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My First and Only Home
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My First and Only Home A blogger here who I like- sensualpassion72- posted a photo of an old Italianate farmhouse that reminded me of my first house. There was an old brass doorbell, operated by a handcrank, on the front door of that house, the door no one ever used. It was the house my parents took me to after I was born, my grandparents' farmhouse. The second story had five bedrooms and my father and grandfather had converted it to an apartment for my dad and his young family. They built a balcony and stairway out back, leading from ground level to the old maid's room. That maid's room had had a separate staircase leading from the kitchen to a single room upstairs, and that was the only entry to or egress from that room- if the farmer wanted to sneak into the hired girl's quarters late at night he'd have had to creep quietly up that stairway. The room was opened up to the others upstairs in the renovation, and we used it as a kitchen. A kerosene stove and a wringer washer with galvanized steel washtubs faced each other from opposite sides of the new door to the balcony and sat on a new red linoleum tile floor. That stove was the only source of heat in the four rooms we lived in. The stove had a reservoir for kerosene on the side of it and my older sister had dipped her tin cup in it and taken a healthy swig of kerosene one day. It didn't kill her so I suppose it must have made her stronger. There was an old single door refrigerator in there too, the kind with a tiny breadbox sized freezer in the top center, and it had to be defrosted often. The old master bedroom was the largest and it became our living room, complete with a table top Philco TV that had a little twelve inch screen. We watched Gunsmoke, West Point, Topper and The Twentieth Century with Walter Cronkite. Robin Hood was one of my favorite shows, and Davy Crockett, with Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen. My sister and I shared a room, sleeping on Army surplus bunk beds unstacked as singles. a chimney ran right through the center of that room, but my dad tore it down when we were still small, so the room was quite cold in winter, and we had a chamber pot. During the daytime there was an outhouse and you had to descend the outdoor staircase to use it. As we were not fond of that trek, especially when it was cold, and we often caught hell for soiling a freshly cleaned chamber pot in daylight hours. There was a cabinet door on the exterior wall of that bedroom, next the window, and there was a honeybee hive inside it, in the wall of the house. When you wanted honey you opened the door and took your honey straight from the bees. On the back of the farmhouse was a large gabled addition, that was original to the house. It had been the summer kitchen and still had a dry sink on one wall. Sometime after the first acquisition of an automobile it had been converted to a garage and had wide swinging doors added, and a concrete ramp to those doors. But by 1951 cars had got much heavier than a Model T or a Model A and couldn't be safely parked on the wood floor, so I never knew it as a garage. A pot bellied woodstove was installed and we had our family feasts there on holidays when all the aunts and uncles and cousins, and the grand aunts came to visit. I had three favorite grand aunts, my grandmother's sisters- Opal, Alene and Leone. They were an endless source of colorful sayings, many of which I wasn't supposed to repeat. "If the hadn't stopped to shit he'd have shit a-runnin"…this was to dissuade you from saying, or wishing "If". "Battin' his eyes like a toad in a hailstorm" in case I blinked overmuch. "Your memory's so good you remember stuff that never even happened"- usually aimed at each other, or my dad. "Hellfire , wipe that cowshit off'n your shoes OUTside"…self explanatory. "Hornier than a two peckered billy goat"…I caught real hell for this one. I wasn't supposed to get it. "Shakin' like a shittin' a peach seed" if one tended to vibrate excessively. And my personal favorite "Shit fire and apple butter, but you're dirty!" It was well worth geting dirty to hear this one. My Aunt Leone was quiet and diffident and didn't say a lot, and when she did she said it softly. She was the youngest by quite a few years, and the one who never married so that she could stay at home and care for their aging parents. She was considered the homeliest of a good looking group, but she was my favorite of favorites and I always thought she was the prettiest. She was quite dark, with olive skin and black, black shining hair and the darkest brown eyes I've ever seen. When I poked through the boxes of family photos I was able to see her as she was as a girl, and I yearned for those days. I was a bit sweet on my Grand Aunt Leone. She must have been in her late thirties and early forties at that time. In the warmer months we all gathered on a windowed porch on the east side of the farmhouse, and listened to the old ladies argue about whose memory of an event was right, and who had been a 's ass and who hadn't. They humored me telling my 's tall tales about hunting buffalo and fighting Indians, and they called me Buffalo Bill. Leaning onto the back of the old summer kitchen was a pumphouse, with an old brick well. It had been filled in til it was only twelve or fifteen feet deep