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From the time I arrived home from the hospital in 1953 until the day I drove 400 miles away to my first teaching position 22 years later, I lived in the same house. It was the only house I ever knew. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t fancy. There was no pool, no driveway, no elaborate staircase, no brick fireplace, not a den or a family room. In fact, it had only one bathroom to be shared between my mom, dad and three sisters. The floors creaked with each step, the wind howled through the turn of the century windows, and the heat crept slowly to far-reaching corners when the oil furnace was lit.
The house was nothing much, not really. At least it appeared that way. In fact, I was kind of embarrassed to invite my friends over because our modest little dwelling was paled by the ornate appearance of the surrounding 20th century neighborhood. My humiliation ended abruptly however, when one day I realized that it wasn’t the exterior, or the size, or the location, or the price of a house that made it a home, but it was what was inside…..the people, the laughter, the love, the hope………that was what made the difference.
My dad worked the same job day after day for thirty years to pay for that house, delivering mail in the rain, snow, sleet and ice. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Familiar though it was, that was his motto. His job was as stable as the foundation of that old house and when the economy took a nose dive, we knew we would be safe and secure because nothing could stop the US Postal Service.
My Mom literally worked her fingers to the bone to help make ends meet, doing laundry in a wringer washing machine, hanging clothes out to dry on the clothesline, clipping coupons and shopping for bargains, cooking incredible dinners, bagging school lunches, saving a dime here and a quarter there, providing everything we needed, most of the things we wanted, and enough love to cover those things that just weren’t meant to be. On top of that, she cleaned houses for people five days a week, eight hours a day to pay for those “extras” that separate needy kids from impoverished ones.
Our little house on 12th Avenue probably resembled a shack to most of our neighbors, but to me and my family, its inner beauty was shaped by the unified heartbeat of six people who breathed life into an inanimate object as much in the same way that Geppetto gave life to a wooden boy named Pinocchio.
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