Some of my brothers and sisters may think of the old house as the one we lived in the longest, 1008 Pendleton, in Mt. Prospect. But for me, the old house will always be the bungalow at 2937 N. Parkside in Chicago, where we lived in the 50's.
Mom and Dad didn't own the house, they rented the first floor. There were two bedrooms, a back porch, living room, dining room and kitchen.
It's the first house I remember and we left there when I was ten. I think the quality of attention I paid to everything around me was much greater then, so I remember things very clearly. (At least I think I do. Others may remember it differently, but that's ok, that would be their memories.)
By the time we left that house, there were six of us kids, with one more on the way. (Actually there were five more on the way, who knew?) By this time the back porch had been turned into a bedroom to take the overflow from the kid's bedroom.
I am not sure how long she did it, but for awhile around 4:30 or 5 every day, after she made sure we had taken all of the toys out of the living room and dining room, Mom would stop making dinner for a few minutes and change her clothes. Then she would put on lipstick. And sometimes, she would put on a record of one of the shows that had recently come out. King and I, Flower Drum Song, My Fair Lady. I loved the music of King and I, but the cover of My Fair Lady always gave me the creeps with the god character in the clouds with the strings attached to the humans. Anyway, when Mom changed her clothes and put on the music, it felt like magic. I always thought Mom was revealing what she was really like, not just a Mom, but a beautiful woman who loved music and theater and talking and laughter.
Then Dad would come home and we would all eat dinner. Dad would talk about his day at work. One time he talked about someone getting fired and I thought it was terrible that they would put a man in an oven just for not working hard enough. My idea of the nice office Dad worked at was altered to a terrible dark furnace room. My father was a HERO to go there every day!
As I look back, they were so young. Not just compared to them now, but compared to ME now! I remember Dad on the floor, playing with us, letting us crawl all over him, telling us story after story.
The main feeling I have about Dad back then was that he was sure that he was lucky. I don't know if it was the Dale Carnegie course, or his success at work, or his family or all of it. But he acted as if he felt he were lucky - good things were on the way. He made me feel that way too.
On summer evenings, I remember Mom giving us baths and us getting into our pajamas. I can remember what a great feeling it was to be clean and fresh, ready for bed with the sun still up. As I remember one night, Mom was giving someone a bath when a big pink car pulled up in front of the house. We didn't have a car, Dad took the bus to work. (He also walked huge bags of stinking dirty diapers down the block to the laundromat.) The driver of the pink car was honking and it took me a few minutes to see it was Dad leaning out of the car, saying, "Go get your mother!" We tore into the bathroom to tell Mom. I think this was one of Dad's classic surprises.
The bungalow had cement stairs leading up to the front door. However old I was, and however big, the stairs were too deep and I was not allowed to take them one by one. Eventually I wanted to go down the "grown-up way".
Of course I fell, and got a gash above my eye. Dad was right there, it must have been a weekend day. After the cleanup and the bandaid, Dad sat next to me on the couch. He said that the cut had come very close to my eye. And then he looked and me and smiled and said, "You were very lucky." I remember thinking yup, that 's us. We are very lucky.
I look back now at our family's life. I look at Dad watching his great grand-daughters playing and flash back to that young man rolling around the floor with us, tickling us and telling us stories. I look at Mom's beautiful face, that still reveals who she really is.
No doubt we all have all had our challenges, disappointments and even tragedies. But I still think Dad was right. We're very lucky.
