I Lived On Pleasant Street Poem by Robert Winthrop

When I was six and in first grade,
We found a house complete
With yard and fields and great big trees,
A house on Pleasant Street.

The neighbors were just down the way
In houses clean and neat,
And soon I knew ‘most all the kids
Who lived on Pleasant Street.

The Munsons and the Tillquist kids
Were playmates hard to beat.
The Riegels and the Crawfords too
Lived down on Pleasant Street.

Each day we'd troop to Mark Twain School
Through rain and snow and sleet,
And back and forth we'd go for lunch,
We kids from Pleasant Street.

Our teachers taught us how to write
In script both round and neat;
Miss Reynolds kept us all in line,
Wild kids from Pleasant Street.

When summer came, the unpaved road
Was dust beneath bare feet.
We'd play croquet and kick-the-can.
Oh! What a pleasant street!

Like Tom and Huck we roamed the fields
In spring and summer heat.
We smoked the dry catalpa pods
Back then on Pleasant Street.

In fall we'd gather walnuts black
And stomp them with our feet,
Then peel them till our hands were stained.
What fun on Pleasant Street!

In winter we would take our sleds
And ride down hills so fleet.
From Country Club down to the bridge
We'd glide on Pleasant Street.

To earn ourselves some money
When we craved a toy or sweet,
We'd caddy, carry papers or
Mow lawns on Pleasant Street.

My brother's death while in the war
Brought sadness hard to meet.
And, too young, Mrs. Munson died,
A loss on Pleasant Street.

The years flew by; they paved our road
With blacktop straight and neat,
And soon we went our sep'rate ways,
We kids from Pleasant Street.

Since then I've lived in Paris, France,
But no rue can compete
With that Missouri gravel road,
That bygone Pleasant Street.

When melancholy comes my way,
And life's with woes replete,
I close my eyes and once again
I'm back on Pleasant Street.