and had an electric pump and storage tank installed, and the well was then a pipe driven into the floor of that old pit. The well was always needing work of some kind and all the men in the family got together to help. I was fascinated by the well pit and was constantly being cussed out of the way when they were working- I just couldn't stay away from that brick hole. There had been a cupola on top of the old house but it was removed before I came along and you could still see, in the walkup attic, the newer boards and rafters that covered the opening where the cupola had been. I was irritated that they had removed the old cupola before I had a chance to see it- I wanted one. The attic was fun in its own right, but I wasn't allowed up there alone to rummage around through stuff, and I did get smacked for sneaking up there from time to time. We had a swing in a pine tree in the front yard. And I had a barn with a sheepshed attached, and an enormous haymow to play in, except during haymaking when I was supposed to stay out of the way. The horses would pull a wagon under the mow door in the south gable end. They would then be unhitched and driven to the north end where they were hitched to a rope that pulled the hay fork. The rope ran to a trolley which traversed a track in the very peak of the roof. The fork was lowered to the haywagon and gripped a stack of hay, and the horses pulled it up to the mow door, where a was tripped and the hay travelled the length of the loft to the proper spot. It was then lowered by backing the team. When the tension was off the forks could be pulled out and it started all over until the wagon was unloaded. And the team- Frank and Daisy- then pulled the wagon back to the field where the men pitched it full of hay again. We left the farm when I was about seven. My old man had a new job wearing a suit and a necktie, and I wasn't much impressed by it. Men drove teams of horses and sheared sheep and cut hogs. But we had to move to a new house in town. I was told it would be "our" own house…but where the hell had I been living? Wasn't that "our" house? I didn't want to leave my grandfather or my grandmother, and I was not consoled that it was only five miles and we still would visit. We were deserting my father's family and moving to an old turn of the century foursquare in my mother's old neighborhood, known locally as Spaghetti Boulevard. The street was lined with homes full of Binandos, Granzottos, Simones amd Giacabones. There were Ferraottis, Barberis, Dalpontes and Bessones. They weren't alien to me, they were my mother's people. But they didn't feel like mine yet. They would come to be mine in time, but I was bereaved and heartbroken and I couldn't see it ever happening. It was the first great loss of my life, estrangement. I spent weekends visiting the farm, until well into my teens. I hated to let it go. Even after the dream of making it mine had long been understood to be impractical, that farm still had a hold on me, and I on it. In my late teens my grandfather sold the farm and they moved to a ranch house in town. I didn't expect it to be so wrenching, but it was. Strangers would live there and I would not be welcome, even to visit. I had moved on to other things- drinking, reefer and women, and raising hell but I still had vague hopes of regaining my only real home, the only place I thought of as home. And now it was to be just a memory.      Become a member now and get a free tote bag. |
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I love the idea of the beehive in the wall too... Very beautiful memories... thank you for sharing 
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Thanks Goodyear! I always dreamed of going back there, but in a sense i guess Thomas Wolfe was right, and you can't go home again. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I love the idea of the beehive in the wall too... Very beautiful memories... thank you for sharing Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thanks, Sassy. Goats are very horny, and the billies stink. The does don't seem to care though, and they can be quite accommodating. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." This first home left you with many beautiful memories, and we're all the richer for your having shared them -- and shared them in very evocative fashion. While the loss of a beloved home -- and it is a loss, both for the location and what it often represents in family -- is painful, there is much to be said for having one's horizon's broadened... and at the tender ages, the simple fact of life is that this type of broadening is almost always done without our consent. You've given this lifelong city slicker a glimpse into a more pastoral upbringing, and for that I thank you. You've mentioned a few of your own home modification projects in the past... may they help kindle the same feelings of location love that this one did, and may you eventually live in your second home. Stop in, read, and offer comments at my "swinging as seen in the media" blog, "Confessions of a Lifestyle Man" humorlife, which is also the home of the monthly virtual symposium. New post: The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic
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Beautiful, KZ! ... Everyone should have a home they love/d. ***********If you have a yen to get" Up-a-Tree," Then it's just a hop-and-a-skip to get down with Meeee !
