On An Another Note: sorta
There’s been a lot going on around here that has kept me from writing. Health issues, family issues and “self” issues. I get annoyed with myself because in the past few years it’s been common place for me to start something and not finish it. This is VERY uncharacteristic, so therein lies the frustration.
Last night while gathering some information to get this thing going again, I ran across something that stopped me in my tracks. As I looked through the website and looked closely at the pictures I could feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss welling up inside me. I have to admit those feelings have been a part of my every day life for the past few years especially, but this was different. This was very different.
I have no idea how I ended up on this site, but it was a real estate web site. I saw the front of a house that looked slightly familiar, but I couldn’t place it, below the picture was the address. My heart sunk. It was my grandmother’s house. Granted, my Dad had sold it years ago after grandma’s death and I had seen pictures of it over the years so I knew that it was NO -WHERE – NEAR what it used to look like. But that was on the outside and as sad as it was to see how rundown and shabby everything looked,I didn’t know what the inside looked like… that is until last night.
I supposed what hasn’t helped is that I have been feeling my mortality A LOT lately. A lot of that waxing nostalgic crap going on. Getting older puts us in a strange place. Hopefully we have gained in wisdom, wisdom that has helped us along the way. But it also seems to bring a flicker of desire for some of the simplicity and (for lack of a better word) ignorance we had when we were younger. It’s an odd place to be in… at least for me.
SO MANY memories of this house. In comparison to life with my parents, things here were so laid back and where I felt safe enough to be what I was, a kid. My grandma pretty much raised me from the age of 10-11 months to 5 years old. Both of my parents were working at the time and I spent all day at this house during the week. I also spent about every other weekend there until I was about 11 or 12 years old.
As my tear filled eyes tried to focus in on the pictures something was cemented into my heart even more than ever. Keep the memories that you have. Hold on to them and don’t try to go back, you’ll only be disappointed. Remember things as they were, not as they are now.
Granted, Grandma’s house was humble, but what she did have she took pride in. She loved her sheer fancy-schmancy curtains and cared for them all lovingly.
Living room ’70′s
Living Room- ’60′s opposite side of the room of what is shown in the picture above.
This is what was posted on the realtor’s website.
The corner that we’re facing in this shot, is the very corner that the picture above was taken in. The dark window molding wasn’t there.. and it looks like a really crappy job. Wood floors are half-assed stained a darker color than the original. And the front door is different. The door that grandma had was the same door that the house (built in the late 30′s) had. A heavy wooden door with a window in the upper half. The glass was frosted and etched with a forest scene with deer. It was gorgeous. And grandma kept the original lock on the door, which used a skeleton key. I still have my key that she had given to me.
Kitchen. This was where a lot of time was spent. Grandma loved to cook and she loved to sit at her kitchen table and just talk. She had a tall stool near her kitchen counter that I used to sit on and watch her cook. It’s also one of the places that I learned to read. She would have me go out onto the front porch and grab the evening paper and I would read articles to her while she made dinner. I used to like to play “grocery store” too. She’d give me some grocery bags and I would take a bunch of stuff out of the cupboard and sack the groceries. I could entertain myself with this for hours.
The kitchen now. UGH!
This shot is from standing by the door that goes to the mud porch/back door area and looking towards the front door and living room.
google images
Right under where the telephone was is where she kept the stool that I mentioned earlier. That was my favorite place to sit when she was in the kitchen cooking or doing dishes. On the opposite wall was her stove. It had a warming oven which was a way cool thing to have back in those days. By the time I was in grade school the clock no longer worked on it, and it made THE MOST ANNOYING NOISE! We would just laugh about it.
google images
In the kitchen was a white round table with comfy, cushy chairs. Many meals around that table, drawings drawn, color books colored, snapshots of grandma and her side of the family from the “old days” were poured over and I even remember a birthday party or two for me around that table.
Near the stove is a heat vent that you can see is still there. That was near grandpa’s side of the table. He would sit in that chair near the heater all the time in the winter. And near him on that same side of the kitchen there was another doorway that went into the dining room.
On the wall to the immediate right of the photographer was where there was a little cubby hole that the refrigerator fit into. Above that was a built in shelf that held pictures and a couple knick-knacks. On the other side of that was a small hallway that held on one side a huge built in shelf that grandma put cookbooks, spare canned goods, tablecloths, etc. Next to that was the door that went downstairs and on the opposite side of the hallway was the bathroom that had a cast-iron claw foot tub that I LOVED to take baths in …. well, after I had graduated from the kitchen sink. (rolling my eyes)
This will give you a clue of how much grandma spoiled me and how much she encouraged me to be a kid. When the weather was crappy she would let me bring my tricycle into the house and I would ride it around and around and around…. from the kitchen into the dining room, thru the living room, into the small front hallway, back into the kitchen. IT WAS AWESOME!
I LOVED this trike! I loved ANYTHING that would let me go, go, go! Side note: As I got older, these flowering shrubs in the front of the house were torn out and she had other flowers in the flower bed under her front window. One of the things I used to love was when her mass amount of red tulips would bloom. They looked so awesome in front of the whiteness of her house.
This was another one of our havens. The big wooden rocker that is directly behind me was usually where the chaise lounge is. At the time of this shot, I remember Grandpa was very sick. He was a heavy, heavy smoker and drinker as well as 10-12 years older than Grandma so his health was always a tad touch and go. Grandma had painted this inset of the porch a very light pink. It looked really nice. I’ve seen many older homes since that are painted the same way and it always takes me back to this time.
