The Big Move: All the Way Across the Street

It was the "Summer of Love" and my parents purchased the Bungalow directly across the street from our second-story apartment. It was our first house. It was bittersweet, of course. I'd never known anywhere else as home. I've seen pictures of the tiny two-family apartment we'd live in when we first moved to the "Big City." It was in the same neighborhood. I was too young to remember that apartment. It looked nice, but it was across the street from a cemetery. Scary.

Mrs.Marker had lived in that Bungalow across the street from us for my entire life, which wasn't all that long. I now have blue jeans older than I was at the time. I don't remember if she passed away or if her son placed her in a nursing home. Anyway, he was the one selling the house. He seemed nice and my folks eventually closed the deal.

Decades later, I saw the abstract for the land the house sat on. It had been originally owned by an Indian princes - honest to God. I don't recall her name, but she owned a great deal of land in the area. I don't recall what tribe she was from, either. Of course, the first dwelling was a log cabin. Our house was built in the 1920s. I loved it.

Before we moved in, Mrs. Marker's son held an estate sale. My mother took me with her to have a look at what was available. She had been an elderly lady and her son had grown up in that house. I remember seeing hundreds of knick-knacks all lined up on tables. I'd never seen anything like it. There was all her stuff with little price tags on it. Mom was talking to a lady who was helping with the sale as I noticed something I'd never seen before. It turned out to be a paperweight. It was made out of thick, globe-shaped glass with colorful flowers inside. It was about the size of baseball. It reminded me of the plastic snow globe I received for Christmas, but without the fake snow. It was quite heavy, as a paperweight should be.

The sales lady noticed I was inspecting it. She's the one who told me what it was. She glanced at mom, who then peered down at me. "Would you like me to buy that for you," asked mom. "It will help you to remember Mrs. Marker." I nodded and we took it home. It was the only thing we bought that day. It will have been 50 years ago next summer. I still have it.

I don't know how long it took us to move across the street, but I made plenty of trips back and forth with my little red wagon full of stuff. Mom carried a lot of stuff, too. I didn't fully realized how much stuff you can accumulate until I moved into my first house. I lived in an apartment, but I still had a ton of stuff in my parent's basement.

After we moved in, I found out that I had my own special room, I had my own room at the apartment, too, but this was quite different. One of the windows looked out into the backyard, which had a tremendously tall pine tree. There were flowers planted along the fence line. The tree shaded nearly the entire yard, making it look like an enchanted forest out of a nursery rhythm. It seemed dark, even during the day. I could see the garage off to the left. The apartment didn't have a garage. Our new driveway ran from the street, along the house, and halfway into the backyard. It turned out to be a bitch when I had to shovel it before dad bought a snow blower, which was 25 years later.

My father wanted to take full advantage of the garage, after all, we needed a new car. There had been a terrible tornado that spring. Our car, which sat in the driveway, got crushed by a section of the apartment's roof that got blown off by the heavy winds. It was a black, four-door Buick Skylark, but I don't recall the year. He wanted to get the latest model and he did. But, when he got it home, he discovered it was too long for the garage. He was extremely unhappy about it. He ended up buying a brand new Grotto-blue (robin's egg), four-door, 1968 Chevelle Malibu. It was destined to be mine. I wish I still had it. It got hit by some debris from Skylab when it fell to Earth in 1979, but that's another story, made up by a friend who bought it.

A nearby community was hit exceptionally hard by that tornado. It arrived as school kids were loading onto buses to go home. Many kids were injured. One of the teachers from that school later became my fifth-grade teacher. She eventually became president of the teacher's association and fought hard for pay increases. It's a disgrace to think of how little appreciation people had for teachers at the time. The devastated community continues to mourn the victims, honoring them on each and every anniversary of that horrible day.

Now, we had a nice yard. We didn't have a dog, though.

But, thanks to my uncle, one would soon arrive. He gave a puppy to my mother for Christmas, complete with a red bow. He knew she couldn't refuse to accept a puppy, although she threatened to beat my uncle within a inch of his life for giving us a dog. He was one of a litter from their dog, which was a Schipperke (skipper-key). They're a Belgian breed, and they have a shiny, black coat, but are short and squat. Mine was a little more squat than normal. Okay, he was chubby. They look like furry vampire bats with legs.

 I named him Mac. I don't recall why. I guess I just liked the name. He was a great dog, but they were bred to warn of impending danger. In other words, if they saw, heard or smelled anything, they barked their assess off. They were often used on ships, standing at the bow as they sailed through a mist or a fog, ready to alert the crew to something out in the distance. Mac was a little different. He certainly barked his ass off, but he barked when someone was leaving the house instead of when they were arriving. I guess that would at least confuse a burglar.

Today, I have a Mini Pinscher. He reminds me of the AMC Gremlin commercial from the early 1970s. A gas station attendant asks a young woman as she drives up to the pump, "Where's the rest of you car, toots?" Just replace the word car with dog.