The way my mother tells it, she was extremely pregnant with my sister as she waddled into the house for the first time on a cold, rainy morning, holding the hand of her toddling son.
A little one at the end of her arm, and another child soon to pop. What a way to go house-hunting!
She and my father had been looking for a long time, and the experience was always a letdown. My father promised her this house would be different.
It was different, all right. It was smaller than many they’d seen. No fireplace, no attic, and a tiny basement.
Every wall cried out for paint, and the ceiling was flaking so badly it appeared to be snowing indoors. This house was going to need a lot of attention.
But you can’t hide a soul, and the soul of that little house shined through the rain and the flaking paint, and here’s what it said to my mother:
You are home.
She turned to my father. “This,” my mother flatly announced, “is our house.”
My father nodded in agreement. The woman who was selling the house was sitting in the kitchen, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee.
Showtime. Hoping to knock a few bucks off the asking price, my father took my mother aside.
“Now, don’t make a fuss over it,” he whispered as they approached the kitchen. “Stay cool.” The owner smiled at them.
“I just love this house!” my mother exclaimed. My father rolled his eyes as his hoped-for discount took wing.
They closed the deal for the asking price and moved in on March 20th, 1957. Sixty years ago today.
Sixty years. And they’re still there in that sweet carriage house on the edge of Queens, so close to Little Neck Bay that seagulls drop clam shells on their lawn.
I’m grateful to Tony and Terry Carillo for a lot of things, and the fact that they’ve stayed put is high on the list.
When my father retired they didn’t follow the herd. They didn’t sell up and move down south so they could ride around in golf carts, wearing pastel shorts and “#1 Grandparents” T-shirts.
They stuck with weather, instead of going for climate. They stuck with history, instead of going for ease.
They stuck with their house.
Growing up, I never heard my parents refer to it as an “investment” they could “flip” for a bigger house. I never heard the term “property ladder.”
The house was always just our house, and like a member of the family, it has its own little quirks.
The banging of the radiators on cold nights. The groaning of the windows from the wind off the bay. The drumbeat sound of rain on the roof tiles, and the chirping of the many generations of sparrows who’ve nested beneath those tiles.
The way we continued to call the room my dad added to the house “the new room,” thirty years after it was built. The easy glide across the kitchen floor if you were wearing cotton socks, especially if Mr. Hanson had just waxed it with his buffing machine.
(My God, Mr. Hanson! Wonder whatever happened to Mr. Hanson?)
When I visit these days I sleep in my old room, and as I close my eyes I’m embraced by the same warm thoughts I had back when I was wearing Dr. Denton pajamas:
I’m safe. Nothing bad can happen to me here.
I know my sisters feel the same way.
Funny, it only takes a day to move into a house, but if you’re lucky a wonderful thing happens:
The house moves into you, and it stays there, no matter where you go for the rest of your life.
By the way, that toddling son I mentioned earlier was me. And this is going to sound far-fetched, but I’m telling you, I remember the first time I ever walked into the house on that cold, rainy morning, clutching my mother’s hand.
True, I was only a little over a year old. True, there’s no way to know if I really remember it, or if I just think I remember it.
Doesn’t really matter. After sixty years, I’m entitled to a little mythology.
Happy anniversary, house. You’re still standing, and so are we. Can’t ask for more than that.
Charlie Carillo is a writer and a TV producer. His soon-to-be published e-books “Shepherd Avenue” and “Return To Shepherd Avenue” are available online.