By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com
Robin Hollis and several lifelong friends all grew up on a cul-de-sac at 121st Street and Lantern Road in Fishers. Some of them went to the old neighborhood on Friday evening for one last round of kickball before the homes are razed for a new development.
Hollis moved to the cul-de-sac in 1969 when her parents purchased one of the smaller homes. Years later, her parents sold that house and bought a larger one in the same neighborhood. While she no longer lives in Hamilton County, she is still a Hoosier. When she heard abut the plans to tear down the old neighborhood, she reached out to friends and family to visit it one last time.
Robin Hollis’ mom, Patty Birch (above left), watches the “kids” play as she did for so many years. (Reporter photo by Nik Roberts)
Hollis noted that the developer in charge of building whatever comes next for her former home, Hossam Wanas, CEO of Wanas Group LLC, was delightful to work with.
“I explained we are going to have one final walk down memory lane with a few throws of the kickball,” Hollis told The Reporter. “He was very kind! He shared that where my old house is located on the cul-de-sac, there will be a clubhouse. He asked if we could gather some old pictures and a few from tomorrow as he wants to incorporate the history of the neighborhood by etching images in the artwork on the walls. He also wants to keep our memories alive.”
Hollis and her kickball crew spent over an hour in the old neighborhood Friday night.
“It was neat to be back where we came from and remember how we grew up,” Hollis said. “It was sad at the same time to know that those times would not be able to be repeated in the way that we knew them when we grew up.”
Jolie Birch Aldrich and her childhood friend, Brad Hager, sitting in front of the honeysuckle bush approximately 48 years ago and now in front of the same bush not but a month ago before construction started. (Photos provided)
The world has changed since the days when Hollis and her friends would often be out in the world on their own from just after breakfast until mid-afternoon.
“We would get up, eat breakfast and hit the door running,” Hollis said. “Kickball on the circle, gin rummy on a blanket under the tree, sit by the honeysuckle bush to taste the nectar from the flowers, forts in the field, minibikes on the ravine and in the fields around us, walks down the railroad tracks to the little store, bike rides to the bridge between 126th & 131st Street to have a picnic lunch and play in the creek. Our parents didn’t have to worry about us being outside playing and doing all the things that we did growing up on that street. We all know with time things change and we have to all realize that we can only hope that whatever’s going in there brings that kind of same happiness that we saw when we were there to the new families that come along.”
Hollis said the last game of kickball Friday evening was definitely one to remember.
“It was it was definitely a neat experience and it all came back,” Hollis said. “It was like ‘we got to slam the ball, guys,’ and then it was like, ‘you got a foul ball!’ And I’m like, ‘That’s not a foul ball! Who had foul balls back then?’ It all came back, you know. I started to take off and it was like, oh, the old body just don’t function like it used to. But in your mind, you’re still thinking ‘I’m young, I can do this.’”
After the game, everyone signed the kickball with their names and the years they lived in the neighborhood. (Photo provided)
Hollis called her time growing up in that neighborhood “the best life there was” because while they had some of the benefits of living in town, they still very much felt like they lived in the country.
“We still got the opportunity to enjoy being in the country so we could run in the fields,” Hollis said “We could ride our minibikes and our go-karts and, you know, play outside till all hours of the night and have no worries. But yet our little streets were like a family. One neighborhood might be upset with another neighbor and it was just like a family. We were so close. My friend that was my age on the street – her granddaughter and her daughter actually worked for me for about two and a half years. We still communicate and we still are in touch with each other. Most people wouldn’t do that now today, you know, the closeness that we had on that street. I do hope that they do something good with the property – that it just won’t be another apartment complex, if that makes sense.”
Yes, Robin, it makes a lot of sense. In case you are wondering who won their last game of kickball: as far we can tell, they all did.
Reporter photos by Nik Roberts