-->
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
THIS OLD HOUSE…..
-->
THIS OLD HOUSE…..
A TV SHOW about fixing up
houses? A song by Stuart Hamblem
about the frailty of human life compared to a falling down house.
In my driving today I passed once
again an old 1930’s style house with a big porch, a half story over the
house. I had been in such a house
when I was young. It was the
parsonage (where the parson and his family lived) over on Elmwood Street next
to the church I came of age in. I
thought that house, green and white in color with wood siding, and a big farm
type kitchen was warm and wonderful
The house I passed today was probably
such a home, with lots of land around it, for at the time it would have been
built Garfield Road would have been a dirt country road outside of Mt.
Clemens. Sterling Heights was not
even thought of at that time. Perhaps Warren to the south had or was soon going
to be designated a town. Utica,
north and west of the house was a city.
Anyway this house has been
abandoned for many years. I don’t
know if I ever saw it occupied, although I probably did in my early years in
Macomb County. It’s the kind of
house where you could imagine pies baking in the kitchen, children playing in
the yard. Bicycles leaning against
the porch, and perhaps a lot of flowers, yes flowers and a garden in the back
and bushes in front. There were
probably chairs or even a porch swing on that once lovely old porch.
Now is sits abandoned. You can tell that maybe at one time it
was a two-tone paint job as the house in my memory was. At some point someone had boarded up
the windows from the inside. Not a
wise choice, as there is no glass anywhere in the windows that face the
outside. Someone perhaps inspired
by the scene in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” where the two main characters
throw stones at the windows of the house they will someday inhabit have thrown
stones at this house and made wishes if the glass broke. Lots of wishes. No glass No dreams. A month
or two ago I observed an accident where a young woman in a small gray car
flipped the car and it landed upside down on what was left of the lawn of this
house, once a home. The girl was
OK, but shaken.
Today I wondered if anywhere in
the county or the state there were people who remember the joy that once lived
in this house when it was a home, and feel sad that it no longer serves a
family. Maybe the house never had
joy. Some houses are like
that. I remember knowing a couple,
who are probably gone now who lamented that where their old house sat in this
same area there was then a restaurant, now a shopping center. Not many houses left on old Garfield
road these days, but this old humble once a home house sits, waiting for when
it too will no longer be there to remind folks of former times, not so long
ago.
