Newark 1952 Written January 2, 2008   Hi!  My name is Tommy Thomas.  I live in Ohio.  I'm 5½ years old.  And I'll sell you this house!  You only have to pay $22,500.  I have a little box you can put the money in, if you like. You see, my family is about to move for the second time this year.  It's because of my father's job. Fourteen years ago, back in 1938, Daddy went to work for a man called Charles Sipe in Cambridge.  Mr. Sipe owns the business that sells Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs. Here's a picture of me from a couple of years ago in Cambridge, when I was a little boy. I'm holding a plastic rocket from a showroom display.  Oldsmobiles, you see, are called "Rocket 88s." Daddy did a good job for Mr. Sipe, and he wanted to buy a dealership of his own to run.  But he was too valuable for Mr. Sipe to lose.  Mr. Sipe was mean to Daddy and wouldn't give him permission to leave Cambridge and buy another business.  So Mother and Daddy talked it over, and this spring, he finally quit Mr. Sipe and left Cambridge anyway. He got another job with Curran Motor Sales here in Newark.  Mr. Curran sells Olds and Cadillacs.  He promised not to stand in Daddy's way if he ever found a dealership of his own.  So we moved here and bought a house.  It's about 60 miles west of Cambridge. Sure enough, a few months later Daddy found out that a dealership was available.  The owner wants to retire, and Daddy agreed to buy his business. The new place is in a town called Richwood.  So now we're going to be moving again, another 60 miles away! It's September, and I've just started kindergarten here in Newark.  Daddy is going up to Richwood to get started while Mother and I stay here and sell the house.  There's going to be a big election in November; I asked Mother and Daddy who they're voting for, and they said "Eisenhower," so I guess that's good.  After the election, if Mother and I have sold the house, we'll move to Richwood ourselves  and I'll join the kindergarten up there. My inscription on the flyleaf of a book that would be my father's present on his 43rd birthday. The house where we're living now is on the west side of Newark, at 1297 Granville Road (the orange arrow below). Let me give you a little tour, with pictures we took one morning this past summer. From the road, looking southeast, you can see it's a big house. It has three bedrooms and a fireplace and everything, and a big front yard. A driveway runs between the hedge and the lamppost, and the entrance is over here on the north corner. As you can see, the driveway continues to the rear of the house, around that way.  And there's a whole bunch of trees and grass beyond that. The lot is only 75 feet wide, but it's 300 feet deep. Behind the house, the driveway turns and goes into the garage. It's sunny here on the southeast side.  I have this birdbath, and Mother has her flowers, and Daddy has his screened-in porch. And over on the west side, the property line is marked by this neat black chain fence. I don't remember much about living here in Newark.  It's only been a few months. The church we've been going to is on Church Street, I think, which makes sense.  We have to get in the car and drive there. Once I slipped in the bathroom and cut my chin on the edge of the bathtub, and Mother got all worried about it and they put me in the car and we went into town to find a doctor, but I'm okay now. Daddy was away last weekend, and Mother took me to the local Indian mounds.  I guess they're like 2,000 years old.  That round one at the bottom of the drawing is the Great Circle.   We got up on top of it and walked all the way around.  It was a long way, nearly three-quarters of a mile.   But now we're going to have to say goodbye. This ad is going to be in the newspaper the first of October. Mother is already starting to pack the dishes away in big fiberboard barrels for the movers.  Soon it will be time to put Newark behind us.