I'm Going Back to the Start

Sometimes our senses have a better memory than our brains do. My maternal grandmother passed away when I was just five years old, but I can still remember what her face powder smelled like. Spearmint gum smells like my paternal grandmother, who has been gone since 1991, and coffee smells like home. Not my house, because I rarely drink coffee, but home, where I grew up; where my parents were, where my friends were, where my bike and my toys and my pets were. Where my security is. A place where my family was young. Healthy. Alive.

I remember so many things about The House on Dewey Street...
It was a little, pale green house with a blue spot of spray paint, courtesy of my sister Cheryl, beneath the giant north-facing picture window. There was a broken sidewalk and a crumbling driveway, and the yard had patches of dirt where grass refused to grow. I can still feel the way the soft fibers of the flowers from the mimosa tree tickled my face and I can smell the fragrant tea roses that grew on the east side of the house next to the constantly dripping window A/C unit. Our backyard was guarded by our faithful blonde mutt, Elvis, who spent hot summer afternoons lounging underneath the pop-up camper, only emerging to bark at some neighborhood kid walking down the alley. We could always identify what he was alerting us to by the sound of his bark. If Elvis said, "Hubba-hubba-hubba! Hubba-hubba!" we knew it meant, "Hey, there's a person invading our space!"

I spent untold hours of my early childhood finding familiar shapes in the texture of the red carpet on our bedroom floor. The same carpet in a shade of royal blue covered the living room and dining room floors, and the linoleum in the kitchen was marred with dings left by the stools that we perched on to eat the hot breakfasts with which Mom insisted we start our mornings. Thursday was my favorite day of the week because that was Mom's day off and she would go grocery shopping. I knew when I came home from school that she would have dutch-oven roast and vegetables waiting for us, and a small stockpile of Reese's Cups, Butterfingers, or Whatchamacallits chilling in the refrigerator. That was the day she would deep-clean the house, and the bedroom would smell like strawberry air freshener.

But as it is in every other aspect of my life, nothing fires up the time machine in my soul like music. Elvis (the musician, not the dog) was the accompaniment of housekeeping duties and Tennessee Ernie Ford serenaded us through the joy of decorating for Christmas. Fleetwood Mac was along for the ride when Cheryl would take Kenna and me places we weren't supposed to go, and we loved the Grease soundtrack so much that we owned both the album and the 8-track tape. A wide array of late 70s and early 80s pop music is sprinkled through my memories of the first 10 years of my life; the swimming pool and the convenience store radios were all tuned to the same station we listened to in our bedroom, and the skating rink DJ never failed to play our favorite songs by Hall and Oates, The Go-Gos, Rick Springfield, Soft Cell, and Journey, just to name a few.This is the obvious music, the music I remember, the music I played and sang along with, the music I would search for as an adult to add to my iPod.

Fast forward through many years to Thanksgiving, 2012. It was the third holiday season without Kenna. Mom had lost her ability to walk. Dad had retired, Cheryl had just reached "senior discount" age and I was less than four months from the big 4-0. The kids were mostly grown and starting young families of their own. It was late in the evening, dinner was over, and everyone was lounging in various areas of the house.

Don't cross him, don't boss him, he's wild in his sorrow. He's ridin' and hidin' his pain. Don't fight him, don't spite him, just wait 'til tomorrow. Maybe he'll ride on again.

I heard those lyrics countless times during my youth, but I had forgotten all about them until Thanksgiving 2012. I found myself singing the words that I didn't even remember knowing, forcing them out around the lump in my throat that still makes an appearance every time I listen to them again.

Christmas in the den.

It had been nearly three decades since I last saw the inside of The House on Dewey Street when I unexpectedly stumbled into a time warp opened by Willie Nelson. My dad was a fan of outlaw country, so artists like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson were staples of my childhood. But I was unprepared for how vividly I would remember "The Red Headed Stranger" when Dad uncharacteristically came out of his shell to put the record on the old turntable. It only took a few moments for me to find myself transported to the detached garage Dad had converted to a den, where we would sit on the faux wood linoleum and make popcorn in the fireplace with a long-handled popper and listen to music on the stereo system that had speakers covered in fuzzy tiger-striped fabric. The den is where we celebrated Christmas the year I got Hungry Hungry Hippos and Kenna got Battleship, and where friends and family gathered for my birthday party the year I got my very first watch. (Mickey Mouse, for those curious.) The den is where Kenna had slumber parties and played "murder in the dark" and "light as a feather, stiff as a board" to scare away "Paula the Pest" so they could sneak out and meet boys at Legion Park without getting busted. The den is where Kenna and I spent much of our time during the summer of '83 while Mom and Dad were busy remodeling the house on 8th Street, the house my grandpa had built after World War II and eventually left to us. We would dress up like pop stars and lip synch to songs on the radio while holding the microphones from Dad's recording equipment, which we were forbidden to touch. By August of that summer, our new house was ready and we suddenly no longer lived on Dewey Street.

The house still stands where we left it. It's now white instead of pale green. The picture window is gone. The den is connected to the rest of the house by a hallway. The entrance is on the west side of the house, where our bedroom once was. Part of me wants to write a letter to the current residents and ask permission to see what the inside looks like now. But another part of me wants to leave that memory untainted, unaffected by the sands of time and the elements of change. That is the only place in my head where everything is still okay, where my parents were, where my friends were, where my bike and my toys and my pets were. Where my security is. A place where my family was young. Healthy. Alive.