This Old House

1315 Bowers Road, photographed during our Michigan trip two summers ago. The red brick is still the same, but when we lived there in the '50s, the steps were big blocks of stone. Wide steps with sharp edges, difficult for short legs to maneuver. There was always the threat that one of us would fall and crack our head open. But we spent hours on that porch, embellishing the rough steps with our crayon drawings and playing games that involved skipping up and down them one or two at a time. I recall scraped knees, but no skull fractures.

I was four when we moved into that house. Most of my earliest memories of family live there. However, I do have a few that precede those years...

We had just moved into a house on Pine Street. I see Bev and me eating breakfast in our pajamas, using a large cardboard box as a table. Also on Pine Street, the day Dad brought Mom and baby Karen home from the hospital. Aunt Fran had been staying with Bev and me. This one plays out in black and white for some reason.

We also lived on Meyers Road in a two-storied house for a while. We had the "downstairs," and a couple with no kids lived upstairs. One day Bev, who was young enough to be in diapers, escaped mid-change and wandered upstairs to visit Fred and Barbara. Fred returned her to my mom with his autograph on her butt. (That's not as weird as it sounds. What's weird is that I remember it.) I also vividly remember my mom telling us about a dream she had in that house. The house was on fire. She managed to get us three girls out of the window, and told us to run across the road and tell Mrs. Smith to call the fire department. Then she watched us run out in front of a truck...well, I don't even want to tell you how it ends. But I remember.

And if Mom were still here, she'd argue that this one is not a real memory, but that it's etched in my mind because I liked hearing the story: I was almost a year old when my dad saw me for the first time when he returned from Korea. I see me waking up in my crib to find him standing over me, smiling. Sometimes I remember him in his Army uniform, and other times he's wearing a gray Banlon shirt. Hmmm, maybe Mom was right. (It's okay if you tell her that now.)

I will go to my death defending my memories, but since I want to be honest in this blog, I will admit that many of them are probably kept alive by photographs, rather than amazing feats performed by my steel trap of a mind. My family has always had an affinity for cameras and a propensity toward photo-journalism. So many photographs, so many memories...

This one of baby Missy on the porch pointing at something in (or on) the window is one of my favorites.

Life was simpler then. At least that's the way I remember it.