Good-Bye, House, Part 1

     A few months  ago Tom's 97-year-old father left his home in Richmond Heights, Ohio  (see post from 6/18/2015) to move to an assisted living facility an hour away.  

   The house he left was finished in 1957,

...and has been lived in by only one family for 59 years, the family for whom it was built. 

     But since their father moved out Tom, his sister, and his two brothers, who among them live from one to five hours from Richmond Heights, have been making the trip back  regularly to clean out their parents' house and make arrangements for its sale.
    They were told by the team of real estate agents handling the house  that the house should sell for a good price,

...with its acre lot,

...that ends at a lovely creek,

...and its vintage style,

...but that all the carpeting needed to be pulled up and the wood floors beneath polished, the drapes removed,  woodwork cleaned,  and all the furniture removed except for a key piece or two in each room.
      So last Thursday Tom, Tommy and I drove to up Richmond Heights to the house to dig into the prescribed tasks.
      On our way the house we stopped to visit Tom's dad at his assisted living, a lovely place,

...with a beautiful view from the common room of lake Erie.

Tommy.

     We spent some time in Tom's dad's room visiting,

(Tom's dad was still using an afghan I crocheted for Tom's parents about 38 years ago, back in my crochet-addiction days when I could sit for a full day mesmerized by the activity of  twirling a needle around yarn)

   ...and talking about some old photos around the room,

...one taken of Tom's dad at a Hungarian wedding  when he was twenty-one,

...another his mother wanted taken of Tom's dad, age 22 here,  and his brother before the two went off to fight in World War II because she  feared one or both of them might not return,

...his wedding picture taken about 8 years after the above photo.

      After we said good-bye to Tom's dad we headed for the Richmond Heights house.
      As the house was about an hour from the assisted living and it was past lunch time we decided to stop at one of the little mom-and-pop restaurants along the way.

   We picked a promising-looking little place called Chris'

...where Tommy tried a bowl of Creamy Garlic Soup, which he declared delicious.

    Tom ordered the Lake Erie Perch,  which was likewise wonderfully tasty, served with hot, crisp French fries,

 ...whereas I broke my own restaurant rule, which is this:  order from the menu only from among the items that appear to be indigenous to that restaurant.  In other words, don't go into an Ohio Americana mom-and-pop place called Chris' and order a Greek gyro,

....which is precisely what I went and did.  The fries were very good. 'Nuff said.

     After lunch we continued on to Richmond heights and the house.
     Tom and his siblings had already cleared most of the furniture and other things from the house,  

...including all the things that had been stored over the years in the now spanking-clean basement,

...and so we grabbed our carpet-ripping tools , took a deep breath,

...and got started.