The "Homes" page

THEN—and—NOW

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Home

My first home, in 1931, was Carthage. Not the legendary Carthage of Dido or the historic Carthage of Rome’s sworn enemy, Hannibal, but a dreary northern suburb of Cincinnati. Having lived there less than two years, I know absolutely nothing about those early years and couldn’t begin to find that first apartment if it still exists. My first home is a blank. The rest are vibrant memories.

I was born, though it never occurred to me, into the depths of the great depression. My grandfather, hard working and conservative (despite the fact that he was once jailed as a bootlegger, runaway sailor, Ivory hunter in the Congo, and prospector in Canada) prospered. Perhaps it helped. In any event, while keeping his job at Proctor and Gambles, he rented out his house and acquired a farm in a town named Hamlet where he planned to raise chickens.

The Farm—1933

Early childhood memories are tricky. How many are really memories, and how many simply memories of being told. I could obviously walk and talk, and must have had quite a mind of my own. I vaguely remember the cane, and my insistence on being called Mr. Malcolm. (Mr. Malcolm was our elderly next door neighbor.)

I have no mental picture of Mr. Malcolm, but I guess we spent a lot of time together while the rest of the family tried to make the chicken farm work. I’ve been told enough stories to write a book the outhouse, the mule, burying the dead pig—but I’d need the help of Sherlock Holmes to find the farm. In the end it was a flop, and the family moved back to Wyoming.

Sherry Road—1935

Actually it was Main Avenue in 1935, although I could never understand what was “Main” about it. It was a block long, residential street running from Springfield Pike (the main drag through Wyoming,) to St. Clair. a mile long road running from the golf links around the huge expanse of the St. Claire Convent. Someone, perhaps a wine lover, got the name changed to Sherry Road a few years later.

My grandparents’ property was about a quarter of a mile around St. Clair, and my grandfather helped my father purchase a two story house at the bottom of Main. He couldn’t afford it, of course, but we moved into the upper two room and bath apartment and rented out the larger downstairs.

My bedroom was a daybed in the large kitchen, which was also the dining room, living room, and any other room one might care to designate. It opened onto a deck, and, with a huge yard, Cherry trees, an apple tree, and a large barn like two story garage, I loved it.

By the time my sister Sally was born, two years later, our prospects had improved to the point that we moved downstairs (five rooms plus a large basement) and rented out the upstairs. We had cats, which my mother always loved. God only knows how many, but, except for her favorite, they lived outside or in the garage.

This was my home for the next ten years, and I can only describe it as idyllic. The golf links, across the street, was traversed by three creeks which joined to one and flowed around the convent grounds,

Those grounds, heavily wooded and including corn fields and a cow pasture, were a child’s dream to explore. There were grape vines, which we cut for swings across the creek, wild flowers of every imaginable type, and birds. Embarrassing to recall, many of those birds fell victim to our BB guns. I think of that at times now that we no longer have such a plethora of our colorful and melodious feathered friends that we took so for granted.

My most memorable day there – I think I was ten – was a double header that started at a huge climbing tree in the middle of the cow pasture. We were well up in the tree when the bull appeared. A cow, moving a bit more briskly than her munching gait, approached our tree. That’s when the bull, moving even more briskly, caught up.

A couple swipes at the ground and he was on his hind feet, exposing his bright red penis which looked like it was a yard long. Zero courtship, excellent aim, and he was in. The cow took it rather passively, but there was nothing passive about the bull. We were mesmerized.

When it was over, the bull went toward the fence at the golf course— our escape route—and seemed to linger forever before he ambled far enough away for us to come down and make a run for it.

Back in the “safety” of the links we encountered our second thrill of the day – a large, menacing dog. We’d encountered him before, and it was always a harrowing retreat. This time, on an impulse, I struck a kitchen match and threw it at him. The result was electrifying. He took off like a bat out of hell.

I was never afraid of dogs again, as long as I had matches, and from then on I always had matches.

