Dorothy would move into the home south of Tripps). Johansens moved pretty early and Archers moved in south of us. Later Sandbergs (Ashley, Brock) would build a home south of Archers. Over the years, the Wells, the (Kendall) Sandbergs, the Lloyds, the Lees, Mary Toone, the Boulards (Nick, Rachel) would fill out at least a good portion of the street to what would become 130 South.

But initially it was mostly fields and dirt hills and there was a small grove of trees (known by us simply as "the trees") south and east of Eastmoor where we'd go and play and explore.

Riding bikes to Handy Corner was a common activity and I recall on one occasion riding there with Andrew Proctor. Along the way, we passed by a kid in his front yard along Main Street and for whatever reason the kid started yelling at us "f***ers!" I had never heard that word at the time, but could tell from the kid's tone that it was some kind of insult so I did what anyone else in such a situation would do and yelled it back at him. Andrew, who did know the word, and also knew that I shouldn't be saying it, immediately put his hand over his mouth in disbelief. But I continued shouting back and forth with this kid until we were out of sight.

I never had a BB or pellet gun, but I'd go to the trees with Chad and Bill and their guns and they'd shoot birds and we'd then go and find them and catch them and take them home in a box or something. I doubt that ever ended well for the birds. I also remember catching a muskrat and having it in a box and we'd take it up into the playhouse in Henwoods backyard and block off the door and then let the muskrat out and sit on the chairs and pull our feet up so it couldn't get our feet. Not sure what we were trying to accomplish, other than maybe a tetanus shot.

I have another memory of accompanying Chad, Bill, and Big Bill to hunt pheasants in the fields south and southeast of Eastmoor. My family were not hunters so it was a new activity for me and as we crept quietly through the fields, I started to whistle. After a few minutes, Big Bill turned around and asked, "Who's whistling?!" I guess that wasn't helping with the element of surprise.

(I didn't know this at the time, but Big Bill had initially been married to Jeanell's mom's cousin Kristine and they had a son, Craig, who was Jeanell's 2nd cousin. I would also later learn that Big Bill brought back the body of my friend Aaron's uncle Richard Craig (but known as Dude), who was killed in Vietnam).

Night games were a frequent occurrence on Eastmoor. Annie-I-Over, Kick-the-Can, and Capture the Flag are the three I remember most distinctly. And our house seemed to be the typical location where these games were played. I think these are pretty typical and established games, but for Capture the Flag, we'd run a hose across the middle of our backyard and a good part of the game would consist of extending your arm over the barrier and trying to get someone to grab your hand at which point you'd pull them across to your side so they'd then be in jail.

We would also play whiffle ball and football in our backyard with the neighborhood kids. I don't know at what point it started, but my dad and Al Chatwin would take a bunch of kids from the neighborhood as well as Al's sons Scott and Peter and go down to the city park where we would play tackle football. I don't remember anyone ever getting seriously hurt but on one occasion Sam Hulet wandered over from his house on Cherry Street to play with us and his glasses were broken somewhat quickly.

Pretty early on my dad added a basketball standard to our driveway, and though there was a slight slope, we would spend hours and hours both shooting baskets and playing basketball games. Epic games of Guts were also a common occurrence.

Justin Richardson, who was a few years older than I was and lived across Main Street, would come over and practice his bike tricks on Eastmoor. I never really learned many bike tricks like Justin could do, but I remember riding bikes on the street with him while he would ride and perform all kinds of tricks (standing up on the bike while it was going, bouncing on a single tire, etc.).

One year my parents got us a trampoline for Christmas. I still remember my dad getting emotional about it when they told us because I think it was a stretch for them financially. There was snow on the ground when we went outside to see it and under the trampoline you could see a large divot in the snow because my dad had done a "bummer" on the trampoline after getting it set up.

After that time, trampoline games were added to the neighborhood fun. We'd play crack-the-egg of course, but we also invented a game we called "The Blob" where one person would start out as The Blob and they had to stay on their knees and they would try to grab and pull the other kids down. If you got pulled down, you became a part of The Blob and joined in trying to pull people down. But the kids who were part of The Blob had to stay in contact with each other.

I think Bill broke his leg on the trampoline and I know I slammed my shins on the frame attempting a backflip, but given the number of kids and the amount of time that were spent on that trampoline, there were remarkably few injuries.

I'm so grateful my parents found that red-brick house on the corner. Eastmoor was a pretty great place to grow up.