My mom grew up in a house her parents built when she was in elementary school. It was across the street from the house in which my grandfather grew up. My dad moved from Mississippi to Alabama when he was young, but can drive you by his childhood home with no problem.
That game you play where you take your pet's name and the name of the street on which you grew up? Yeah, that one is kind of hard. I usually use the name of the road we lived on for 7 years. That's the longest I've ever lived in one place.
Not that anybody cares, but to the best of my recollection, here's a rundown of where my parents have lived since they got married:
1. small town Georgia #1. I've never heard them talk about their living situation in the first town in which they lived. They got married 3 days before my mother's 19th birthday. All I've ever heard them discuss is how they visited my grandparents quite frequently--to eat!
2. They moved to Hometown the following year. I think the first home they owned was a mobile home. I know they brought my sister home to their trailer in the trailer park where the Piggly Wiggly now stands. I think this was after my mom backed into it and knocked it off its foundation one morning while my dad was still sleeping. She went on to work.
3. At some point before I was born, they bought a house--I believe it was on Azalea Drive. This was were they lived when I came home from the hospital and it backed up to my friend Allyson's parents' house. Unfortunately, we moved before we were old enough to take advantage of the situation.
4. We moved into the house in Carlton Woods that my parents built. One of my earliest memories involves being "stranded" in the playroom upstairs which had a mini balcony. I remember standing on the balcony crying while every else laughed at me. This would become a common occurrence in my childhood.
5. The mortgage payments got to be too much for my school teacher parents, so they moved into a smaller house on Barbara Circle. It backed up to a lake and we had a trampoline. My sister's room had green shag carpet. Mine had hard wood floors with no area rugs (allergies).
6. We moved to Missouri--flattest place on earth. I don't really remember much about this house--other than swinging on the swing set outside when my mom called us in for a surprise. She had asked the manager of the grocery store to order grits for us.
7. The day after school got out, we moved to Birmingham. We temporarily lived in an apartment while looking for a house. It had a community pool and my sister taught me to swim butterfly in that pool. Every box we had got infested with tiny roaches which came with us when we moved.
8. After getting out of the first contract they signed upon discovering a severely leaking roof, we moved into what felt like a GIGANTIC house. It was a split level ranch and had a special psychedelic orange and yellow room that I used just for my Barbies.
9. We moved back to Hometown after a 4 year absence--to a house with a POOL! After painting over the oreo paint scheme outside, we loved it. We were there for 3 years.
10. They built another house. My dad helped his dad and brothers tear down a house in Mississippi and all of the hardwood floors, the moldings, the doors, the wainscoting, and the mantel were all used in our new house. My dad took advantage of summer vacation and worked on that house every single day that summer. We moved in right around Thanksgiving to an unfinished house and somehow managed to never have toilet paper holders or towel bars. This was our home for 7 years and we were all flabbergasted when they took an unsolicited offer from a very annoying woman to buy it near the end of my freshman year of college.
11. They moved to a rental house temporarily because the sale was so fast. I came home from my freshman year and couldn't unload my car because the house was already full. I watched the OJ chase at that house.
12. Before the end of the summer, they bought a house in Cherokee. It was time for the sweet lady who lived there to be taken care of. She had raised her family in that house and it was well loved. We became fast friends with our next door neighbors and he acted as the general contractor on the garage to master suite conversion. The Grays are definitely the best thing to come out of that house. Followed closely by the amazing rug they negotiated as part of the purchase. This was the first closing I worked on from a legal standpoint (I was working part time with my boss's father who is also a lawyer).
13. Daddy retired and got hired at a college in Atlanta. They moved to Mayberry--an Atlanta suburb--with the help of our old family friend (and my now boss). After much looking and realizing how spoiled we are by the beautiful homes in Hometown, they found a great house that we enjoyed for their 4 years there. I was in DC during most of their time there and its proximity to the airport was great.
14. While I was in Europe doing study abroad, they decided to leave Mayberry and head for the hills. They bought a house in a mountain town they had looked at for years. By the end of my two months in Europe, I was so looking forward to being home only to be told via e-mail that I might rather head to Law School town upon my return. The house was small and my grandparents were visiting. Mom solved the problem by flipping her VW Bug down a 30 foot ravine on the way to the airport. They spent the night at the hospital while I borrowed some socks from my (now) boss and crawled into their guest bed.
15. After one Christmas, 6 people, and 2 dogs, they decided they needed something a little bigger. So, a bigger house around the bend was purchased. The first night there was also our first night with Etta. We spent it on the new sofa I had purchased for my apartment at the Pottery Barn outlet that afternoon. While there are many happy memories from that home, we were all a little relieved to be away from the place where my nephew's sperm donor dropped his 29 day old head on the hard wood floor and gave him a skull fracture and brain bleed. That and the unknown rodent who had moved into the walls.
16. The lure of the boy proved so strong that they bought a house right around the corner from my sister's house. They knew it was temporary which leads to today--
17. The start of (according to my calculations) my parents' 17th move in their 40 year marriage. Right around the corner proved a little too close for everyone. They are now 20 minutes away and Daddy's working on a train room for the boy. When my dad said they got an interest only loan, he noted that it can't change for 3 years--and they will surely have moved by then.
That game you play where you take your pet's name and the name of the street on which you grew up? Yeah, that one is kind of hard. I usually use the name of the road we lived on for 7 years. That's the longest I've ever lived in one place.