The golf links, which rose for more than a quarter mile from our entry point, were a winter wonderland for sledding.

The Great War came, a couple years after my second sister, Joan, arrived. Economically, it barely touched us. It probably even helped. My grandparents’ garden and chickens gave us all we needed, and my father, now into real estate, had ample gasoline. There were jobs and money before we ever got into it.

My dad added a great addition to the house –sunken living room, huge fireplace, master bedroom. We felt rather prosperous. Not that the war didn’t touch us. It consumed us, particularly after Pearl Harbor. I remember my father, thirty three at the time, contemplating joining the Army to make sure he didn’t get drafted into the Navy. “I can swim”, he used to say, “but not three thousand miles.”

The war’s a story in itself. The draft age never caught up to my father, but age caught up with my grandmother. She suffered a massive stroke toward the end of it. My grandfather retired to take care of her .With another addition on the way, my sister Becky, we thought about an even bigger house.

This time it was to a huge one, right in the middle of Wyoming.

Wyoming Avenue—1947

While the years on Sherry road undoubtedly did the most to mold me, the home on Wyoming Avenue remains the most fascinating.

It was an old Victorian house, previously the rectory of the Presbyterian Church across the street. (I was never in the church. Back then Catholics weren’t supposed to ever darken their doors.) It was stately, three stories, a slate roof and a magnificent front porch. Gas light illuminated in its youth, with many of the pipes still visible.

Let’s begin at the bottom – the basement. Five rooms (if you count the coal bin.) The first, down the stairs from the kitchen, eventually became our bar with a great mural my mother painted depicting our family travels. Next, a bit of a nothing room, opening to the utility room (workbench, laundry, furnace.) On the other side was the pool room, and I’m sure the table is still there since no one has ever figured out how to remove it. The coal bin was just that.

The porch opened into a hall way (don’t think we ever had a key to the front door.) French doors to the left led to a huge living room, one end of which became my father’s real estate office to the other side was the library, later Sally’s and Joan’s room. Beyond those, just before the staircase, was another hall leading outside. We converted that to our piano room.

Beyond the stairs was one of the entrances to the dining room. Again a very large room with a fireplace (all the rooms had fireplaces) this was always planned as my grandparents’ suite. It worked out perfectly.

There was a bathroom and then the kitchen, opening onto a porch and with an alcove to the butler’s pantry. My dad converted the kitchen into something like a lunch counter but it worked.

The second floor was the bedroom floor – five of them and two baths. My favorite was the one over the kitchen which had a wood burning fireplace. The master bedroom had an alcove. This was Becky’s room, which she refuses to remember. Don’t remember where Tina’s was – she was still in a crib when I left for college.

There was more – a third floor. It certainly wasn’t an attic. High ceilings and two small bedrooms at the far end (with the obligatory fireplaces.) I lived in one of them for a while. My mother made me keep a coiled rope by my bed – makeshift fire escape. My dad tried to convert the whole area into a psychedelic masterpiece. I’m sure he felt he succeeded.

It wasn’t the house of seven gables, but I think it came close. On the other hand, we don’t remember a house for its walls but for its memories. I’m sure it was MaryAnn and Lois and Carol and Shirley who made it so special for me. Those, and the GE Test Engineers that we rented a couple rooms to. My favorite was Bill Berliner, a few years older than I, who introduced me to Scotch and Classical music. Still love them both.

The Army—1953

I left home for my first semester in college (Detroit) and later another (Kentucky) but my first real break from home was the Army. I got my commission as a second Lieutenant when I graduated from Xavier in ’53, but worked at the Golf Links ‘til October, waiting for my orders. When they came, I turned my car over to my sister, Sally, (a bit to my girlfriend Shirley’s chagrin) and boarded a bus to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.

I’d been there before, a six week summer camp where I slept in a barracks and everything was provided and regulated. This was different. Had a great private room – it was free but I had to pay for everything else on my $240 a month. Turned out it was enough for clothes, food, the Officers’ club and everything else. Things were cheap. Think I paid about ten cents a pack for cigarettes and a little more for a beer.

