Tom.
Tim.
Geoff.

We clicked in fourth grade in Mrs. Kuster’s class at Trombley Elementary School, centrally located in the Park at the intersection of Essex and Beaconsfield. Trombley ran from kindergarten through sixth grade and sat right in the middle of the little world we called home. Tim had recently arrived in 1964, moving from Livonia with his parents and two brothers to Whittier Street near Jefferson. Geoff had landed about the same time, coming from Inkster to Berkshire Street near Essex with his parents and five siblings.

I preceded them in Grosse Pointe Park. Our home stood at the foot of Grand Marais, literally a stone’s throw from the Lake St. Clair seawall at the end of the long public sidewalk that led straight to the water. I lived there with my parents, two older brothers, and two older sisters in a house with a giant basement, a fireplace, and a snooker table where endless 8-ball tournaments played out. It was also where the early, innocent choreography of boys and girls learning how to stand near one another without combusting first unfolded.

In many ways, that basement became our command center.

If you stood at the right corner in Grosse Pointe Park in 1964, you could almost see our kingdom.

Grand Marais.
Whittier.
Berkshire.

Three streets forming a small sovereign territory — a republic of bikes, baseball gloves, and basketballs. All within a half mile of each other.

If you perused the resumes of the breadwinners on those streets, the three streets would probably have looked nearly the same.

Engineers from GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

Doctors of every imaginable specialty.

Accountants carrying briefcases full of balance sheets and financial statements.

Lawyers of every stripe.

The lawns were meticulously maintained, with a remarkably consistent aesthetic from house to house.

This ethic was an unspoken prerequisite for living in Grosse Pointe. It was never written down, never posted on a sign, and certainly never discussed in formal terms. Yet everyone understood it. The houses were beautiful but not ostentatious, the streets orderly, and the children — at least in public — were expected to carry themselves with a certain decorum. The community functioned like a well-rehearsed orchestra: each family playing its part, each household mindful that its conduct reflected upon the whole.

On paper, Grand Marais, Whittier, and Berkshire were cut from the same cloth.

But to eleven-year-old boys, they felt a little different.

Grand Marais felt eclectic and hard to categorize, almost like a modern-day Wild West where the rules seemed a little looser.

Whittier carried a different energy. Its heavy tree canopy dimmed the street, giving the quiet impression that behind those front doors were family stories that never quite made their way to the sidewalk.

Berkshire, true to its name, was lined with English Tudor homes standing behind wide green lawns, the whole street carrying the quiet elegance and Old World charm of an English village transplanted to Michigan.

Each street was wonderfully unique in its own way, quietly serving as an incubator for our growth and development.

Any distinctions did not matter.

Because when three boys meet at the corner with baseball gloves and adventure in their hearts, the architecture of adulthood dissolves.

Sidewalks level status.
Bikes escape gravity.
Friendship makes equal what adulthood stratifies.

While the mothers and fathers often shared similar professions, their sons and daughters were busy inventing worlds of their own.

We crossed those invisible borders daily.

Grand Marais to Whittier. Grand Marais to Berkshire.

Berkshire to Grand Marais. Berkshire to Whittier.

Whittier to Grand Marais. Whittier to Berkshire.

These were the short passages of our daily migrations, the well-worn routes of the small kingdom we traversed endlessly on foot and on bike.

We moved easily between these small civilizations of childhood without passports. We did not yet know that adults lived inside categories — income brackets, professions, reputations, expectations. To us, sidewalks dissolved hierarchy. A baseball diamond or a basketball court leveled every distinction.

Looking back now, I see what we could not.

Each street carried its own mix of humanity — its own ambitions, its own fractures, its own quiet griefs. We thought we were crossing geography. In truth, we were crossing future trajectories.

But in 1964, ‘65 and ’66, inside that small territory, destiny had not yet announced itself.

Our bikes — Sting-Rays with high handlebars and banana seats — were our steeds. We rode everywhere: to the lake, around the Pointes, through twilight streets that glowed like something out of a storybook. We felt like royalty — not because of money, not because of houses — but because we were free.

By fifth grade there were girls.

Gail.
Pat.
Cheryl.

We bought them friendship rings, the full ceremonial weight of eleven-year-old devotion in the form of nickel alloy and rhinestones. I can remember vividly the fake emerald stone that sat atop the ring I bought for Cheryl. Six children in the rarified air of Grosse Pointe, sauntering the charmed streets of our youth — on gentle evenings in safe and secure Grosse Pointe Park along Lake St. Clair — it felt as if the world had been constructed especially for us.

And then there was Macbeth.

In fifth grade we became Shakespearean.

Tim was Banquo.
Geoff was Macbeth.
Pat was Lady Macbeth.

In sixth grade ballroom dancing lessons at the War Memorial took us into uncharted new worlds. Inside the English Tudor Revival style building with an elegant old-English façade overlooking Lake St. Clair, Mr. & Mrs. Forrester taught us the foxtrot, the waltz, the tango and more. We learned how to place a hand at the small of a girl’s back without shaking. And how to politely ask a girl for a dance. As well as some pretty cool dance steps.

The years that encompassed fourth, fifth and sixth grade were lightning in a bottle – a brief and electric stretch of childhood when everything seemed to burn a little brighter – old enough for independence, still young enough for innocence.

We moved on to Pierce Middle School where the graduates of multiple elementary schools converged for seventh and eighth grades. Our small, perfect kingdom of childhood was an early casualty of that big, brave new world.

High school at Grosse Pointe South was a saga unto itself.

Geoff went on to become a neurosurgeon, following his father into the intricate architecture of the brain and spine. Tim became a PhD in social work — devoted to teaching future social workers, conducting research, publishing academic papers and books and mentoring new researchers.

I became a tax accountant and eventually an entrepreneur, almost by default. My father had been an entrepreneur himself, and the idea of building things, risking things, and figuring things out on the fly was simply what I was exposed to on a daily basis.

Pat went on to become a high-powered corporate lawyer.

Gail, whose father had been an M.D., found her way into nursing and became an R.N.

Cheryl, for reasons I can’t quite trace, drifted beyond my awareness.

Six children who once walked like royalty on gentle summer evenings scattered into the complicated geometry of adult life.

Sometimes I think about that kingdom in the Park — Whittier, Berkshire, Grand Marais — and wonder whether that was the truest version of ourselves.

Before ambition.
Before rivalry.
Before loss.

The War Memorial was our dance studio.
The lake was our pond.

We did not know that perfection has a short shelf life.

But for a while — in that almost impossibly intact bubble of Grosse Pointe Park — it was real.

And it was ours.