Childhood Windows

I ran out of bananas.  I need bananas in my cereal in the morning.  So last night, I drove to the A&P for bananas, and on impulse, I drove through my childhood neighborhood on the way home.  Except I didn't go directly home.  After passing the house I grew up in on Maple Avenue, I drove around the block, pulled over in front of #8, walked up the path and rang the doorbell.  (The doorbell?  We never had a doorbell!)

The family that lives there now was very gracious and invited me in to have a look around this house that my father built when I was two years old.  You could say it was bittersweet.  First of all, memory always saves things bigger than they actually were, so I was surprised at how small the house and its rooms are.  I was also surprised that the bathroom walls and floor have the same green and pink and black tiles that were laid in 1952.  Sixty-two years later, they are still in good shape.  Quite a retro look, very cool.  I looked out the bathroom window and recalled that night in 1959 (?) when my sister and I stared at the lit-up attic window of our neighbor, "Aunt" Margaret, who'd hanged herself there. 

In what used to be my bedroom, I again looked at the window and remembered when my father caught a young neighborhood boy peeking in at me, doing my homework.  (Forty years later, I ran into him and he apologized!)  In the kitchen, I saw my family of five seated at the table by the window having dinner.  I don't know how we even fit a table in there, let alone five people around it.  We stared at our neighbors having their dinner by their kitchen window.

On the back porch, I told the owners that the windows were jalousie windows, popular in the 50s and 60s.  A louvered window, they allowed for a breeze to flow through the room.  You'd be hard-pressed to find jalousie windows anywhere today, as most have been replaced by more energy efficient styles.  But they were cutting-edge when my dad installed them.

All these windows!  And for me, a peek into the window of my childhood which seemed, at the time, to last forever.  And now, several decades later, I am confronted with the sting of nostalgia, the wonderment that all these years have gone by so fast.

Today, I dug up the original plans for the house, a framed needlepoint rendition of the house that I made for my mother forty years ago, and several pictures of the construction of the house.  I will take these gifts to the "new" owners because they belong with the house.  And I will take with me the new knowledge that there is a sweet little family occupying my childhood home, making their own memories, looking into and out of their own windows.

Lotta love here.