I was a lot more homesick back in Detroit. Shirley, bless her heart, wrote several times a week. Here, on one of the best Military bases in the country, I had three friends from Xavier who came out on the same orders. Soon struck up a friendship with a rich kid from Oklahoma City who was in all my classes in the Officers Basic Training Course. Spent a couple great weekends there. Nothing dry about Oklahoma providing you could afford your own private bootlegger, and of course the base wasn’t dry.

I did well in the school, but I wanted more excitement (and money) for my military career, so I applied for the paratroops. Among other things, that would get me back East. I passed all the tests and hoped for the best. It didn’t happen.

At the end of the course, in January, I was ordered to Camp Polk, Louisiana. Had my car now (picked it up over Christmas leave) and drove down. Hated the place the moment I arrived. There was the overpowering smell of pine tar, old wooden buildings, and little else. Still had a private room but, compared with the elegance of Ft. Sill, this was the pits.

Didn’t care much for my battery commander either. He was a spit and polish fanatic who expected me to fall in love with the 155mm Gun and memorize every part. Worst of all, my assignment was motor officer. There was very little I could think of that I knew or cared less about than running a motor pool.

There were a few good times – I got to New Orleans during Mardi Gras – but I never felt really at home at Camp Polk. I look back on managing to get a transfer to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, as one of my bigger accomplishments in the army.

Fort Campbell/Partner’s Trailer park—1954

I understand that Ft. Campbell now rivals Ft. Sill as an elegant and modern base. Back in ’54 it more nearly resembled Camp Polk except that there were places to go. One of them, a scant 200 miles away, was Cincinnati and Shirley. That made all the difference. It was also Airborne, my goal. I shrugged off the wooden buildings and coal burning stoves.

The BOQ’s (Bachelor Officers Quarters) were about the same as Polk’s, but the Officers’ Club was a lot more vibrant and there was a golf course. (I got in about three months as Golf Club Officer.) It also had a guest house.

Shirley and I were to be married in six months. Between frequent trips to Cincy for a weekend and Shirley’s to the guest house, I don’t think I ever thought of the base as “home”. I liked it, but home, for the next year after our wedding, was across the highway in Partners Trailer Park.

I think Shirley could adapt to anything – a palace or a tent. The trailer was a lot closer to a tent. There was a kerosene stove, which heated it pretty well, a small living/dining room, a galley, a bath and a bedroom. What else does a newly wed couple need?

Well, they do need a car to get back and forth. For the first couple months that was a bit of a problem. First I wrecked the car just before Shirley moved in. Took several weeks to get it repaired. We celebrated by going home to Cincinnati where our car was, once again, damn near totaled by an uninsured driver while it was parked.

Negotiating repairs from 300 miles away and being broke was no picnic. We did a lot of hiking for another month.

Lots of quaint memories of the trailer. It was parked by a wooded area, and the field mice, no doubt attracted by the warmth, found a way in near the hose to the kerosene tank. We got a mouse trap which we had to empty almost daily for the rest of the winter.

Finances being what they were, we honed our culinary skills with hamburger and imagination. Actually came up with some pretty good creations (and a few duds.) Still dined at least weekly at the Officers’ Club (on the tab), and often settled that by hocking some wedding silver, which we still have, at the local pawn shop. We were on a first name basis with the owner.

Shirley got a job at the base, and I got appointed Golf Club Officer and loved the occasional jumps. All in all, we liked the Army. Soon after I got my promotion the division got orders to move to Germany for Operation Gyroscope. Would have meant three more years, but we were tempted.

Somewhere the following July our hit-and-miss practice of rhythm missed. Shirley said her examination by the army medics was extremely thorough. Anyway, that ended the temptation and in October we parted company with the military.

