Family, home, traditions

Here we are. My immediate family. Brother, Nephew, Mother, Sister-in-law, me. Sitting on the deck above the back yard of the house I grew up in. From age 3 to 24 I lived in this house. My parents bought it in 1962. For the next 46 years, this has been our family home. Compare that to my 22 years in California. I've lived in 10 different apartments/houses/lofts. Amazingly, it isn't a house that Dad and Mom liked. My mother, in particular, didn't like it. However, my maternal grandmother was going to move in with us and the walkout basement is basically a 2 bedroom apartment. So, it was a good fit. But for some reason, after closing. she decided not to move in. I guess my parents weren't interested in getting in the house flipping game, huh?Among my friends, I'm alone in being able to be in my childhood home. When I come home, different memories wash over me and I notice different odd things. On Saturday night, I was exhausted by the time I came home to go to sleep. As I walked through the house, I was turning off the lights. I missed each of the switch plates by a good distance. I hit a good foot above each of them. As I lay there, starting to drift to sleep I wondered how sleepy was I to miss them by that much. Each of them. Isn't there, more or less, a standard height from the floor? Did I miss them because as I grew groggier some automatic part of my brain that remembers the routes, distances and spaces of this house reverted to some distant 12 year old version of the house? I know I can always feel the 'smallness of things' looking at it from my 6'2" perspective. Kind of odd...

Tomorrow, more random pictures and memories. Ever wonder about what I meant when I said my brother and I were quite different as kids? You thought your childhood had great Christmas memories. I will swear my life on the fact that Santa Claus lived across the street from me. I have proof! How did I get around when I couldn't zip around in a blue Beemer roadster? What am I holding here and who just gave it to me?? Find out the photographic answers in the next blog! Later!