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]

Saying Goodbye to Bintliff Drive (Part 2)

In November of 2011, after 52 years, my parents moved away from 9203 Bintliff Drive, the geographical epicenter of our family life. After one last purge of the garage and shed--we will exchange our final goodbyes . . .

Goodbye Red Patio

Our yard was small, but full of interesting trees, greenery, flowers, feeders and attractive containers with hibiscus, roses and drought surviving annuals my parents tenderly cared for. I will miss sitting outside during the fifteen or twenty breezy minutes between sunset and the arrival of its notorious mosquitoes. Patios (Spanish: “back garden”) are an entertaining area adjoining a house, typically made of concrete or stone slab—ours was always painted terra cotta red.  Houston is fifty miles from the coast, but we could set our clocks by the turn of the warm Gulf breeze each evening. Mom would often call, “Come sit on the patio before the mosquitoes eat us!” Dad would add, “Shut the sliding door!”  

Among all the other big trees (above is half century old live oak Dad planted as a sapling), there was a small magnolia tree outside my bedroom window. When it was a sapling, the lawnmower “stunted” its growth, but that deep nick kept it just the right size to shade my window and still reach the fragrant lemony blooms we kept floating in a bowl on the kitchen table. Eventually it had to be chopped down, but Dad erected a fun little fort that all eight grandchildren enjoyed—a small cutting garden replaced the fort. We also had a beautiful American Holly tree with brilliant red berries we enjoyed from the breakfast room window several months a year. The birds that got drunk on the berries were also pretty entertaining.

One of the oldest fixtures we will leave behind is the squeaky, silver swing set where we released megatons of energy and stress. At least five generations have loved the old teeter totter--the neighbor kids of our era, my grandmother "Honey", my mom, all of our children, and now my grandson (their only great-grandchild). Here, "Gammy was still gliding pretty high at 80!

Backyard memories: Age 4: I was catching frogs in a glass jar, which broke, cutting a tendon in my tiny thumb; Age 5: During Hurricane Carla (1961) we criss-crossed masking tape on the sliding patio doors, but the towering birdhouse still fell on our roof ; Age 7: My  best birthday party—a surprise backyard carnival.  

My cousins, Alan and Bryan, performed a magic show at my carnival party

Age 9: Playing with “Sam I, II and III”, our beloved Siamese cats (all called "Fleabag" by Dad) Age 11: Playing catch with my Dad before Ladybug softball; Age 14-17: Practicing Herky jumps and Apollo Queen routines; Grilling steaks on a bright red Weber charcoal grill with Chuck's secret sauce (melted butter and garlic salt); and finally our annual Christmas, Easter and Birthday piñatas , homemade ice cream and  watermelons As I say goodbye to the old red patio, I’m only adopting two things for myself—a log cabin birdhouse and an antique birdbath which will fit right into my patio haven in Tennessee. We may not have the Gulf breeze in the evenings, but I sure don't miss those culex mosquitoes (click if you are attracted to ickiness).

[To be continued]

Saying Goodbye to Bintliff Drive: 1-800-GOT-JUNK? (Part 3)

SOLD

The day I've been both dreading and anticipating finally came on "May Day." Before my last round of goodbyes, I'll review some of last week's logistics and our sweaty days of emptying the house for its new owners.

Goodbye Attic

Last visit, my older sister and I completed the sorting process she and my younger sister had faithfully fulfilled in my absence. What was left to claim or toss was now in the garage on folding tables. After packing up seven boxes and mailing them to myself, we inventoried the alledged "just a few things" left in the attic. Dad strongly warned us that at least one worker's foot already ripped through their ceiling when moving things up there. Arachnaphobe that I am,I donned pink rubber gloves before climbing the rickety ladder.