During the summer months if we had a good ol’ thunder and lightning storm, grandma would bundle me up in some blankets if it was chilly and we would sit in that rocking chair to listen and watch and the storm rolled through. If I was startled by the boom! of the thunder, she would just tell me that it was God moving his furniture around. Me being such a visual person even then, had quite the pictures going through that little brain of mine! 
This is the front of the house, as it is now. The front, near where there is now a fence ,used to be a line of locust trees that provided shelter and shade. To the right of the front porch was a big fir tree that had a big bird feeder that grandpa had made. I used to sit quietly and watch the birds come and go.
The chain link fence didn’t exist nor did the wooden fence on the side.
On the porch railing there in the front, grandma had a trellis that went from the bottom of the porch to the top of the porch. It had a massive trailing rose bush in the summer and Christmas lights in the winter.
The two small windows on either side of the bigger widow on the second floor didn’t exist and personally I think it looks stupid. Not to mention the paint job.
To the right of the photographer in this shot was where the next picture was taken. This forsythia ended up being HUGE when I got older. You can also see one of the locust trees.
(to be continued)
Still Life with Father (cont.)
The dates of when things transpired are always one of two things. Either not known because no one told me, or lost amidst other things in my brain. So that makes when things actually occurred in relation to another, kind of fuzzy. I don’t recall if my Mom and Dad met before he went into the Army, or after, I guess that tidbit of information is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Dad was older than Mom and she was still in high school when they met. But first, Dad was to do a stint in the Army that would take him all the way to Japan. Japan in the late ’40′s.
Again, the majority of what I know was gleaned from my Grandma and only because of me looking at a box of photos that I would get out occasionally to try to make sense of these people around me.
The picture included in this post is of Dad when he was stationed in Japan. Exact location escapes me right now. In this shot he is holding a hawk. Apparently he found it injured and nursed it back to health. I remember trying to bring up this story to him and all he said was, “Yeah, I had a hawk.” I cannot stress enough how he really, with all of his being, felt that it was none of my business about ANYTHING. Some would say… “well, your Dad is a very private man” and I bought that line of BS for awhile but as I got older I just came to think of it as my Dad having some serious issues that I wished he would seek help for.
In the Army he was an MP (Military Police) and that’s all I know. No fascinating, funny or outlandish stories. Grandma had a stack of letters that Dad wrote to her while he was in the service but I was forbidden to take off the red bow that tied them all together, so I have no idea what he wrote about and who knows where they ended up after Grandma passed away.
An inkling of a memory is scratching at my brain right now… something about that ribbon and if your loved one returned home the letters were bound in a specific color, as were the letters of the loved ones that didn’t return home bound in another color. Just an off the wall tidbit of memory.
Before Dad even left for the Army there was quite an ordeal involving his biological Father and his mother. It seems that his Dad had come across the announcement of his enlistment in the paper (Do they do that anymore?) and he called because he was wanting to meet with my Dad before he went in. It was set in motion. Dad was going to go down to some diner and see the father that he hadn’t seen since he was 5 years old. I can only imagine the anxious anticipation that my Dad must have felt.
Dad got down to the diner and sat there…. and sat there…. and sat there. He called Grandma-had she heard anything? She said No, she hadn’t. He never showed up. That right there, the image of my Dad sitting in a diner waiting for his own Dad who he hadn’t seen or talked to in years and then him not showing up… when I heard that story it broke my heart. It was explained to me, by my mother that the reason his biological Dad didn’t show up at the diner was because Grandma called and told him never mind, his son didn’t want to see him. However, many, many, many years later I heard a quite different version. It was actually my Dad’s step-father that called and told him he wanted him staying away from my Dad and to leave everyone alone. Who knows what the real story is. The reality of this whole damn thing is that my Grandmother was extremely bitter about what happened with her first husband, him being in contact probably sent her into a tailspin and the only Grandfather I ever knew, tried to protect her from anymore hurt and not explaining things or taking into consideration how it all was affecting my Dad.
How Mom and Dad met is fuzzy to me. I know he used to see her walking to and from school. I think he lived fairly close to my Mom’s childhood home. I remember Mom telling me he would follow along with her and try to strike up a conversation with her and even offer to carry her books. Mom was dating another guy at the time, but somehow fell for Dad’s charm. I have no clue how long they dated before marrying or any of that. Mom did say on more than one occasion that she wishes that she had lived with Dad before marrying him. Back in the day that she said this, though it was the era of “free love” and all that groovy stuff, the previous generation (my mom’s & her parents) frowned upon such things and if you did live with a guy before marrying him, well… you were just a damn tramp. My mother saw absolutely nothing wrong with the younger generation wanting to “shack up” , (as it was called). She never elaborated on why she felt that way. I always assumed it was his drinking, but as the years marched on I began to realize it was so much more than that.
When Mom and Dad were first married they lived in the west part of town in a little apartment above a house. As a kid we would often pass the place on our way to go visit one of my aunts and uncle. Grandma told me a story that occurred early on in their marriage. Apparently Mom was wanting to cook Dad a good meal, so she was hurriedly preparing dinner. For the vegetable she decided on beets. She called my Grandma in tears, almost to the point of sobbing. She told Grandma she had beet juice all over her hands and SHE COULDN’T GET OFF THE STAINS, WHAT WAS SHE GOING TO DO?
Grandma said she calmly asked Mom what she had been doing and Mom explained to her how she was wanting to make Bill (my dad) this wonderful dinner and she was peeling the beets….. Grandma stopped her right there and apparently through the fits of giggles explained to Mom that you DON’T peel beets.
Here is a picture of my Dad from that time, in that apartment. It was a night that they had some company over. 
Though my Dad is very young in the picture, he looks as though he was truly happy. I very rarely saw that face with such a wide wonderful smile, but one thing I DID always see and that was dad with some kind of alcohol in his hand.
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