Flashback Friday--Home Sweet Home

A house is made of bricks and stone,
but a home is made of love alone.

I came across Mocha with Linda's entry today and really liked it. It got me thinking about my home growing up. Really, there was more than one, but for 18 years we stayed in one house. THAT is the house I grew up in. Let's flash back, shall we?

I was born in Tulsa, OK in 1967, but we lived in Sapulpa. My dad was managing the Zales Store in Tulsa, and we would get transferred around alot in the next few years.
I think it went Sapulpa to Lawton, OK...then to West Memphis, AR for couple of months in the summer of 1968, where my brother was born (I think we lived in a motel most of the time we were there, then got a house, only to have to move again a month later)..then back to Lawton, OK I believe....then finally to Hot Springs, Arkansas, on Halloween night 1970, where I grew up. (but not in THAT house...there was still one more move to go.)

The house I grew up in, from ages 5-22 was a 3 bedroom brick house on a street of 7 houses. My parents bought this house the summer before I started kindergarten and we lived there til the summer after I graduated from college.
This was my childhood home.



***these pics are of the porch in front of the front door. We never used that door, but played on that porch and steps all the time.***

It had a carport, for our one car (until I became a teen and my grandpa gave me his old '73 Plymouth Valiant to drive), so during the day when Daddy was at work, we spent many hours here...


....or in the backyard, where there was a garden,

(hunting Easter Eggs. That's Daddy's garden, back there, the corner where he grew strawberries. There was no swingset ever, but in the 7th or 8th grade I got a tetherball pole for my birthday to put back there.)

...or in the front yard, where there was a flowerbed....

(you can see the flowerbed, unflowered, under my parents' bedroom window here, in this pic from my brother's kindergarten graduation night)

....or roaming the neighborhood.

There were 4 streets that ran parallel, all connected at the "top" (since they all went uphill) by a a single road (kinda like a T with 4 legs..or a sideways E with an extra leg). We rode our bikes up on that hillroad b/c there was never much traffic there. That road took us to our friends' houses on the neighboring streets and was backgrounded by woods all the way from one end to the other where we spent lots of times pretending to have forts and houses.

Our house was in the middle of the street and as I mentioned before in my entry about dads, everyone seemed to congregate there in the evenings. Parents brought over their lawnchairs and coffee, the kids all played stickball, frisbee, or tetherball in the back, until the lightning bugs came out and we all had to go in to get ready for bed.

But back to the house.
There was a living room that Mom liked to decorate with red and black usually...Spanish style predominantly.

(the black leather couch..my grandparents sitting there eating a cupcake it looks like...1974 I think.
Later we got rid of the black leather and got a sofa/chair set that was fabric covered...)

(my brother, Christmas '78)


(the 3 of us, and our dog Rags, on an Easter Sunday)

We had a piano in there as well,

(note the "Spanish" bull and bullfighter on top)

...and it was used during the Christmas season to hang our stockings on since we had no fireplace.


Of course there was the tv and a stereo in there as well.

(my sister, same Christmas)

The kitchen had a bar seperating the cooking side from the dining side. The appliances were done in that famous 70s green. We did have a dishwasher tho...a luxury of the times, but of course no microwave back then.

(my sister's bday)

The laundry room was off of the dining area, too. I learned to do laundry there when I was about 7 or 8 and my brother was in the hospital again for an extended stay (he was a sickly boy when young). There were also a set of shelves in there that held the extra linen and some stored things...and where Christmas gifts were often hidden!)

The hallway was off the livingroom, and the kitchen also opened up into it on the right, across from my brother's room.
My brother's room was the first one on the left. Then the bathroom on the right (past the kitchen doorway almost across from my parents' doorway).

My parents' room was at the end on the left,

(me, in my parents' room, with my first ever scrapbook, and then later, when I got an ice skating outfit and skates for Christmas one year. Notice all the "chachkis" on the shelves. I hated having to move those to dust.)


and the room my sister and I shared was at the very end of the hallway...dead straight on.
I remember us getting our walls painted pink at some point and accenting things with purple--the bedspreads and curtains and some hanging pictures. We had twin beds and shared a 6 drawer dresser w/ a mirror that we moved around constantly. When my parents got a new stereo for the living room, we inherited the older one, on a rolly cart, to put in our room. We thought we were something then, until my brother got the livingroom tv for HIS room when a new one was purchased!

(I can't believe I don't have pics of my room, or my brother's room on my computer. I know they are in an album somewhere tho...in one of the many unpacked tubs.
NOTE TO SELF: find and scan those pics)

Yes, many years were spent in that house. I was so fortunate to spend all my main years there, in that neighborhood. It was just a mile or so from the school we attended, not right IN the city, but only a 10 minute drive to downtown. The last couple years I was in college, my dad took a job in another town, Glenwood, and after my graduation, and my youngest sisters' high school graduations the same month (my non-biological sis had joined our family by then) the time was right for them to move to that city, where they still reside, where my boys now live with their father, where I returned to when I was starting my family and lived until after my divorce.

I'm always meaning to drive by the old house when I'm back in Hot Springs and snap a pic of it...but never seem to do it. Oh, I've been by several times, but never had the camera, or when I had the camera, didn't make it by.
(NOTE TO SELF: DO IT!!)

It was a good house. It wasn't as fancy or elaborate as some of my friends' houses were, but it seemed to be the place where everyone wanted to come. Sleepovers were a normal part of the weekends...usually a couple a month at our house. My friends were always welcomed there, and were comfortable there.
Youth group meetings were held there. My parents had 3 rules for those meetings.
1. Anything could be discussed..nothing was taboo.
2. What was said in that house, stayed in that house...no tattling to the other kids' parents (unless something was life threatening of course)
3. No sitting in my dad's chair!
(Rule #3 became the joke of the meetings. Someone would invariably sit there, waiting for my dad to come in and hold up his 3 fingers and say in his deep voice..."RULE # 3".)

Yes, an opendoor policy to all visitors...with the understanding that you took what you got when you got there. The house may not be cleaned perfectly, and you might be offered leftovers for dinner, but you were always welcome.

That was my childhood home.
and it is one that I strive to model today for my own children and their friends.

What about you? Where did you grow up?
If you'd like to participate, you can go here to Mocha Linda's blog,
or just do like I did and just pattern an entry after these questions. I'd be interested in reading your memories.

Where did you live when you were growing up? In a house or an apartment? A mobile home or a duplex?
Did your parents rent or own?
Was it big or small? In a city, small town, or rural area? In the USA or another country?
Did you have your own room or share with siblings? Did you have a say in how your room was painted/decorated?
Did your folks update/redecorate periodically or was your house "stuck" in a certain decade?
Did you have a yard? A swingset or other play areas?
What was your neighborhood like? Were there lots of kids to play with?
Did your family stay in one place or did you move? If so, how many times did you move by the time you graduated from high school? Did you like moving or long to stay in one place?
Are your parents still in the home you grew up in (or at least the one you lived in when you graduated from high school) or did they move and you haven't lived with them in their latest house?
Does it feel like home?
What were your favorite and least favorite things about your physical home? How similar or different is it to where you live now?