Sure enough, there was WAY more than Dad remembered, so we spent hours throwing down piles of decrepit, disintegrated memorabilia through the 48" X 48" hole he once cut in the garage ceiling to place a man sized attic fan and to raise and lower large items on rigged up pulleys. We already knew our great grandmother's huge old Brunswick Victrola (early wind-up record player) would probably still be sitting on the eaves on the other side of the attic fan until Jesus returns. We had big fun shouting, "Gone!" "Bye bye!!" "Gross!!!" as we filled and refilled the City of Houston trash and recycle cans and made trips back and forth to Goodwill.

Abridged Inventory : Dozens of door wreaths that “Patsy Cleaver” changed out every season—made of everything from Texas Barbed wire to old Sunhats; an all weather cemetery wreath; carefully labeled but unusable "Christmas Crap" from decades past (note to self: nobody wants it); old luggage and one stroller, sealed up in black trash bags; green and gold pom poms and cheerleading megaphones; two unidentified beds; a toy box from our early childhood; some broken down tables and a hideously upholstered chair were in corners we couldn't safely reach; a giant scarecrow mounted on a bamboo pole (rejected by Goodwill, then stealthily left in McDonald’s dumpster)—no tears here, just a hearty buh-bye! 

Junior High and High School Megaphones

Goodbye Junk!

It has been exhausting for three chicks in their fifties to do all the physical work required over the last several months, so it didn't take much research to convince us to divide the cost for 1-800-GOT-JUNK to haul off the things none of our family members or the yard man, Marcos, had claimed. The way this wonderful company works is that you pay by volume not time (i.e. how much of their truck is filled)--they look at what you want hauled away, give you an estimate, then load it up on the spot (and sweep up too).We were nervous about all the stuff in the attic, but they claim that it doesn't matter where it is or what it is . . . so without consulting our dad, we made an appointment.

They were great!  Friendly, efficient, and fast--worth every penny (3/4 of a truckload of pennies) and we didn't have to lift a finger--but we couldn't keep from joining in.

Still, we were nervous when Nat and Javier  were about to tip the giant attic fan on its hinges and attempt to lower the solid wood Victrola still wrapped with the original ropes it had been lifted with. They didn't bat an eyelash, balancing themselves on the eaves to resurrect the old piece from its precarious place. "Sweet!" we giggled when it plopped softly on an old white bedspread. 

"What was it for?" they asked about the 1920-something box.  

"Oh a music machine that doesn't use electricity"! Silly young things. 

We uncovered a few other unexpected treasures: a little hand-painted rocking chair with a music box; Papa Stallworth's custom-made fishing rod, carefully bagged within a long metal cylinder; an old railroad lantern; dozens of love letters and telegrams Dad sent to Mom before they married (we never thought of him as "mushy" until we read them); a big wooden paddle my Mom made when she taught Jr. High English--one side has two nails sticking out of it with red paint that's supposed to look like blood--"Heat for the Seat." The flip side says, "Mr. Thompson's Board of Education (the assistant principal). Today we'd be arrested for even joking about corporal punishment.

In one last sweet, due to my nephew's persistence and a good Mag Lite, we uncovered my dad's Navy boot camp picture and a bag of old drafting sketches of homes he dreamed of building.  That was worth every bit of sweat and grime we wore from head to toe!

My sister: "Are we the only crazy people who want to take pictures of you?" 
Javier: "No . . . every now and then somebody wants to, like maybe a mystery shopper."

Goodbye Garage

Our garage wasn't the kind of  place three daughters are interested in hanging out, but ours was once a great place to play school, jump rope or play ping pong on a rainy afternoon. Just outside the kitchen door we kept a small table and chairs my sister won at Sacco's Grocery for  messy art projects. In addition, each of us spent at least one meal out there for breaking table rules ("Mabel Mabel strong and able, get your elbows off the table.") Saturday, I took my dad by the house to show him that it was now virtually empty. He said he hasn't seen it that clean since 1958 when they moved in. I didn't consider how hard it would hit him to see that every last one of his screws and nails and nuts and tools and turpentine and screens and jars and brushes were GONE--everything he had ever used to build, fix, rig  and remodel . . . 

