Ailantha
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

The New House, Part 1

11/28/2018

1 Comment

 
Give the gift of a good read!
EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTIONS
by Patti Liszkay
Buy it on Amazon

http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
"This part drama and part slapstick comedy is a tour-de-force." Amazon Review
Picture

The New House, Part 1

...Continued from yesterday:
   I was nine years old in the summer of 1961,
Picture
...when my family moved eight miles up the Roosevelt Boulevard from Mayfair in Lower Northeast Philadelphia to Somerton in Far Northeast Philadelphia (see yesterday's post),
...to our new house on Byberry Road between the Boulevard and Bustleton Avenue.
Picture
    Though Byberry  Road was a busy thoroughfare and our new house was a short block from the Bustleton Avenue commercial district,
Picture
   The view from our Byberry Road house
...still, compared to the population and row house density of Mayfair this new neighborhood felt downright pastoral.
      We moved to this particular house because while my mother was raising her five children in a 1300-square-foot, 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom row house she was dreaming of acquiring a big old fixer-upper of a house that she could transform into her vision of a beautiful home.
    Though someone else would doubtless have dubbed the 6-bedroom, 3-story behemoth on Byberry Road a teardown – it was already over 100 years old in 1961 –

Picture
...my mother fell in love with it and, with my father’s acquiescence, bought the house on her own for $11,000, a pittance even back then, and sunk into it $5,000 worth of contractor work before my father or any of the rest of us laid eyes on it.
     When we finally did lay eyes on and set foot inside the house it was still in a rough state, but all that summer long every day my mother would load us children into the car and drive out to the New House where she’d work, steaming wallpaper off the walls, spackling and painting the walls, repairing the window frames and tackling all sorts of repair and home improvement jobs that most kids’ mothers would have no idea of how to do.
       My brothers and I, meanwhile, with our 3-year-old baby sister in tow, ran around the new neighborhood meeting the new neighborhood kids.          
       Every day at lunch time my mother would stop working to fix us cold cut sandwiches, sodas and Tastykakes which we ate picnic-style on the bare wood living room floor, sometimes with a new friend or two whom we’d invited to join us. That was the best summer.

     As it turned out my mother was never able to fulfill her dream of renovating the house the way she wanted to. Why I'm not sure, though I suppose it was a matter of expense and maybe the fact that she was the sole member of the household with any  interest in home decor or improvement beyond the basic functional and structural necessities.
      Still, my mother did what she could.

   For example, if she couldn't get the front porch step repaired she'd just plant flowers where the step should be.
Picture
Picture
    My sister Romaine. Above, with our dog Brownie.
     Nonetheless my mother never tired of talking about her ideas for the house, how she wanted to extend the wall of this room, knock out the wall of that room, reconfigure one room and transform another.
       But in the end, for all the years we lived in it, the New House,

Picture
...stayed an old house,
...and it wasn't until 25 years after my parents moved out that someone else caught sight of the old house on Byberry Road, by now abandoned and decrepit,
Picture
...and saw in it the same kind of potential that my mother had seen in it almost 50 years earlier.
     And it would be this person who would finally do with the house what my mother had always wanted to.
      To be continued...

1 Comment
vidmate.onl link
8/17/2022 06:33:13 am

hanks for sharing the article, and more importantly, your personal experience mindfully using our emotions as data about our inner state and knowing when it’s sdcbetter to de-escalate by taking a time out are great tools. Appreciate you reading and sharing your story since I can certainly relate and I think others can to

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    "Tropical Depression" 
    by Patti Liszkay
    ​Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1685131832

    Picture
    "Hail Mary"
    by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

    Picture
    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
    or from
    The Book Loft
    of German Village,
    Columbus, Ohio
    Picture
    Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    RSS Feed

    I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
    hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers.

    Categories

    All


























































































Proudly powered by Weebly