A House as a Home or a Place to Hang Your Hat
June 18, 2009
Post Tags: a house as a home , childhood home , Ontario-Ohio
Warning: Philosophical Post No Statistics
My Childhood Home
I was looking back at some old photos yesterday. Some of those were taken last summer when I went back to Ohio for my 40th class reunion. Yes, Kindergarten.
I hadn’t been by the place where I grew up in almost 2o years. I lived my whole life till leaving for college in the same house. It was my home. When I was 10 we added onto the house two bedrooms and a bath. The basement was extended and I remember the day it was dug standing by the big hole in the ground. That evening all the equipment was gone and dad was reflecting, like I am now.
When he and mom bought the house it didn’t have a basement. They jacked the house up and dad started digging with a shovel and wheelbarrow. It had to have taken months, but dad hand dug and wheeled all the dirt for the basement out from under the house. Then he poured the foundation, added the plumbing lines, laid the block walls and poured the cement floor. Finally the house had a basement.
Up until that day I always wondered why we ducked on that last step down. I also wondered why as I grew the ceiling seemed so close. 7 feet from floor to ceiling; all hand dug, and there we were standing by a hole that was a foot and a half deeper and dug by a machine in one day. No wonder dad stood there that evening reflecting on all the hours, weeks, days, rain and mud he and mom had trudged through for months to put a basement under their home.
That house wasn’t just a place to hang our hats. It wasn’t where we stored our “stuff” it was where mom, dad, and we three kids grew up and made a life and a lot of memories.
