Posted on 11/15/2002 4:05:23 AM PST by Chairman_December_19th_Society
/john
You grew up there? Lucky you!
The last of November and especially the first three weeks of December will be critical concerning Iraq. Having the congress out of session and most of the Democrats out of town is a very good thing.
I noticed that Big Byrd was trying to stall to stay in session as long as he could. He is very unhappy he will not have the senate floor to play with during the showdown days with Saddam.
There is also a ballroom on the third floor. My brother and I put up a mini-basketball hoop and used to play ball up there in the winter. We also sanded down the floor in an attempt to use it for shuffle board, but never finished that project. We did make a little indoor tennis court up there, but it was obviously not to regulation size.
There was a dumb waiter that ran from the basement to the ballroom at one time, but after we bought the house we closed it off. (I remember getting rides from one floor to another on that dumb waiter.)
There were two staircases from first to second floor. One was the maid's stairs and was plain and straight. The front staircase had two landings with a huge stained-glass window above the second landing.
You know how much my parents paid for that house in 1967? Just $14,000. To most people that seems unbelievable, but considering its location in a small town in western Nebraska and the fact that it wasn't much to look at inside when we bought it, it makes some sense. They never really sold it for all that much, either.
The best features in the house were probably the dining room ceiling which was intricately painted to simulate wood, and the woodwork throughout the house. Swedish craftsmen were brought over to do the woodwork and I can honestly say that I took it for granted that I grew up in a work of art.
I wish I could do a virtual tour of that house right now. I did see it about 10 years ago, but the owners of the B&B didn't seem that eager to have non-paying customers in for more than a few minutes. Now, however, it's owned by locals again, in fact the son of the guy we bought the house from originally.
How did practice etc, go?
/john
My great-grandmother ran a boarding house in the middle of down-town Winston-Salem, NC, long ago. By the time my brothers and I came along she didn't rent rooms out but she still had the house ...... and it was wonderful ..... 3 full floors plus a finished basement.
.....A foyer with multi-paned windows with beveled edges that created a myriad of rainbows as the setting sun poured in them.
..... A banister down the front stairs that we often got into trouble for sliding down (Great Grandma looked the other way but Grandma was a dragon ..... *grins*)
..... A real parlor that was supposed to be off-limits to us children but we were stupid enough to think we could get away with sneaking in there and playing notes on the grand piano without getting caught .... *duh*
An old coal burning stove that used to be used to cook hundreds of meals a week as many town folks came there for meals as well as those who were staying in the rooms.
So many cherished memories ..... and I guess I was only about 8 when she finally sold the house and moved to the suburbs.
"Your" house reminds me of that lovely place except for the setting ..... truly a grand sort of place for a child to grow up in!
You've got that right!
In addition, many of those Dems will have to drive several, (as in MANY) miles to reach a TV station with a network bird to get their thoughts on the tube.
I'm still in awe of the house itself. I would love a basement like that.
/john
Does that make you old?
/john (ducking, running and hiding)
The music isn't too bad, either; I've never played this show before but some of it is familiar........."Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets", "You Gotta Have Heart"............etc.
One sad thing about it is that by the time my older brother and sisters moved away and we were down to 3 in the house, heating costs were high and the economy not too healthy so we closed off almost the whole house except for a few rooms.
We had steam radiators in all the rooms (I'll never forget 3 of us kids sitting on the radiator in the kitchen on those cold, below-0 mornings and seeing who could stay on the longest) and a fireplace with a really spectacular mantle with an arched mirror and a wooden column on either side.
Out back we had a big, brick incinerator we used for burning our trash. That was one of my jobs and I kind of liked it. I caught the lilac bushes on fire once and had more than one aerosol can blow up in that thing.
Yardwork was also one of my jobs and until we got a riding mower, it was a real chore to cut the grass. After we got the riding mower it was fun, although it wasn't so fun when I accidentally backed into one of the faucets sticking up and water started shooting up all over.
Those faucets were dangerous as they stuck up about 6 inches above the ground and could do damage to your ankle if you hit one. Our yard was a favorite football field in our town, but if you didn't have a real good sense of where the pipes were, you could get nailed by them.
Enough of me jabbering about that house. Sorry to reminisce so much.
/john
NO!
We want to hear more about the house. BTW, the way you write about it is very evocative. My knee hurt while reading about the faucets. You are taking us on a virtual tour.
/john
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