Saying Goodbye To Bintliff Drive (Part 1)

In November, after 52 years, my parents moved away from 9203 Bintliff Drive, the geographical epicenter of our family life. They are starting to construct a more “manageable” life in a retirement community that offers a continuum of care. “In other words,” my 84 year old dad pronounced, “I probably leave there in a box." Over the last six months, my sisters and I have been helping them sort through everything they left behind before we put the house on the market. Both the house and the neighborhood are my peers—we are in our mid fifties and it has gotten harder to hide the wear and tear. We’ve also matured and grown much more solid and multicultural. After only four weeks on the market, we have happily accepted a full price offer, so another four weeks from now--after one last purge of the garage and shed--we will exchange our final goodbyes.

Anchors Aweigh

Elaine (L) and Suzanne (R)

Over a year ago, I began preparing myself for the day that is now looming, when my mom called to announce that it was snowing in Houston. “I'm looking out at the exact spot where you were standing the first time you experienced snow,” she chirped. Both of us could picture the two little girls bundled up for a black and white photograph that captured my squinting eyes and the curious white stuff that would cover our yard only one more time before we were grown (Click Here). As she went on, I consciously marked how lovely—and rare—it is to be able to stroll and reminisce, and plant perennials upon the same little speck of the planet that witnessed over 19,000 days of our collective lives. Sometimes it feels like I'm raising the anchor that has secured my family to the Earth, and that my star in the Southwest is going to fade away. I keep reminding myself that everything that has taken place there has been indelibly imprinted on my soul and will always travel with me . . . so I begin.

Goodbye, Front Yard

Captured on a recent visit to the house

Daddy can still recite in detail, the day he planted the petite live oak seedling that became the hovering, gnarly centerpiece of the front yard. Long ago, I gingerly climbed up into a tamer version of it,  played croquet beside it, picked my guitar beneath it, and read the Bible for the first time leaning against it. The cool, supple St. Augustine grass that he seeded, bore up under a lot of tomboyish mischief, neighborhood squabbles, romantic rendezvous and occasional "chinch" bugs. The same red brick soldiers silently guard whatever can survive within the sandy, ivy covered beds. My dad never employed a yard man until a few years ago, so he worries from across town that the azaleas will burn up before the house sale closes.

Goodbye Driveway



My 4th birthday--we went to "Wee Wild West" (click to see video)

Every outdoor activity began and ended on our wide cement driveway. On its surface, I pedaled a little red fire engine a purple Sting Ray bike and a first generation 10-speed. We hopped on pogo sticks, jumped rope to how many doctors did it take , hopscotched, shot firecrackers, ate countless popsicles; performed puppet shows and mock Beatle's concerts, (sometimes) smiled for Easter, birthday, Halloween and first-day-of-school pictures. Later, with some tears and minor scrapes, three teen-aged daughters learned to back out of the garage, parallel park, navigate goodnight kisses and a few theatrical breakups. 

I recall the impossibility of unlocking the front door or snapping the screened door hook latch without waking "radar ears" our poor, sleep-deprived father!  And I suppose the old white lamppost on the front walk has greeted a thousand visitors, illuminating hundreds of blissful hellos and heart wrenching goodbyes through the decades. [to be continued]