MAP TO THE GIANT SANTA

       I've written about this already in Running Away from Home at Age Three, but here's a more cartographic description of the situation.

 

This is a current map of the area in Everett

       I was only three but I wasn't dumb.  I knew how to get from Everett WA to the giant Santa Claus at the Northgate Shopping Center in Seattle.  In 1952 there were no freeways, and 99 was the main highway from Everett to Seattle, and, through Everett, Broadway was Highway 99.  So Billy and I, at my leading, walked down the alley between both our houses (Mom thought I was at Billy's house all the while), and when we got to the next street (18th), we turned toward Broadway, on the way passing the "witches'" house.

       I had to pee then, and somewhere across busy Broadway was a gas station, and I knew that gas stations have restrooms, so the two of us managed to cross the highway and get to the gas station, and there you'll need to go HERE to find the rest of the story. 

       The fact that we were three and people wouldn't let us make the journey, and the fact that it was almost 23 miles from my house to Northgate Shopping Center, and the fact that if we got to Northgate Way, we wouldn't have been able to read the street sign and turn left there to go a few blocks to the shopping center, although the giant Santa would be obvious I would think, and the fact that it was June and the giant Santa wouldn't be there, were things I didn't take into account.

 

 

 

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