This old house

An abridged 50-year history of my childhood home

I was in first grade when we moved in. A 60’s era ranch house, drab and beige when my parents bought it in the 70s.

I walked to school on that sidewalk, past my babysitter’s house and the house with the barking dog. I rode my bike down that driveway to middle school and then high school till senior year, when my friend drove me to school in his old red VW Bug which you could hear putt-putting from all the way up the street.

The front yard used to be a desiccated jumble of red lava rock, overgrown juniper hedges, runaway clumps of gazania and weeds. It wasn’t pretty, but it was drought-friendly. There used to be a towering liquidambar tree by the sidewalk which dropped prickly seedpods Dad made me collect and discard every week. And there were Dad’s beloved rose bushes, which he planted so close to the driveway that the thorns snagged our clothes when we got out of the car.