This Old House

this sketch was made by a very talented artist. you know, its dawned on me that i don't know the artists name. the picture wasn't signed. its the house i lived in from the time i was 9 years old till i turned 17 & moved in with my mother. i have so many memories of this old house. good memories. i loved my first dog here. she was pj's dog. her name was misty & she was a black poodle with ear problems. i remember sitting on the floor once a month after her trim to pull out the hair growing in her ears. i don't know why they had to be pulled out except it was a problem for poodles to let the hair grow. according to the grownups. i hated hurting her & she knew it cos i'd cry into her little tuft of hair & she would lick my tears to let me know she still loved me even though i had to hurt her to make her better.

i've pointed out the specifics of the house. like the front door that had beveled double doors & stained glass. also the top of all the windows were stained glass. we used to have a deck on the 2nd floor that we would lay on to sunbathe.

34 years ago & that sketch can still bring back some wonderful memories. we used to play house in the basement with the guy nipper married.
my bedroom was on the top floor in the back of the house & i would sit up all night watching the street lights from across the river come on in the evening to going off in the morning. i knew those streets like the back of my hand. i had a little niche with a window in it that i sewed a cushion for. i'd sit at that window & dream of my future for hours imagining all the different things i would do with my life.

the house had 10 foot ceilings & hand carved wood throughout. you know those doors that slide open from the middle & drop back into the wall? they call them pocket doors. they were between the rooms & every room had hardwood floors. beautiful.

i never truly appreciated how beautiful that house was while we lived there. that could have had something to do with the fact that I was the housemaid. i don't think i got a chance to sit back & drink in the beauty. i was always worried about doing the best job i could cleaning it so i could get to go to a football game or outside to play. it wasn't an easy house to clean. it was a big job. with 5 of us, a dog & a cat (that shed all the time) living there i had chores to do everyday to keep up.

anyway, the house is on the market again. nipper called the lady that owns it & talked to her about the old house. she was very nice & was interested in hearing the stories about when we lived there. she invited us to visit since she was showing it anyway.

we just got back from a 2 hour tour through every room & every floor. including the basement, which was an evil entity in itself. we told the lady why the basement floor was painted red & black (she hated the colors). GO WILDCATS. and about the safe that was in the wall over the fireplace in her office. someone had put drywall over the wall & covered it up. we described the woodwork that had been pulled out & replaced with plain old boards. i'm sure that was to make some money on that beautiful handiwork. she learned so much about the house she had lived in for 16 years that she would have never dreamed. i think she might have changed her mind about selling it if she hadn't married & planning to relocate to live with her new hubby. i think she had as good a time as we did. i know she's considering knocking down that driwall to check out the safe.

and on the top floor where mine & pj's bedrooms were there was also a piece of our furniture still living in that old house. an old wardrobe that pj used to keep her toys in. the lady said they tried to get it out but it wouldn't go down the steps. she offered it back to pj. i thought that was a sweet gesture. i don't know if pj wants it but if it was mine...i'd take it for my grandbaby as a piece of my history from that old house.

later.