Inside view

When I (finally) had the opportunity to add my two bits to the mid-April Family census entry, I kept wanting to follow memories of the physical spaces we called home and the things we did there. For example, we had a freezer in our basement (where my tongue got stuck when I licked the enticing ice crystals). Some man came down the street selling freezers along with a promise to fill them with meat for some unbelievably long period of time. It was a scam, although the lamb chops were good while they lasted and I just got rid of my parents’ freezer (still working) a few years ago. I've been trying to remember whether any of the rest of you had freezers like ours in your basements. Were we the only ones to fall for the scam or was it a five-kids-with-huge-appetites thing?

I ransacked my dusty mental files for images of our old homes. I hope the rest of you will correct and fill in my sketchy memories.

1. Hall/Thompson: I remember a kidney-shaped dressing table in my sisters’ bedroom, which I associate with playing Quaker school. By the way, someone mentioned our beagle (Frisky?). We also had a long-time terrier named George, which provided endless fodder for teasing by our teachers, "You have a brother named Flip and a dog named George? Our animals had their own Christmas stockings, made of red felt just like ours.

I also remember playing hotel -- posting numbers on all the bedroom doors, and opening our front door and coat closet door to 45° angles to form an "elevator."

I remember Linda and I cutting orange footprints from construction paper and taping them up and down my walls to decorate my chocolate brown and hot pink bedroom.

I remember us girls sitting in that bedroom (Ellen’s and mine at that time?) comparing schedules after the opening day of high school.

Probably my favorite part of our home was the cherry tree in the backyard. In the spring, I looked up through my orange café curtains to see white blossoms against the blue sky.

I also remember sleep-outs in our backyard. I accompanied my parents when they shopped for a caboose, hoping to put it in our camping spot in our backyard, as a guesthouse.

In the woods behind our house was the Fallen Tree. I remember Tom standing there, with surprising patience, coaxing Lynne, Diane (Joseph twins from Farm View), and me to jump from it.

2. Landig/Shug/Bradley: I can’t remember ever being in their house, although I did once see a yellow warbler in a tree in their yard.

5. Burton/Aruffo/Chesley: I remember watching family movies there. I also remember several of us working with the Chesley kids and their dad to dust the house once.

6. Ruby/Mattox: I remember being in the living room while Mr. Mattox was giving a youth group talk, and rudely giggling throughout his message.

9. Beale: I remember the delight of walking into the Beale’s home, from the door along the driveway. It was a refreshingly cool room after being outside in the summer heat. I remember it as being lined with books (but may have it confused with our lower-level room). I remember playing Risk in the living room and wonderful fragrances from Meagan’s baking. It seems there are foods I associate with the houses where I spent the most time. Here, it is peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses in the center.

10. Seidel: I remember the Spritz cookies kept in tins in the garage, lazing in the hammock reading Archie comic books, and playing ping-pong in the basement (seems to me Ellen and David had a score of 18-12 and tried to remember the name of the war that occurred during that year – could be a trick of my memory because I'm sure they're much too smart for that). I also remember playing Match game, some Barbie board game, and a car game in which we led magnetic cars along roads by using rods with magnets on the end.

I remember the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Frances Hodgson Burnett books on shelves in the bedroom (books I was too much of a tomboy to read until I read them to my sons). It seems to me that the furniture with the shelves once ran through the middle of the room to divide Linda's and Susan's halves.

The foods I associate with this house are post-Thanksgiving cranberry ice, candy cane cookies, and the cut-out cookies we decorated (before baking, unlike my family’s cookies, which were iced and decorated after baking).

11. Fisher: I remember Shelley’s bookshelf (board and brick?) With interesting knickknacks: a painted wooden horse (that looks Swedish in my foggy memory) and angel chimes. I remember an entire dresser in the bathroom filled with brushes, combs, and hair accessories. I remember aspirin for children (St. Joseph's?) in some flavor I thought was delicious, kept in the medicine cabinet. I remember the hall closet with apricot brandy and a can full of money. I remember candles in the parents’ bedroom (and strings of beads?). I remember Anthony's first prize winning artwork on display near the aquarium. I remember the cello in the den. I remember taking turns standing on the picnic table to give impromptu speeches on topics shouted out by the audience. We were way ahead of our time. I remember sneaking in the pool one time when the parents were not home, putting our towels in the dryer so we wouldn't get caught, and getting caught anyhow.

I remember Alan squeezing tomatoes in the kitchen and teaching me how to de-vein shrimp. I also remember him out front, in his bathrobe, hosing a tree (which I remember as an apricot but I think someone has already corrected my misremembering -- in my fuzzy memory -- he was trying to protect it from frost). I remember the birch or birches. I remember Tally (otherwise known as Comment allez vous?)

I remember Jackie's birthday party (39th? 40th?) with little clay pots we made and filled with tiny straw flowers for guest favors. Guests drew pictures that we taped on the walls lining the stairways. We filled the pool with balloons which popped because the hot sun heated the air within them. I remember the long-needled Christmas tree covered with white lights, and the baby pines that lined the driveway (where we once found a baby rabbit).

The foods I associate with this home are NanNan cookies, mice (pie dough dotted with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, then rolled and baked), lemon squares, cinnamon-flavored hard candies kept in little candy dishes, and the gourmet Noodles and Hunt sauce. There is also a phase when Jackie made us all omelettes. Coke, of course.

Oh, yes, I remember the garage. And the very cool hamper at the bottom of the laundry chute, which looked like a cage or cell.

12. Richards: I was inside the Richards’ home on Halloween, but all I can remember is the Grandmother (having already written about her in the Family Census, I won’t repeat that here).

15. Putzie/Little: All I can remember about this house is the chairs on the front porch and flashing lights from my bedroom window to let Bill know when I had arrived safely home (then he would flash the lights from his room back to me).

16. Ambill/Przybylek/Killen: Even though I spent a lot of time babysitting the Przybylek kids and cleaning the Killen’s house, I remember almost nothing about this split level (except that the Killen’s had gorgeous, old, heavy furniture).

17. Moore: I remember playing with Rich (whom we called Richie then) on their swingset. He had this beautiful brown powder in a jar. He told me it was cocoa, so I ate some. It was dirt, which I spit out on the ground by the swingset, to the amusement of his watching siblings.

By the way, through my class reunion listing, I got the surface mail address for Rich Moore. I sent him a postcard asking him and his siblings to get on the blog.

I remember the day the Walters moved in. My mother thought they were so organized because she saw the painting on the mantle. Annie had just stuck it there, not knowing what else to do with it. Seems to me it was a country scene -- maybe a red barn or covered bridge. As I remember it, my first view of color television was in the Walter’s living room where we watched The Wizard Of Oz.

I remember my family having dinner at the Walters. When Doug and I went down to his room after dinner, Shelley and John were waiting for us. They had sneaked in through the garage.