Our House – March 16, 2023

I freely admit it.  I am house proud.  I love this old home of my grandparents.  It’s where my mother and her siblings grew up.  It’s where I spent the summers of my childhood and the best years of my adulthood.  It has been a playground, a gathering place, a refuge and a solace for all of my eighty-seven years.

And it’s not just the house, itself, with all its quirks and crannies.  It’s the furniture my grandmother brought from California when they moved here in 1902.  It’s the paintings — many by family members —  and the wavy old glass in the windows.  It’s the contents of the cupboards and the treasures lurking in “unused” closets.  My great- grandfather’s books, my grandmother’s china, my father’s collections of cut glass and Nyel’s numerous old tools.  Yes… I am house proud.  More than.

Dining Room Table –Thanksgiving 2013

I love it when visitors “oooh” and “aaah” and I’m always ready to give a tour or tell a story about something that catches a curious eye.  I take the compliments and admiration absolutely personally, knowing full well that I’m only the custodian — not the creator — of this house that I am so lucky to call “home.”  And knowing, too, that I am biased and still smarting at a 1978 remark by an uppity relative about this being “juxt a shabby old farmhouse.”

Those feelings — all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly –engulfed me last night as I listened to Fred Carter’s music — love songs to Vicki and songs from his youth and a final song that he played, once again, for Nyel.  I was struck by the difference in the potluck dinner offerings of twenty (or even five) years ago — last night almost all “store bought” offered on paper plates and in the plastic containers they came in as opposed to the plates and platters and serving dishes of previous House Concerts.  Not quite in keeping with the ambience of this old-fashioned residence.

And I wondered if only I noticed.  But, no.  I’m sure the house felt the difference, too.  After all, it has seen more changes in its 124 years than any one of us will ever note.  And still it smiles and is welcoming to all.  “So be it,” I said to myself.  “So be it.  Times they are a-changing.”