Not that anybody cares, but to the best of my recollection, here's a rundown of where my parents have lived since they got married:
1. small town Georgia #1. I've never heard them talk about their living situation in the first town in which they lived. They got married 3 days before my mother's 19th birthday. All I've ever heard them discuss is how they visited my grandparents quite frequently--to eat!
2. They moved to Hometown the following year. I think the first home they owned was a mobile home. I know they brought my sister home to their trailer in the trailer park where the Piggly Wiggly now stands. I think this was after my mom backed into it and knocked it off its foundation one morning while my dad was still sleeping. She went on to work.
3. At some point before I was born, they bought a house--I believe it was on Azalea Drive. This was were they lived when I came home from the hospital and it backed up to my friend Allyson's parents' house. Unfortunately, we moved before we were old enough to take advantage of the situation.
4. We moved into the house in Carlton Woods that my parents built. One of my earliest memories involves being "stranded" in the playroom upstairs which had a mini balcony. I remember standing on the balcony crying while every else laughed at me. This would become a common occurrence in my childhood.
5. The mortgage payments got to be too much for my school teacher parents, so they moved into a smaller house on Barbara Circle. It backed up to a lake and we had a trampoline. My sister's room had green shag carpet. Mine had hard wood floors with no area rugs (allergies).
6. We moved to Missouri--flattest place on earth. I don't really remember much about this house--other than swinging on the swing set outside when my mom called us in for a surprise. She had asked the manager of the grocery store to order grits for us.
7. The day after school got out, we moved to Birmingham. We temporarily lived in an apartment while looking for a house. It had a community pool and my sister taught me to swim butterfly in that pool. Every box we had got infested with tiny roaches which came with us when we moved.
8. After getting out of the first contract they signed upon discovering a severely leaking roof, we moved into what felt like a GIGANTIC house. It was a split level ranch and had a special psychedelic orange and yellow room that I used just for my Barbies.
9. We moved back to Hometown after a 4 year absence--to a house with a POOL! After painting over the oreo paint scheme outside, we loved it. We were there for 3 years.
10. They built another house. My dad helped his dad and brothers tear down a house in Mississippi and all of the hardwood floors, the moldings, the doors, the wainscoting, and the mantel were all used in our new house. My dad took advantage of summer vacation and worked on that house every single day that summer. We moved in right around Thanksgiving to an unfinished house and somehow managed to never have toilet paper holders or towel bars. This was our home for 7 years and we were all flabbergasted when they took an unsolicited offer from a very annoying woman to buy it near the end of my freshman year of college.
11. They moved to a rental house temporarily because the sale was so fast. I came home from my freshman year and couldn't unload my car because the house was already full. I watched the OJ chase at that house.
12. Before the end of the summer, they bought a house in Cherokee. It was time for the sweet lady who lived there to be taken care of. She had raised her family in that house and it was well loved. We became fast friends with our next door neighbors and he acted as the general contractor on the garage to master suite conversion. The Grays are definitely the best thing to come out of that house. Followed closely by the amazing rug they negotiated as part of the purchase. This was the first closing I worked on from a legal standpoint (I was working part time with my boss's father who is also a lawyer).
13. Daddy retired and got hired at a college in Atlanta. They moved to Mayberry--an Atlanta suburb--with the help of our old family friend (and my now boss). After much looking and realizing how spoiled we are by the beautiful homes in Hometown, they found a great house that we enjoyed for their 4 years there. I was in DC during most of their time there and its proximity to the airport was great.
14. While I was in Europe doing study abroad, they decided to leave Mayberry and head for the hills. They bought a house in a mountain town they had looked at for years. By the end of my two months in Europe, I was so looking forward to being home only to be told via e-mail that I might rather head to Law School town upon my return. The house was small and my grandparents were visiting. Mom solved the problem by flipping her VW Bug down a 30 foot ravine on the way to the airport. They spent the night at the hospital while I borrowed some socks from my (now) boss and crawled into their guest bed.
15. After one Christmas, 6 people, and 2 dogs, they decided they needed something a little bigger. So, a bigger house around the bend was purchased. The first night there was also our first night with Etta. We spent it on the new sofa I had purchased for my apartment at the Pottery Barn outlet that afternoon. While there are many happy memories from that home, we were all a little relieved to be away from the place where my nephew's sperm donor dropped his 29 day old head on the hard wood floor and gave him a skull fracture and brain bleed. That and the unknown rodent who had moved into the walls.
16. The lure of the boy proved so strong that they bought a house right around the corner from my sister's house. They knew it was temporary which leads to today--
17. The start of (according to my calculations) my parents' 17th move in their 40 year marriage. Right around the corner proved a little too close for everyone. They are now 20 minutes away and Daddy's working on a train room for the boy. When my dad said they got an interest only loan, he noted that it can't change for 3 years--and they will surely have moved by then.
2 comments:
My stripper name?
Mimi Farm to Market Road 541 West.
Needless to say, I am from the middle of nowhere and we never moved once when I was growing up. Now my parents have moved away, and it makes me sad to have no connections to my super small home town. I guess you are in the same boat, with all the moving.
I love your stripper name. There were many roads in my hometown named after the man who first made them home. At least your stripper name doesn't involve your dad's name or something.
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