Growing up in a fairly laid back college town was a safe place to learn about the world.

A photo essay about the neighborhood I grew up in. Pullman, WA. - a small town that is pretty enlightened since it's a college town. A good and somewhat unique place to grow up. The only other place I've lived is Bellingham. In some ways, it's similar.

I grew up in a neighborhood of 3 dead end streets. They were really dead end with no culdesac. Cars would often have to back down and turn into our driveway to get pointed back down the street.

I'm usually a critic of dead end streets as with their privacy they can also bring disconnection, but our neighborhood was surrounded, on two sides, by the WSU campus which opened us up to the world.

At the top of our street was a grassy hill that actually belongs to some dorms. Past the hill are more dorms and the campus beyond. On the horizon is Bryan Hall clocktower to the right and Holland Library to the left.

I remember slumber parties on the hill, 4th of July picnics and so forth. It was like our park.

From a plaza on top of the library, one can see across to Kamiak Butte which is 10 miles north of town. A place for picnics and hikes to the ridge.

A large fieldhouse was nearby. During my childhood, it had a dirt floor. Pretty informal so kids could play in it. A good place to fly paper airplanes. It was really drafty and dusty in there.

Across town was my high school, a brand new school my senior year, class of 73. Quite progressive and bult on the trust system; so trusting that there were 5 entrances to the library which was considered a hub for learning. It was 2 floors. Downstairs was a media center.

Eventually they had to reduce the number of doors and put tags in the books to keep books in the library.

Schools, these days, have more security, for many reasons.

The new school looked out across rolling fields of wheat.

New neighborhoods pushed out into the unique ocean of rolling Palouse hills made from windblown loess soils.

I heard that this is a rare landscape.

The high school art teacher, Vic Moore, built a castle from junk parts out in the Palouse. He was real creative.

I used to often wonder the WSU campus and look out from the 12th floor of the tallest building; now called Webster Hall.

Classroom buildings had lots of educational displays.

I used to wander around the halls looking in windows of the radio and TV studios thinking I might have a career in communications. It was a pretty open environment and I met quite a few folks working and learning at KWSU Radio.

My career turned out to be more of an avocation in the online environment (another story).

Growing up in Pullman was good. I now live in Bellingham.