Where I've Lived - Part III

[vakkotaur]

The place on Highway G was not intended to be a residence but was converted in a hurry and made livable. It was possible to live there, and we did. It was certainly not ideal, not with its thin insulation, metal roof, hard floor, scrap carpet, and the atypical plumbing arrangements such as they were. In the Spring of 1979 things started to change.

One was that I and my sister were old enough that our folks figured we could be left alone at times and a sitter (my youngest aunt) would do for extended times. That is one thing, the Summer of '79 was the first and only time we had a sitter. We were with parents or grandparents, normally. But the change of being left to ourselves, more or less, meant that my mother could get a job with normal hours instead of working nights. She did, and with it came better pay and a better work environment. She had been working at a hospital, dealing with the unpleasantness that can happen in hospitals. I recall she was asked if she could deal with a mess, such as a puddle of oil or getting a bit greasy from working with or on some machine. She certainly could. She'd take oil and grease over blood and vomit.

Also, either the folks had saved up enough or had figured selling the place on Hwy G would be a good enough start that another place could be bought. Most places either had nothing on them (bare plots of land) which meant no septic system (and getting a new one approved could be a trick with the soil of the area), or a poor location, or some other problem. They wanted to avoid a mobile home, but then hit upon an idea. Avoid a park of them, but consider one on decent land if it had a septic system. A proper house could be built there, eventually.

And so we moved out of the place on Hwy G and into a mobile home on Spruce Road. The walls were still thin, but not quite as thin. There was more room. And there was proper plumbing, or so it appeared. Things still weren't great, but it was overall an improvement.

Another item was that my father had bought a small injection molding machine, for making plastic items. He also had managed to find a milling machine and had taken more than a few night classes learning how to best use various machines. The injection molder had been intended for something of his own, but it never quite took... but it was sitting there, idle. And other folks needed plastic items, didn't they? So he went looking for business. I don't recall how long it took but he did get an order or two. The first real run, the molder paid for itself. That sort of thing gets remembered.

The place on Spruce Road is on an acre and a half. The half-acre being behind the square acre on the road. A mostly blacktop driveway leads up to a two car garage, and off to the side is the house. There was an enclosed porch, if it could be called that, perhaps just a landing, on the back side of the place.

From the porch, one enters the living room and had the lights for the outside light and the kitchen handy. This is an odd arrangement for the kitchen light, but not too bad. The kitchen is the next room, of course, and there is a hallway on the south side. At the end is the master bedroom and north of the hallway are two smaller bedrooms, access to a gas furnace (behind it, accessible from an outside panel, is the water heater), and the bathroom. This was the first place I remember living in that had central heat.

Outside, beyond the master bedroom, was a pole with the outside power connections and electric meter. I think it may have had the phone line on at one time as well, but that was buried later. behind the house and garage were trees. There was a path good enough to drive on (if you didn't care too much about the vehicle) that went behind some trees. That path has since overgrown. Beyond that, more trees and wild grasses and such, with hints of a walking path.

West and perhaps north of the garage is a mostly open space, used for some storage and also for the occasional small fire for cookouts. Some of the 4x4 cutoffs from the poles that were holding up the building on G were used as seating. As they were treated lumber, we were not about to burn them.

The driveway isn't just too long, it can be walked in several seconds, but it was longer than I was used to. The trees to each side, not too close, blocked the horizon, but also blocked neighbors lights. And there was tolerable horizon to the south, and also to the west or southwest from the end of the driveway. My interest in astronomy wouldn't be thwarted, though I had been concerned about it at first.

Spruce road, fortunately, is a dead end road. This means there isn't just too much traffic on it. And most drivers know who is normally about so things like a late night walk were no big deal. I spent many an evening walking along the road and looking at the stars, or perhaps the clouds, alone with my thoughts. I always felt better afterward, and it's something I miss now that I live inside city limits with too many people (who think people out walking at night must be up to something) and too many lights (that aren't needed).

Being a fair sized plot of land, there was room for my sister and I and the dog to run around. And we saw more rabbits, and deer in the field across the road, and the occasional skunk around. From time to time there were other animals about, such as raccoons, and at least one porcupine (I wound up de-quilling the dog's nose after that one). And also, there were black bears. Generally I didn't see the bears, just evidence that they had been around. Or I saw them at a distance, which is certainly preferred by all. Once, though, I met a bear rather close. It looked at me. I looked at it, taking care not to move or expose teeth. After what seemed a very long moment, the bear ambled back into the woods, and I headed for the house. The dog knew something was around, but while she barked up a storm and tore around the yard, she did not, and I expect would not, go into the woods.

