There hasn't been a Mothershead in this old house for Christmas since 2001. And even though I didn't live here for very long, I can't help but feel a little weird about that. And by weird, I guess I mean sad. I mean fifty percent of us are dead. Twenty-five percent of us have moved far away in more ways than miles.
I didn't really live here that long, but it isn't the years, it's the mileage. We moved here in 1979 when I was in the eighth grade and I didn't leave until 1984 when I was kicked out on that warm April morning. I was Tough-Loved out. I wouldn't be back until 1989 for a couple of summers after I started college, and even that was a trial and tribulation. How bad was it? Well, I was sent to live on the campus of UNCG...the G stands for Greensboro which is where this old house is!
The memories in this house range from the very good to the very dark indeed.
One really sweet one is me and my college girlfriend waiting together at the table in the kitchen for my Mom to leave to go play tennis with friends, and as soon as she left, bounding upstairs to fool around. Of course, no sooner had we stripped down when we heard Mom's car come back and the front door open to mom yelling, "I forgot my tennis racket! Just be a second!" Mom was no fool I guess, and she left quietly. My old college girlfriend is in the kitchen again, right now, cooking breakfast for the kids.
The dark memories aren't worth mentioning I reckon. Who wants to know? When I finally got a job that didn't involve horse poop I was allowed to drive the family cars to Friends Home to wait tables, but...I had to log my miles to prove I wasn't going anywhere else. Of course, one week when everyone had gone away, I did just that. The neighbors, still the same couple, never said anything, but I'm sure they saw me driving the Rabbit backwards around the circle drive trying to "erase" the contraband miles I had stacked onto the odometer. It worked, but painfully slow. I had yet to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
But here I am again, in the den where the TV was. I mean, it's my own damn fault. Dad would have liked that I had to move back home after four years of struggling following the collapse of the western economy and the housing market that had been so good to me and mine and a handful of the best carpenters I'd ever worked with--and some white trash too. I just wish I had done it alot* sooner.
The memories are all over the place here. All I have to do is close my eyes and smell. The front door slamming is almost the same sound it made back in day. I did my best to put our signature on it to make it our own. We had the dark, depressing paneling painted bright white. We pulled up all the old carpets and had the hardwoods beneath refinished to a satin shine. Years of living with cats, kids, dogs, and a fried-chicken-eating brett left us no choice really.
We have teens here again. They are happier, I imagine, than I was living here even though the surrounding woods have shrunk. There's no cable TV here, but the internet is alive and well. Having my kids here, and seeing them so normal and healthy, and happy, is something I wish my folks could see. They really missed out on meeting the next generation of my Mothersheads. Dad wouldn't have thought it possible that I could've raised such adorable, funny little people. I had help.
I sleep in the same room my mother died, and I'm OK with that. It doesn't seem weird or even that sad. With no carpet I can see the hole in the floor where Dad ran a TV cable so mom could watch Walker, Texas Ranger in bed. It's huge because he didn't have, and would never have paid for, a co-axial crimping tool to put the ends on the cable after running it which would have required a smaller hole. Even a three eighths inch hole in my bedroom floor tells a story.
The things I fixed, that used to vex Dad, are some of my proudest accomplishments. The rotten basement windows? Oh, they're gone. The door you had to slam with your knee to lock? I fixed it. The door you had to close to open the pantry, and vice versa, is gone, replaced with a cased opening. The leaky basement walls are sealed, and after a blast of muddy water to the face, I finally fixed the sump pump once and for all. The half-glass basement door replaced, from scratch, with a fir slab, mortised, bored, and hung by yours truly.
Some things never change. When I find a light left on in the basement, I can hear Dad bitching about it. He'd've got me and made me turn it off back in the day, but that's too much like work. I just turn it off and run for the stairs. It's still pretty scary down there and I don't care who left it on. When the so-called heat pump is pumping cold air up my pant leg, I can hear him say, "Put on more clothes," and I do on this go round.
Well, looking back, I'm not even sure why I started writing this. I mean, when I started, I had a vision of a story about being home and being sad alot* of the time when I'm here. However, maybe I'm more wistful. This last fall did seem a bit more depressing than usual. And I can't help think it was because we had to move "back home". And there's so much more to do here that at times it's completely overwhelming. Not only the money involved, but the time needed puts me at odds with the other things we're supposed to be doing like work and hunting.
When 2013 passes, and the days start getting longer and brighter, maybe things will perk up. And we'll paint more, and we'll do that mantel, and we'll build those shelves for the basement. Maybe you'll be around to read about some of that too.
Happy Holidays from the Mothersheads and the one hold-out Cain.