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"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." This first home left you with many beautiful memories, and we're all the richer for your having shared them -- and shared them in very evocative fashion. While the loss of a beloved home -- and it is a loss, both for the location and what it often represents in family -- is painful, there is much to be said for having one's horizon's broadened... and at the tender ages, the simple fact of life is that this type of broadening is almost always done without our consent. You've given this lifelong city slicker a glimpse into a more pastoral upbringing, and for that I thank you. You've mentioned a few of your own home modification projects in the past... may they help kindle the same feelings of location love that this one did, and may you eventually live in your second home. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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What a great start for you! To be raised around all that family! That's how it used to be, lots of family, lots of love, that doesn't exist today, but it's what I'm trying to give my G-girls, our own village. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Beautiful, KZ! ... Everyone should have a home they love/d.Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thank you Sweet. I still regret having to leave it so young. I adjusted, but it never left me. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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First off, I LOVE your new profile photo! So beautiful! We aren't truly rural. Only a few years before we bought it, it was semi rural. But it built up fast, and we're on the extreme edge of the city. Across the road is sort of rural, and we can drive only two miles to be in the forest preserve. I have my grandfather's desk and a grandfather clock...and that's it. This house is a shack. It was poorly built and worse maintained. We liked that it's on a wooded acre, close enough to town for my city girl to be comfortable and near a TARGET store! She has two to choose from. The main attraction of this house- PD is in it. Wherever she lives is my home now. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I'm fond of them... Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thank you for sharing such wonderful memories.
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Ty for sharing very cool.. I like old house with some history in them hugssssss V Become a blog watcher sweet_vm
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I kind of hate to admit it but Im afraid you're right. How much weed is too much? Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Late replying here... Sorry trying to stay up to date on a cell phone lol. I love the great Aunts sayings!!! Lol I had heard most but a couple new ones in there to me. One of my favorites was from one of me Grandpas, when you fucked good he would say "well, you shit in your mess kit this time!" That still makes me laugh! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thank you for sharing such wonderful memories. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I'm hoping I'll have enough money in the bank to buy out my brother when my parents pass & leave their home to us. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I like where I live well enough, I guess, in spite of all that's wrong with it. Those early memories though- the huge family gatherings on the farm, four kids lined up on Frank's back for a picture, the cows filing into the barn in the late afternoon for milking- somehow they seem to be getting more vivid. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Ty for sharing very cool.. I like old house with some history in them hugssssss V Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I have very fond memories of nearly all the homes I've lived in, particularly the farm that I grew up on. The farm house was built over a period of three centuries from the 17th to the 19th century and some of the farm buildings were 17th century. Because farmers are not subject to the same planning controls as other home-owners, the 17th century buildings got modernised - just imagine a black-and-white building with a modern garage door! 
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I have very fond memories of nearly all the homes I've lived in, particularly the farm that I grew up on. The farm house was built over a period of three centuries from the 17th to the 19th century and some of the farm buildings were 17th century. Because farmers are not subject to the same planning controls as other home-owners, the 17th century buildings got modernised - just imagine a black-and-white building with a modern garage door! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thanks! That outhouse WAS scary- it was full of wasps in summer. If it was warm outside I almost never used it. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thanks, Pink. I've missed you lately. Nice to see you back. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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No- he had been a part time farmer a lot. He was raised on a horse farm by his aunt and uncle and tried other occupations but he was never a wealthy farmer...he just farmed while working other jobs because...because. It seemed like he had to raise animals and grow stuff. But he had retired from farming and the other jobs for quite a while before he sold the place. And he still planted a huge garden. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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