The house I grew up in- part one

My best friend from my teen years and beyond let me know the house I grew up in is up for sale. She mentioned there were some renovations done and the sellers want 1.3 million for the split level on just under 2 acres in Baltimore County.

I started thinking about the house on my way home from work. My parents sold it when I was in my twenties. All the kids were gone and it was a big house for them. I was not sad when they sold it because  I had such good memories of it. Thinking about the house on the drive home tonight made me nostalgic though.

I was born ten days after it was finished. It was the only family house I ever knew. It was in the woods so you always thought it was dark earlier than it really was but it was cool in the summer. Here are some memories, in no particular order.

The roof was slate for many years. We used to climb up on the roof over the garage by standing on a rain barrel and pulling our selves up. Those slate tiles made great tiny table tops in our forest forts. My dad would get angry with us for pulling the roof apart. Now as a home owner, I understand that. The garage roof was the only place we had sun and the neighbors could not see us.  We would lay out our towels and sun bathe slathered in baby oil and holding our double albums, covered with tin foil, under our chins.

There was a rope swing on a tree near the garage. If you were feeling daring, you could toss the knotted rope up to the person on the garage and they could swing from the garage. The tingly feeling you felt jumping onto the knot and swinging far into the woods, felt like freedom. The garage roof was also collector of frisbees and other things we managed to throw up there. My bedroom window opened up to the garage roof for many years when I was little. It was the smallest room in the house but I did not mind. I did climb out the window onto the roof from time to time to take in the night sky. Maybe that is why when I got older, my room was switched to another without an escape route.

The garage could fit two cars, a push mower, a cider press, four bicycles, a wheelbarrow, tools, and other odds and ends. We used the wooden garage door as an agreeable tennis partner, who never called you out. There were ball prints all over that double door.

We had a basketball net hung from the roof. It was lower than regulation height so everyone loved to play at our house. Endless games of H-O-R-S-E until it grew dark and kids had to scatter running home for dinner or bedtime. As my brother got older, we put up a regulation height one but it was not as much fun. It seems too hard and much more serious.

My parents were Amway distributors when I was growing up so you will never hear me diss Amway. It put me and my brother through private colleges. There was a stocked closet with various products. I liked the convenience of heading to the garage to raid the stock if I needed shampoo or toothpaste.

The door from the house to the garage was always sticky growing up. I remember when I was 6 or 7, I was having trouble getting the door open. In my childish frustration, I yelled, not so childishly,"This damn door won't open!" I was sent to bed without supper. My brother snuck me a tangerine. Well, maybe I asked him to sneak me one, but I had dinner.

The house was a split level. The back door was really the lower door and it opened to a mud room when the dog stayed when she was wet, or bad or we needed her out of the way. Some years later, our chinchillas lived in a cage there. There was a closet for coats and cubbies filled with mismatched mittens and ice skates. The 5x10 mud room had four doors. One to outside, one to the garage, one to the downstairs office and one to the family room.

Our family room had a wall of built in book shelves. My father's huge record collection and stereo were on the built ins, along with the World Book encyclopedias, the Child Craft book collection, story books, old year books and the odd decorative item to fill in the spaces. The built ins had a counter with cabinets underneath that had sliding doors. They were great for hiding in. We used to sit on the counter with our ears up to the stereo speaker listening to the Moody Blues, Peter, Paul and Mary, Jon Baez, Judy Collins or the Pink Panther soundtrack. The doors into the room opened in so we were hidden behind the doors when we sat on the counter. There was an exposed brick wall along one side with a raised brick hearth in front of a fireplace. Another wall was all full length with windows and a sliding glass door that opened onto a patio. This could be pretty creepy when you were home alone. The rest of the room was open to the kitchen so it was a natural gathering place.

 One night, he dog started to have puppies on one of the sofa. It was okay, they were naugahyde, so a quick wipe with a damp rag, cleaned them right up. My brother and Iwere tasked with the couch wipe down.  We used to write out names on them with the wet sponge. It made it more fun.

We used to do gymnastics in our leotards in the family room until my oldest sister scraped up her leg on the brick hearth, after that, we used the living room. I remember sitting on the floor of the family room playing as firemen ran by  to put out a dryer fire. I remember my mother going to the hospital to have my brother. I think I watched the moon walk from there.  I bet on Secretariat during a Preakness party my parents had. After school, I arrived home to watch the coverage after Reagan was shot. I played my favorite records for friends there and snuck in to watch my sister's Young Life meetings there.

I learned to cook in the kitchen with light blue formica counters. I made apple pic from scratch when I was in elementary school. My mother taught me how to make meatloaf and cut up a whole chicken (that never quite stuck). We learned how to make our lunch for school when we were in first grade. For twelve years I had PB&J, a piece of fruit and maybe a cookie in my lunch. I got a shock from the electric fry pan cooking something, but was convinced for years that someone really grabbed my shoulders and shook me instead of the shock.

 We had a long spice cabinet on the top of the island. I loved reorganizing the spiced alphabetically. I would do that without being asked. We had a pantry with bags for onions and potatoes. Fresca and Tab were on the floor. Cereal was were the kids could reach it. Peanut butter was the next shelf up, baking stuff the next higher. Booze and sweets my parents wanted to stash for themselves were on the top. One year my parents bought a side of beef. The full size freezer, was full of a half a steer, wrapped parts in white paper with hard to read type identifying the parts.

Jobs were divided up in the kitchen. The younger ones emptied the dishwasher which sometimes meant climbing up onto the counter to put the glasses away. One sister washed the pots and pans and the other did the dishes that went in the dishwasher. We graduated jobs as my sisters went off to college.

There was a desk by the telephone. Pads of paper with notes from calls my mom had taken and doodles that she had drawn while on the phone remind me of my notes now from meeting at work. Even when the area was remodeled, the desk moved in the room and we added mail cubbies that collected more junk than they were useful. The phone remained on the wall with a long cord that could stretch as far as a teenage girl could get it to.

NEXT: Dining room, laundry, spare room and the party basement.