Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The House I Live(d) In

As the 70s drew to a close, we were expecting a second child and did not see how we could fit another into Tiny House, so we began thinking about moving. One evening on his way to choir practice, Onkel Hankie Pants was detoured from his usual route and spotted this house for sale by owner.

1988 4401 Pleasant after painting and reroofing

Once again, we have a photo of the house taken after we left it – the new owner wanted it painted blue and reroofed in grey, whereas the house we lived in was white with a green roof. We were excited to be moving into a house with three bedrooms and a double parlor plus a dining room, with a kitchen big enough for a table. When we moved out of this house 8 1/2 years later, I was just shy of 40 and had lived in this house longer than I had lived in any one place in my life. We brought two baby girls home to this house on the corner. Our older two children had many friends in the neighborhood, there was a park nearby, and we could walk to church if we got up early enough.

This neighborhood was rich in economic diversity. There were a number of houses much nicer than ours, and others smaller and more modest. Across the street was a family in scattered-site public housing, while a few doors away lived Garrison Keillor’s sister. So I thought an appropriate song for our third house would be “The House I Live In,” with words by Lewis Allen (real name Abel Meeropol, the man who adopted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s sons after the execution) and music by Earl Robinson. I like Paul Robeson’s version.

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