In the summer of 1973, I had just finished the fifth grade, we moved to a large brick home on Vernon Terrace. It the nicest home we’d ever lived in that was ours, very similar to our quarters at Fort Belvoir, an Army base on the Potomac River, not far from Mount Vernon. In the front yard of Vernon Terrace were a cherry tree that put out blossoms like those around the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial, a Norway spruce, and a little driveway that descended into a basement garage that no car could fit in. In the back yard grew a large oak tree, whose leaves and acorns I raked up every fall. We soon fenced in the a backyard the so the Irish Setter, Holly, and the German Shepherd, Kraut, could run around. Continue Reading