I grew up in two houses. Sequentially.
The “old house” was built by my father – and I mean that
literally. With the exception of an occasional set of extra hands, he built the
house. That’s one of the really cool things about my daddy. I believed as a kid
(and still believe now) that he could do anything.
He bought 3 acres or so of land in about 1940 in an area
that was then so far outside Kansas
City that it was probably prairie-dark at night. I think he had a plan that
eventually he would make a fortune building houses down the road that defined
the property, but he never did. He did build one house in the mid 50’s but
that’s another story of handsaws and hammers.
As to the “old house” it is worth noting that this was
before any power tools. If you need to cut a board, you sawed it. You hammered
nails. You used an amazing hand-operated drill for holes. No one, no one would
do this now. And I would also note that even into his very old age he had
amazing muscles and strength. Perhaps the fitness freaks among us should
hand-build houses.
He started with the basement. He “dug” this basement with a
plow and a mule. I am still not entirely sure now this was done. The basement
wasn’t very large or deep, had an earthen floor and cement-plastered walls.
This sort-of basement held a monstrous old furnace and big pipes but nothing
else I can remember.
Next, he dragged a shack from another part of the property
(using the mule) and positioned it over the hole. Once fortified and nailed in
place (?) he added a kitchen, bathroom and tiny bedroom and called it home.
There was a beautiful fireplace surround in the living room. It never occurred
to me to ask whether he’d built it, but he certainly could have.
At about this point he married my mother. It was 1943.
Because of war restrictions on building material, and perhaps the mule being
tired, nothing much was added for a while.
It is worth pausing to get a visual of this. My very strong,
handsome father married my MUCH younger mother, who had probably never walked
on anything but cement in her life. She was a city kid, at the time when kids
were apparently unsupervised. She was about eight or nine when my grandmother
would send her to the beer joints about 4 blocks over to look for one of my uncles
when he’d be called in to work on the railroad.
She was smart, too sassy for her own good, lied about her
age and started working when she was 12, and ended up being beautiful. In fact,
my father saw her for the first time at a music store and told me she had the
most beautiful legs he’d ever seen. Shortly after that, he was at the ballroom
where all of the big bands would come to play (my eventual godfather was the
bouncer and daddy knew him) and he saw her waitressing. He wrangled an
introduction from my eventual godfather and the courtship commenced. She’d lied
about her age to work there, too.
And so they were married. (The wedding story will have to
wait for another day, but it’s worth the waiting.) He brought his bride to this
house in the middle of nothing and nowhere, and she told me it was a day-to-day
thing whether she’d stay or not.
Shortly thereafter, (the war was still on) daddy undertook
to build a second story on to the house. Please note that he also worked full
time selling electrical supplies, so this house addition would be an evening
and weekend project.
To provide some help, daddy hired a wino named “Old Man
Shurr” who was supposed to be doing framing and such during the day. I suppose
he did. His fame was really in his prodigious need for alcohol – he drank what
he could but also ate cold cream and Sterno with a spoon. From time to time,
when he had to pee, he would walk over to the edge of the house and let go. At
least once he was directly above the kitchen, so mother saw a golden stream
through the window over the sink. No wonder it was day-by-day. In fairness to
Old Man Shurr, I cannot imagine this happened more than once, at least on that
side of the house.
Eventually, the second floor was finished, a wide-open copy
of the rooms downstairs and a half bath. That is to say, the upstairs had the
same footprint as the downstairs, but no separating walls.
Hardwood floors, plaster walls, big windows – my child’s
memory sees it as a huge open space of light and breeze.
There were a couple of attics. One long and low attic was
where they kept the stock tank water reservoir when they were still on well
water. A pump would bring the water up to the tank, then the water would come
out when the tap was turned. Early in their marriage, mother noticed that the
dog wouldn’t drink her water. After some investigation, they found a dead
rabbit in the tank. It’s a wonder they didn’t die of typhoid or something, or
that mother didn’t kill daddy.
The last addition to the house was a playroom/rec room that
daddy did in the 50s. He took a garage that was about 3 cars wide and 3 cars
deep, and turned it into the rec room of a child’s dreams. We had a pool table.
We had a “tap board” where we would practice our tap dance routines. Lots of
comfy furniture, the TV, and eventually a room air conditioner; on one wall
were two giant maps – one of the U.S. and one of the world.
It was knotty pine with green and white checkerboard asphalt
tiles, able to withstand anything, including inside kickball games if mother
wasn’t looking. I think all children should have a room like this – essentially
an indoor gym.
That room will forever be tied in my memory to cleanliness
and a long-ago Girl Scout Christmas party. The house was spotless for the
holidays, but for reasons unknown mother thought it might be fun to have a
piñata. I’d never seen such a thing, and I’m sure mother had never experienced
it, either. Ultimately, when the piñata burst, the room was filled with candy,
little toys, glitter, and sawdust and flaky little crumbs.
I thought Mother would have a stroke. Finally, when the
party was over, a full-on cleaning began, and no one went to bed until every
last crumby, glittery bit was gone.
Never have a piñata inside.
The house was like a comfortable shoe – at least to me. So
why did we move to the “new house”?
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