The empty attic

We went out back to view the equally bare shed, and I think it finally sunk in for both of us that this is it. We both fought to stay composed as we went to separate bathrooms to blow our noses and wipe our eyes, but as we left we both lost it. Dad whispered, "The happiest years of my life were spent here." 

We wiped away our tears, lowered the garage doors and drove away in silence. By the time we got to their new apartment, we were smiling again about our outing to see an old friend, to buy new socks at J.C. Penney, to have a burger and chocolate shake AND and a Creme Swirl lollipop. Our current motto for those kind of outings is "Don't ask, don't tell".  On Sunday I offered to take my mom when we loaded up my antique door, lawnmower and Victrola, but she said she'd rather remember the house as it was for her--always full of people and good memories. 

My parents on their last morning on Bintliff Drive

Saying Goodbye to Bintliff Drive: The Final Viewing (Pt. 4)

 Trying to smile for one last picture

My neighborhood and I are  peers—we’re both in our fifties, so it’s hard to hide the wear and tear; we’ve also become even more multicultural. The elementary school at the end of the street now holds more English Language Learners than native speakers, including many of the  Somali Bantu refugee group I advocate for.  The Jr. High at the other end of our street was still a "neighborhood" school in 1967, (meaning the student body was close to 100% Caucasian). It wasn't until 9th grade that zoning artificially "integrated" our schools and we were assigned to Sharpstown Jr. High (beyond another Jr. High school). By high school, most of us were reunited and no one cared what color the other kids were. Today, a few of the original neighbors still live on the two streets in our subdivision, and many of my childhood pals still get together and reminisce about our happiest days there.

The Last Visit

Last Sunday--May Day (Lei Day in Hawaii ) my younger sister and I loaded up the last of the things we are taking to our own homes.  I have been hassling with the shipment of the antique door which was originally on my great grandparents' house in Marlin, Texas. Next it became the kitchen door on my parents' house--and when it finally finds its way to Tennessee, I'll make it my back door.  It just feels right that we would take such an important symbol of our comings and goings into the another generation of our family life.  So now I will say my final farewells . . .

Goodbye Family Room

Our kitchen, breakfast area and den was one big room, so everything that happened to one of us was in community. Our one television was parked there, so we had to learn to agree on what to watch before the 10 o'clock news ended our day. The kitchen table was the site of meals, homework and projects. The red rotary wall phone had a long cord, but not long enough for very private conversations. (One time my sister thought Daddy had hung up the second phone until her boyfriend asked, "What's new pussycat?" and my dad answered, "Who wants to know?"

Goodbye Kitchen

The kitchen looks about the same as it always did, but it has a new oven and refrigerator now. I still miss the vintage brown oven that bit the dust in 2009 after 48 years (read about it here). I've already placed my grandmother's needlepoint in my youse--Google couldn't uncover the source of  "Time removes all things but love and truth," but I believe Honey's Needlepoint Philosophy now more than ever. 

Honey's needlepoint philosophy (author unknown)

Suppertime was always 6:30 p.m. after my dad got home at 6:00.  Like "Leave it to Beaver",  we all sat at the table to eat--without the television on. She taught school all day, but after lying down on the couch for about 30 minutes, she would get up and cook us a real dinner.  As we got older, we each chose a school night to help prepare a meal. I guess those girl scout badges and 8th grade home economics classes paid off a little. I so wish I had a picture of the dish washing chart taped inside the kitchen cabinet that we constantly fought over. Spoiled!

Their 1958 original oven was only replaced a year or so ago

Goodbye "Back" Bedroom

Our 3-2-2 1950's ranch style house meant all the bedrooms were situated in a row on one short hall. My parents shared the "front" room, my little sister had the "middle" room and my older sister and I shared the "back room" until she went away to college a year ahead of me. Before central air conditioning, we had a big brown air conditioning unit above our twin beds. To help the airflow get down the hall, we had to keep our door open--so we could never get away with late night shenanigans. Our dad's "radar ears" heard every whisper and he would come smacking his newspaper against his hand . . . as if he would ever have spanked either one of us (our parents were Dr. Spock disciples). We had one long window that looked out over the magnolia tree and swing set--in Houston, you rarely opened the windows--except for our fire safety practices when my dad demonstrated how to use our doll high chair to bust the glass and climb out. He'd also scratch on our screen with the hose to try to scare us out of sneaking out in later years. 