Compton Road—Trailer and Apartment—1955

With no plans, other than a baby in about six months, few possessions other than a beat up car, a mortgaged trailer, and a bank account good for about three months, we returned to Cincinnati. Had to have the trailer towed. Our car could never have handled it.

Stayed with Shirley’s folks for about a month while I applied for a job at GE’s jet engine plant and we hunted for a trailer park. I got the job (starting the end of December) and Shirley found a park near our old stomping grounds of Wyoming. Gave us time for a short vacation to visit some Army friends in New Jersey and New York and then we moved back in.

This was a much smaller park (less than ten trailers) with an old apartment building. We liked the location but, again, our car gave us a bit of a problem. Different car this time – the old green Pontiac – which occasionally refused to start. Had to coast it down the drive and let out the clutch (a skill I’d mastered with my first car, the Jeepster). Problem was the drive ended at a blind curve. I suspect my Guardian Angel, for the umpteenth time, threatened to resign.

Shirley handled her pregnancy (breaking all the modern rules) without missing a beat, and I started learning how to be an Engineer. Then Marc arrived. We were proud as peacocks, but we’d have been a lot happier with a quieter chick. Perhaps he was lactose intolerant or some such problem (who knew about those back then) but the only way to get him to stop crying was to take him for a ride.

We rode a lot, and finally decided we needed something bigger than our trailer. We sold it and moved into one of the vacant apartments. It had a huge kitchen, decent sized living room, bedroom and bath. Marc seemed to like it a lot better, and began sleeping.

Shirley, the antithesis of a stay-at-home-mom, enlisted her mother as baby sitter and got a job at GE. She also enrolled in night school, convinced, and hopefully helped by my prodding, that she had a brighter future than that of a typist. It was a little hectic but we did fine.

My sister, Joan, returned to Cincy that summer and needed a place to stay. We welcomed her – she was a lot of fun – and she also got a job at GE so we managed with one car. Once again however, the place was too small. Time to move on.

College Hill—1956

Next rental was the upper two floors of an old, red brick house. Four big rooms and an attic which we converted to Joan’s apartment. It was closer to our baby sitter, cutting down on that morning and evening commute.

It turned into something of a party house. We had frequent “bring-your own-case” get togethers with two other couples, Carol and Bill and Joy and Don. Favorite game was charades, which can get hilarious as you near the bottoms of those cases. Luckily there were no DUI laws back then.

College Hill was more like city than suburban living, but we didn’t notice much difference. It lasted us for a year, but I still had my heart set on California and the Space Age. Finally answered an ad for Convair and the Atlas missile in San Diego. By then Joan had gotten a car and moved to a rooming house.

I took the job, sight unseen. We bought a big Pontiac convertible, packed up our furniture, said Goodbye to our friends and headed west.

San Diego—1957

The trip west is another story. We arrived in September, job waiting, furniture on the way, but, as usual, no other plans. There’d been no get-acquainted interviews, no exploratory trips. We didn’t know a soul, and all we knew about San Diego was that it was supposedly beautiful, warm, and on the ocean. I’d talked to my new boss on the phone but had yet to meet him

It was, and is, a beautiful city. A small, rather quaint, downtown, lots of hills and parks, miles of seashore, and a gorgeous harbor. We found a motel and began exploring the area around Convair. Don’t think we ever checked with a realtor – just a map and the want-ads.

The shore, for anything appropriate, was somewhat beyond our meager budget. After a few days of searching we located a new apartment building with a vacancy on Kansas Street for a hundred a month. That was a little more than we liked, but it was nice.

It was nice, that is, once our furniture arrived which took over a week. We had some sort of a crib for Marc. Shirley & I used some blankets from the car and a pillow case full of dirty clothes, and slept on the floor. A neighbor loaned us a card table and chairs and we ate out and made do. Before the month was out, our landlord, due to low occupancy rates, informed us our rent was reduced to ninety a month. That was a first and a last.

