Jul. 29, 2007 - 20:18 MDT

MORE DEAR

Although I learned to love the new house we moved into in 1937 which had been built on lots Dad and Mom owned, it took a little doing.

As I said once or more before, parting from friends and classmates that I had been with since first grade left me pretty well adrift. Seems as if we weren't rich enough for me to gain friends at the new school. Many of the pupils there had been kicked out of private schools and had everything at home but love and attention.

But I did grow to love it. I had my own room with furniture. My uncle built a full size ping pong table for the basement room, ooh that was nice. I knew how to play and was fair at it. The room the table was in presented a challenge, couldn't reach to high or would hit the ceiling with the paddle. Couldn't go to wide, either side or would hit the wall. Couldn't back up too far or would hit the wall as well. Learning to play there stood me in good stead, when our group went into town to play guys from another chapter it was easy peasy, if pressed it was easy to drop back a bit and nice to be able to reach high too.

Dad made flower beds having some dirt hauled away and putting in peat moss and mulch that he had bought.

There was an "Easy" washer in the basement and laundry tubs. Not hard for this kid to take baskets of clothes upstairs and hang clothes on the line outside.

It was and still is a pretty thing, the new owner takes good care of it and it is in a nice quiet neighborhood - yet.

Back to the old days again - - - - I lived there, had lots of fun there and had friends there for overnight many times. I had made friends with my DeMolay bunch, we all loved to play ping pong and would have all night sessions of games.

I went to work while I lived there and paid Mom and Dad a small rent (I found out in later years that Mom spent it all buying things for me). Met and wooed Heather until we married.

But the thing that floors me is that Dad and Mom paid five thousand dollars to have the house built, additional money to have grass planted and raised to the first mowing. Thinking about what wages were in those days it amazed me then and still does that they could afford it. We didn't live a Spartan life, but a rather restrained one -- I guess that was the secret.

I grew to love the house while I lived there, and it attached itself to my heart and soul.

Ran on to a statement from the Denver Assessor to Dad while going through some papers today -- value of the land $320 dollars - - value of improvements (house) $2,900 for a total of $3220 dollars in 1944. 'Twas assessed for less than the money he put into it.

Heather and I lived there while we took care of my Dad in his last years. After some time we found a place near to it that we liked and sold Dad's house, $56,000 was what it got, so it is so true that as you grow older things are MORE DEAR . . . . . . . . . .

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