                                      

When we finally got central air conditioning, we got new "Frenchy" antiqued bunk beds but the room was still pretty crowded for two teen-aged girls with very different personalities and cleaning habits . . . my only privacy was in the closet, where I would close myself  in and write little tomes like "What I will not do when I am a parent." Once we went away to college, we were shocked to learn that our parents did not intend to enshrine our room--as soon as we moved out our grandmother moved in our room for seven years and so it became "Honey's room" sans our floor to ceiling cork boards full of tickets, spirit ribbons and dead corsages. 

Goodbye Blue Bathroom

Still baby blue after all these years

Another characteristic of 50's houses was small bathrooms, though the one we three sisters shared was still bigger than the (yeah, whatever) master bath that barely held a single sink, toilet and shower. My mom's favorite color is BLUE, so everything she could talk my dad into painting or "antiquing" was that color--the carpet, the china cabinet, our dresser, even our bathroom walls and cabinets. We had a lot of fun and squabbles in that bathroom, from playing "Hawaii" (making waves) in the tub, doctoring scrapes with Camphophenique (click here for Dad's remedy for almost any problem), experimenting with orange juice can curlers, to hiding "evidence" inside the big plastic bonnets that attached to our 60's style hair dryer.

Goodbye Living Room

My favorite room in the house, and the hardest to say goodbye to, was the living room, the only somewhat private part of our home. The hall door and sliding doors to the family room could be closed off. It contained a drop leaf mahogany table, whose sides were raised to host holiday dinners with our relatives. This was also the Christmas tree room--usually very fat snow flocked Scotch Pines which were perfectly lighted and beautifully decorated despite the annual strain on my parents' relationship. The stereo and couch  provided a pretty cozy date place, except you had to compete with another sister and be out of there by 10:30 p.m. 

Goodbye  Beloved Piano

The reason I most loved our living room was the beautiful Baldwin Acrosonic piano we bought in 1965.  Once I started piano lessons in 3rd grade, I played virtually every day--singing show tunes, practicing classical pieces, picking out pop songs by ear, and composing music for my "beatnik" poetry as a melancholy teen. My dad wasn't a big conversationalist but some of my best memories with him are when he would  sit down and sing harmony with me or play a little duet on piano or guitar.

I wonder how many dreams and feelings were absorbed by those ivory keys played by tens of pint sized and wrinkled fingers? Gran's favorite song was "Melody in F."  Honey's was "Mighty Like a Rose." Mother's is "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" and Daddy's are "Rock of Ages: and "Little Brown Jug".  My sisters, cousins and neighbors banged out hours of funny duets, popular songs with mocked up lyrics and carols for holiday sing a longs. Those were the songs I plunked out for the last "recital." on Bintliff Drive. 

Our daughter always hoped to inherit this piano but since they don't own a home and are headed overseas soon, I will save her the piano I inherited from my grandmother. Surprisingly, Dad is giving their piano to his Hungarian neighbor who has helped maintain their house ever since he found asylum in the U.S. I think that made both of them very happy, and I hope the hands that play it in the future will be blessed by the music contained in its strings.

Goodbye Address

All essential mail has already been forwarded to the new apartment, so the house quietly awaits its new owners . . After my nephew snapped one last picture, we drove away, pledging not to shed any more tears. I supposed we are starting to realize that we are so blessed to still have each other, to be leaving (somewhat) on our own terms--now we merely lack a central meeting place.  Though Bintliff Drive has been the "epicenter" of our family life for half a century, our only true anchor is in another country. One by one, over the next few years or decades, our family will eventually reunite to sing new songs and to create new memories that will never fade. So farewell.