We had an eclectic mix of neighbors in our eight apartment building. There was sensuous Cathy and her quiet husband whose name I’ve forgotten. Cathy wasn’t quiet. They were Mormons and, while smoking and drinking a few beers, she explained why Mormons don’t do those things.

One thing they do a lot of, judging by Cathy, is sex. Within a day of meeting her, Cathy had confided to Shirley all the spicy details of her life from the time she’d been about ten. We kept in touch with her for a couple years after we moved back east.

Next door to Cathy was Ellen, a single mom with a married boyfriend who apparently had no curfew. Then, next door to us, was a Jewish couple from New York whose constant complaint was the dearth of bagels in San Diego.

Two doors down from them was another single mom with a teenage daughter who became our baby sitter. She loved using my encyclopedia for her homework. A couple years later I discovered her penchant for ripping out the pages rather than taking notes. Probably took more than I discovered. I never read the whole thing.

Once again Shirley got a job, this time as a flight test analyst, following me to Convair, and once again enrolled in night school (UCLA) for calculus. She met Margaret Turney there (a divorce lawyer, taking the course for kicks), and she and husband Tom became our lifelong friends. They introduced us to Old Town, our favorite part of San Diego, and frequent trips to Tijuana.

Shirley’s sole complaint was my frequent trips to Edwards Rocket Base and the Cape. The rocket base was a desolate site in the Mojave Desert. Didn’t care much for the Spartan Motel, but I loved the challenge of developing the rocket (no doubt much more exhilarating than taking care of a baby in a lonely apartment).

The trips to the Cape, a short jaunt to family in Orlando, were great, but Shirley spent a year and a half with none of these contacts back East. Then she got transferred to a job she absolutely detested.

San Diego County is beautiful, but in a stark and different way. We went to the movies one night and saw “Raintree County.” Don’t remember much about the movie. Liz Taylor was beautiful, as usual, but eclipsed by the lush scenery. That’s when we decided to go back home.

TerryLynn—1959

Unlike our cold start in San Diego, we were back in familiar territory again. This time we resolved to buy, although it was another leap of faith. Once again, Shirley was unemployed. We had a new car, but little money, and I didn’t think of Cincinnati as being permanent. Turned out it was a lot less permanent than I’d envisioned.

After a brief stay in a small apartment, we bought a ranch house on TerryLynn Ave. in a new development where a lot of GE employees lived. For us it was a big house–three bedrooms, two baths, huge living room with a fireplace, and a full basement begging to be refinished. We finished it off by buying a used grand piano.

It was back to the “party house” in College Hill. We reestablished our “bring-your-own-case” affairs. Shirley got back to GE, and it was just as close to her folks so we had our baby sitter again.

I started working on the basement with grand plans for a bar and a rec room. In the fall, I also agreed to take over second shift on a development project for an advanced jet engine. Somehow (my memory gets hazy) we still managed to get by with one automobile. (Shirley car pooled.)

In November, the ever present threat of aerospace uncertainty struck. Our project, along with several others, was abruptly cancelled. Shirley’s job, which she loved, was safe but mine was gone.

As I write this, I am constantly amazed at all the sacrifices she made. I was offered a job in production engineering (same location and pay) on an existing engine. Guess I viewed it as being demoted from author to editor, and I turned it down. Also nixed a job in nearby Middletown building Cessanas. No great frontiers there.

GE made heroic efforts to place us, and I was sent on a series of interviews from Milwaukee to Massachusetts. Got a couple offers but my goal was the Missile and Space Department in Philadelphia. That was the one I accepted.

This time it wasn’t a simple matter of packing up and leaving. We owned a house. So did a bunch of other people in our development who’d been laid off. Took four months to sell it. I spent two of them in a hotel, and two more in a rooming house in Philly (all on GE’s tab, along with bi-weekly trips home.)

Shirley, meanwhile, held the fort, kept her job, and came up a few times for house hunting. No e-mail, internet, or cheap long distance back then. We kept in touch on the GE system. Finally got it all resolved, contracted with a mover (address still unknown) and were reunited.