I didn't just walk around stargazing. Some clear nights I had a telescope out and would look at Jupiter or Venus or Saturn, or whatever star cluster or nebula could I find. This I did by "star-hopping" rather than using setting circle coordinates or such things. Nowadays it's common to just tell a computer to point the telescope. It's certainly effective and gets the telescope aimed fast for more time looking, but I get the idea that I know, or at least knew, where things really were and could get by without the machine. I suppose it's something like being able to use a sliderule or drive a stickshift. It might not be considered necessary by most, but there is a certain satisfaction in knowing how.

The neighbors weren't too near, but all of Spruce Road can be walked without too much effort, from end to end. Bicycling it is even easier and much free daylight time was spent this way, with no particular aim, just riding back and forth, or around in loops. When we moved in, the road was gravel. It has since been paved and for driving it is an improvement. But I do sort of miss the gravel. Walking or riding along one could spot the odd piece of quartz or some other rock. My dad made a point of not cleaning up all the quartz we found. The shiny bright crystals do look good, but when you find the stuff, it isn't like that. It's covered in dust, at least, and is easy to miss. Also, along the road or just off into the woods, there were small wild strawberries which seemed sweeter than the large strawberries found on store shelves. There were also wintergreen plants with their odd shiny thick leaves that, when torn, smelled of wintergreen.

I met a couple people roughly my age, one of whom lived on the east side of the highway, on the other part of Spruce Road. I saw him rather often. It was his motorcycle I rode, at least on a trail in the woods, and his was the second snowmobile I drove (or did I never drive it? I know I drove one in the field behind the place on G a couple times). I knew him through most of high school, though we were very, very different. My interests were science and technology, and his was largely just getting by, or getting high. There were so many times I could have had tobacco, or alcohol, or marijuana, or maybe something else still, that I declined. It was offered, but not pushed. I wonder how much was that I just tolerated it and left it, and how much was that without me using any, all the more for him (or them). I forget when exactly it was, but one night he came by and we walked a bit and he mentioned he was speeding. While he smelled of alcohol, and had arrived by motorcycle. That was the last bit. We had drifted considerably, but that was final bit. And I told him I'd rather not see him again, or if so he should at least not be high at the time. I don't recall seeing him again. I do recall hearing he got married - but this sounded like a shotgun wedding or nearly so, the gal he married was exactly the sort he said he wanted to avoid, to put it rather more kindly than he did. Had he been clean and sober, he would have had better judgment. Of course, had be had better judgment, he wouldn't have been high.

There was another person I encountered, who didn't live too far away. Allen S[I'd say his last name but evidently some people running LJ are uptight about such things], who had interests similar to mine, though with rather more fantasy. I preferred non-fiction, generally. We met, I think, because of our interest in computers. We'd see who could come up with the better program for something or other on the Apples at school, and then we'd both see if we could duplicate that on the ELF, which was a bit of a feat as the ELF was rather limited. Last I'd heard, and that was some time ago, that after his family had moved (back) to Racine, WI, he'd joined the Army. This came as quite a shock, as he seemed as likely to voluntarily enter the service as I did. Which was, and is, well into negative probability space.

The plastics business grew. It wasn't much at first, with just the one small molding machine and an economy that was considerably less than wonderful. Looking back, it seems amazing the folks choose that time, 1979, to buy a house, even it if wasn't a proper house, with interest and inflation rates high and climbing. The very early 1980s weren't great, but things did improve. Later there was another, bigger molding machine. And a new car instead of aging heaps that weren't to be trusted just too far. That wasn't all. My father took flying lessons and made his way toward, and got, his private pilot's license - something he'd wanted for some considerable time. He also bought an airplane, eventually.

The only kicker was that the fellow we'd bought the place from had been less than honest. He thought he was an electrician - he wasn't. Work on the ELF (computer) had revealed a very bad grounding setup that had to be repaired. He wasn't a carpenter either, having moved or placed handles on some folding doors away from the fold where they made sense to the center where they made no sense. He also wasn't a plumber, or at least not an honest one. The septic system was undersized and was a "midnight job" of an installation. Amazingly, the county or such didn't call him on it and have him re-do it right. But it meant that before any new construction could start, the septic system would have to be redone first. Despite things going well, somehow that never happened. And there was no progress to a proper house, either, at least not on that acre and a half. And so a couple years later, when things seemed to really be going well, we moved again.

Comments

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to thank you for posting this series of entries. Although I know theyre largely for your own benefit, I find them interesting, and they allow me to learn more about you. So thanks. :)

[pharwarner.livejournal.com]

I can only second what Bronxelf has already said. And for me, these are without doubt the most interesting and worthwhile posts I've ever read on LJ.

A thought just struck me.. I'd find it hard to write about all the places where I've lived. Not because anything terribly traumatic happened to me in them, but just because of late, in the last few years, I've become increasingly uncomfortable thinking about my own personal past. I want to write such a series, and especially after realising this, I am in fact very determined to. I don't know why I feel this way.