NoJoMo #24 - My house when I was a kid in The Long and Winding Road

Day Twenty Four: What was it like at your house as a kid? (Ex: Clean or messy? Quiet or chaotic? Empty or full?)

Oh jeez. I could write a whole book on this one (who couldn’t?) but I’ll try to be brief. Partly because I don’t have much time to write this.

I had a fairly typical home life for middle class families in the 60’s. My dad went to work Monday through Friday. My mom stayed home and took care of me and my sisters.

My dad was an early riser. He would sit at the kitchen table for an hour or so, in his pajamas, eating a bowl of cereal, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and reading the newspaper. There was a radio on top of the refrigerator and it would always be playing.

Usually my mom was home when my sisters and I got home from school. She would be busy sewing, or cutting coupons, or cooking or baking. She visited with the neighbors a lot during the day.

We always sat down to dinner together as a family. Sometimes the meals were pleasant and sometimes they weren’t. If my mom was in one of her moods, or if me or one of my sisters was in trouble for something, it could be very unpleasant.

My sisters and I played outside with the neighborhood kids, a lot. We roller skated a lot, played hide & seek, hung out at each other’s houses. The rule was that we had to come inside when the street lights came on.

I was not encouraged to take part in extra-cirricular activities because my mom didn’t want to have to cart me and my sisters to all those activities. In those days kids weren’t nearly as involved in activities anyway, as they are today. My best friend came over to spend the night quite frequently, or I spent the night at her house.

My family didn’t do a lot of things together as a family, at least, not the way I see families doing it these days. We went to the drive in a lot. Mom would make a big batch of popcorn, us kids would get our pajamas on and bring our pillows with us, and off we would go. We always had a station wagon, so us kids would lay on our stomachs in the back (with the middle seat folded down) to watch the movie.

We usually went to church and then we would go out to brunch afterwards.

My parents entertained a lot. They had friends over to play bridge, and they threw parties fairly often. My sisters and I would help get ready for the parties. I remember my mom always having boiled shrimp on a bowl of ice, and cocktail sauce, as one of the hor d’ouvres.

My parents bought their first home when I was in 4th or 5th grade. It was a brand new little 3-bedroom house in a new suburb where none of the lawns had grass or landscaping yet. It was on the edge of the country club golf course. The country club was not fancy or glamorous at all. I would say “anybody could afford to join it” but of course, that wasn’t true. But it wasn’t super expensive or elite. My dad took up golf and every Saturday morning he would leave the house very early and walk to the golf course to play a round. Later in the morning my mom and us kids would go to the country club pool. My dad would come meet us there after he was finished playing golf.

We weren’t allowed to eat in the living room, which is where our only TV was. Once a year, when “The Wizard of Oz” was on TV, we would put on our pajamas and Mom would spread a sheet out on the living room carpet and then, and only then, were we allowed to eat dinner in the living room while watching TV.

For about 4-5 years, one of mom’s sisters (along with her husband and two sons) moved from New York to live near us, about a 90 minute drive from us. So once a month or so we would go spend the weekend with them, or they would come spend the weekend with us. My two boy cousins were very close in age to my elder sister and myself, so we became pretty close. In the summer we would sleep out on the patio. Two of us would sleep on those webbed chaise lounges with the aluminum frames, one of us would sleep on the picnic table, and one of us would sleep on the two picnic table benches put together. We would have a blast. We’d get up and run around the yard in the middle of the night, which gave us a thrill. We would talk and giggle and joke around. I remember the smell of mosquito repellent and the sound of the air conditioner compressor going on and off. And the crickets.

It wasn’t all good. Not by any means. But there was a lot of good and it’s nice to focus on that. On the bad side, my parents would have some pretty nasty fights, and to this day my stomach ties up in knots the minute I hear a raised voice. My mom would get in moods and go crazy. There were nights she got us up out of bed at 11:00 p.m. because she couldn’t find her scissors (or something else as silly) and we’d all have to look for them because obviously, one of us kids must have taken them. Or she’d get in a mood where she felt that she was doing all the housework and that we kids weren’t helping at all. She would never ask us to do a specific chore, she would just get mad that we didn’t do any. She especially resented it if I spent time laying on my bed reading, or designing houses (something I did a lot). So when she was in one of those moods I would go into the bathroom to read, or stand up behind my bedroom door reading, so if I heard her coming, I could look busy.

Ok. Seeing as how I was going to try to be brief, I think this is long enough and descriptive enough to fulfill my obligation to write today!