Drexel Hill—1960

Flat broke, we decided on a rental again – this time a house. Philadelphia is a big city, and again we had no close friends there. We had had, unlike San Diego, a chance to explore a bit. We settled on Delaware County, found a house that fit our needs, and managed a relatively smooth transition. Fitting the piano in was a minor problem.

There was a living room, dining room and kitchen, a finished basement, and three bedrooms upstairs. We allocated one to a pet hamster.

Around the corner was a bar—Stewart's Bar—where we rapidly became regulars. In retrospect it reminded us a lot of “Cheers.” The neighbors were friendly, and there was an eager baby sitter next door.

We shared a drive but, still operating with one car and with several choices of public transportation that sufficed for the five years we lived there.

The transition wasn’t quite as smooth for Shirley. Took her four months to join me at GE and, meanwhile, she got several temporary jobs, none very exciting. As usual she enrolled in night school, this time at Temple from where she graduated, (two kids and six years later).

Joyce came to visit us the following summer and stayed ‘til Thanksgiving, relegating the hamster to the basement. The basement, by the way, was the major headache with the house. There was a sump pump which had a penchant for failing whenever it rained. Spent a lot of time bailing it out.

This was probably the first home Marc clearly remembers. Went from kindergarten to 3^rd Grade at St. Andrews. (Turned him off on nuns.) Of course he has subliminal memories of Grandma Kestel teaching him that the English were the master race, and Grandpa Kestel assuring him that baseball was the greatest sport.

Joyce joined us again in ’64 and wanted a puppy. We drove to a pet shop, in North Philly during the riots, and picked up an undocumented Beagle which we named Sam. He was an immediate hit with the whole family, and joined us on all our travels for the next ten years.

He was a great companion to the kids, and quite the ladies man. Shirley had mixed feelings about him as a watch dog. Certainly warned us of any intrusive stranger, but most of those strangers were squirrels or rabbits.

Broomall—1965

With a new baby on the way, Curt, we were ready to buy again. This time we could even afford it and found a rancher more suburban and a bit further out. No basement but a nicer yard, a fireplace, and an easy walk to school for Marc.

The neighborhood was a pleasant mix of brick ranchers and splits. Ours was a bit larger than most of the ranches because the previous owner, whom I knew from GE, had converted the garage and added a new one. That gave us four bed rooms, a large living/dining room with a fireplace, a, kitchen, a bath, a laundry room, and a kitchen with four exits plus a door to the utility room. Lots of doors.

There was an attic and a crawl space, neither very easy to reach but we used them. In the case of the crawl space (access from Curt’s room) he used it. God knows what all he stashed there.

Must have been great farm land before the houses came because anything grew. There were rose bushes, mint that had to be cut back continually, and we had a small but successful vegetable garden.

Shirley quit her job when Curt arrived and, just before going back, Gwen decided to join him. She continued at Temple, however, but it was quite a commute. Finally graduated, the year after Gwen

Marc moved into the bedroom (think it was intended as a dining room) between the kitchen and the hallway, a convenient shortcut to the bathroom. Somehow convinced us to add a monthly “toll” to his allowance for that purpose.

Shirley, deciding to give up on physics, pressed on for a Masters from Villanova. That proved to be an impossible commute without a car. We bought an MG Midget (another story in itself). We all loved it.

My first attempt at home improvement was building a shed. None of this prefab stuff. I designed and built it from scratch (Gwen was my big volunteer helper). Think even my dad might have approved. The Scotchman who later bought the house loved it.

I got laid off in ’76. My next project, after redoing the fireplace, was one of my worst mistakes. I converted the garage to a rec room/pool hall (with no direct access to or from the house). Everyone loved that too. There was no lock on the door. We’d occasionally come home and find a party in full swing, but without any of our kids. Between that and the one bathroom we once again decided it was time to move on.

