Her View: Roundabout, progress has me looking to the past – Moscow-Pullman Daily News

I just read in the paper this week that Pullman is ready for a new roundabout.

Im confused. Is this proposed roundabout an additional one or is it a second? Or are there more? If it is a second or third one, where are they? I didnt know we had an old one.

This whole question reminds me of all the changes that have taken place in Pullman in my lifetime. I grew up here and lived on Alpha Road until I got married and left Pullman in 1953 until about 1995, when I returned to live where I do now. I have found it a great place to live and love it here.

There have been huge changes in my lifetime. I was born in 1931 at a time when Pullman didnt have a hospital, so my mother went to Spokane, where her parents lived, to have me at Deaconess Hospital. We first lived in an old house on Colorado Street in back of the old Bookie before my folks moved to their house on Alpha Road about a year later.

At that time, our immediate neighborhood had only a scattering of houses. There were only three old houses in our block and one across the street. We watched as the vacant land was filled in within a few years. One of our weekend activities was walking around going through the houses in progress guessing what the uses of each space was destined to be.

Some belonged to friends of ours and others were owned by strangers. In the early days, there was a creek running beside the level part of D Street that dove through a culvert under Alpha Road and followed Harvey Road as an open creek until it reached the river that ran along Grand Avenue.

When they prepared to pave D Street, they brought sections of culvert and left them lying along the street until they were ready to put them in place. We soon discovered that if we crawled through the sections, we could find the segments of metal that were punched out to make rivet holes. Those made wonderful play money. I remember I found enough to fill a quart milk bottle. Paving D Street spoiled a lot of our fun since we could no longer crawl under Alpha Road through the culvert. That creek remained an open creek until they finally paved Harvey Road.

B, C, D, and Alpha were paved earlier, which further spoiled a lot of our fun. However, it was nice to finally have a storm sewer instead of a mud hole in front of our house. I remember as a small child sitting in a rut full of water in my green wool snowsuit. I also fell in the creek once wearing that and had to climb a very slippery muddy 4-foot-high bank to get out. Looking back on it, I realize I was very lucky. The creek was in flood with about 3 feet of water in it. I still dont remember how I got out safely but I do remember getting my wool snowsuit very wet and heavy enough to weigh me down as I drug myself home crying all the way.

Ours was a great neighborhood to play in. It had once been an old orchard and there were a bunch of old apple trees scattered about. We had one in our yard that my folks never pruned and it had a horizontal limb that was perfect to sit on and hang by our knees on. Wed play house in it by the hour.

Times have changed, and Im not always sure its for the better. We could let our imaginations run wild as we turned trees to houses and sat in ruts that fit our behinds perfectly. Kids these days miss out on a lot of that kind of fun.

Harding lives in Pullman and is a longtime League of Women Voters member. She also has served on the Gladish Community and Cultural Center board. She can be contacted at lj1105harding@gmail.com.

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Her View: Roundabout, progress has me looking to the past - Moscow-Pullman Daily News