Dog Kennel Road—1979

The ranch in Broomall was a great house but, with five people and one bath, we were up against that old bugaboo room. Besides, I’d always wanted a woods and a creek. We found it on Dog Kennel (occasionally to our chagrin).

It was on an acre lot, heavily wooded, on a picture perfect road with only a few other houses. It backed into a wilderness when we moved there with deer (beautiful), raccoons (an occasional plague), countless squirrels, and an assortment of other species. By the time we left, thirty one years later, the raccoons were long gone and the deer had become the pests.

The main floor (upper) opened to the woods in the back, (and later a deck in the front) with a living room, dining room, kitchen and four bedrooms. The downstairs, with a huge family room, office and utility room, opened to the front yard and creek and, up a hill, the street.

Soon after we moved in we were greeted by Hurricane Frederick which flooded the front yard and swept away the bridge. We had a new, elaborate, and lasting one built, and got used to the once-every-five-year floods.

There was a stone wall about four feet high between the front yard and the woods leading up to the street. Curt wanted to build a “fort” and we agreed, providing it couldn’t be seen from the house or the street. This resulted in a four foot high structure nestled behind the wall and somewhat hidden by the woods. Eventually, its infamy matched that of the pool hall in Broomall but it survived for several years.

With all the trees, leaves in the fall were a biggie. We always had a leaf raking day in the fall—a huge hit with the kids since we paid them rather handsomely. In the beginning we used to burn them. The township finally vetoed that so we dragged them into the woods.

The septic system, which we gave no thought to when we bought the house, proved to be a major problem. Basically, the property could not support it, and it rendered the downstairs bathroom useless after a couple years. Tried all sorts of fixes, but finally teamed up with four neighbors to install a privately financed sewer. Expensive, but well worth it.

Shirley and I often encountered young people who knew all about our house because they’d been to an August Bash. This was an early brainchild of Marc’s, eagerly embraced by Curt and Gwen as the years went by. Shirley and I always went camping for the weekend, insisting only that the police didn’t get called and that the house was the way we left it when we got back. It always was, and by all accounts they were huge successes.

No description of Dog Kennel Road would be complete without mentioning Joe Frey. I met Joe, a world class egotist and handyman/contractor, at the Media Inn soon after we bought the house. Mentioned that I needed some drive lights, and he immediately volunteered.

Although Joe was a monumental pain in the ass at times, he made an amazing number of improvements to the house over the years, most of them good and at prices no one could touch. Just to mention a few—a wall to control the creek, a deck and patio in the rear, siding, windows, flooring, bathrooms, painting, and (one I’m sure Marc would give him an “F” on) wallpapering. Lost contact with Joe a couple years ago. He was a hard drinking, opinionated, but colorful guy.

Another key player on Dog Kennel was Bill Glascoe, an avid black golfer, whose business was maintaining the floors. He also showed up soon after we moved in and became a dear friend. Bill was always eager to take anything we no longer wanted, assuring us that someone he knew in Chester would greatly appreciate it.

I spent four years, on and off, working in New York and Princeton during the Dog Kennel days, leaving Shirley to continue her career and run the house. Lots of commuting. It was at the end of that period, 1988, that Gwen presented us with Sean. Turned out I still remembered how to change a diaper.

Like Marc with Drexel Hill, I’m sure Sean thinks of this as his first home. He came back to live with us periodically, including the last two years, and Shirley always referred to him as her son/grandson. He was both her pride and joy and her biggest exasperation (eclipsing Curt.)

With a few health problems and the family gone, we decided, despite a gloomy housing situation, that, in the summer of 2011, it was time to move.

Country Club Drive—2011

We found out that a major downsizing after thirty one years is a huge undertaking. Miraculously, we sold our house to almost the first couple to see it. This, despite the fact that a tree had crashed through our roof, taking out two bedrooms.

After staying with Marc for a couple months, we located an ideal condo next to a golf links in Springfield. Shirley loved it and got it decorated exactly as she wanted it.

This is an unfinished story. She left too soon. I wish she could have lived to enjoy it.