The house on Crabtree

After yesterday, if you asked me if I would rather scrub floors on my hands and knees or be tied and quartered, I would undoubtedly choose scrubbing. Seriously, who would choose having their appendages ripped from their bodies? Still, I spent five hours yesterday on my hands and knees scrubbing and scraping 8 years of gunk off wood floors and I have to say, I could think of better ways to spend a day. At the same time, stepping back and looking at the gleaming floors was incredibly satisfying. The best bruises are surely results of a job well done. My parents are on the home stretch of readying Crabtree Cove to be rented. It will be strange to see the house occupied by non-family. I have lived there for 9 years cumulative, with my Granny and Aunt/Uncle there in-between. We have all laughed about the things we have done to the house in the last month that we had wanted to do while living there and never did. I always wanted a deck and stain free floors. To repaint my kitchen so that it didn’t resemble an office in Santa Fe in the 70s. In my defense, those colors looked very different in the idea booklet. Not at all like pink, peach and green. So it is, as of noon today, we will be done repairing and officially renting the home. This is a great thing for my parents but the end of a legacy. Before my parents moved in, imports from California in ’95, it was occupied by Great Aunt Gwen and before her, second or third cousin Debbie. While the pink tile was an interesting decision, she was the one who added to the house; doubling the size and outpacing the neighborhood. Over the years, the neighborhood has changed. When we first moved in, it was a neighborhood of families that has now become a street of rent houses. We used to spend summers riding lawn mower pulled wagons through the pecan trees outback. Playing basketball…no blood, no foul. Making mental notes to run to Mr. Odeburg’s storm shelter in the case of tornado. In fact, it was Mr. Odeburg that taught me to play billiards and to wave at people when you drive by. Walking down the street today you would more likely be abducted than find childhood adventure but I remember laying on the trampoline out back, unattended, thinking and watching the stars through the branches of our tree. Maybe that is part of why I fell in love with the tree at the house we bought in May. I am thankful to be done but would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad. It is the home where I had my first date, first car, first prom (Sorry…Jr/Sr banquet…dancing is evil). It is where Tina cut up paper into homemade confetti every New Year and at least one and sometimes two sisters ended up in my bed each night. It is where my Pop made the garlic shrimp pasta and William played Amazing Grace on violin. It is where John asked my dad for permission to date. It is where my Christmas tree, too tall for the room, was set up topless each year. It is where I brought two babies and where I decided to buy my first home. For every morning that I hated that house while I was freezing, hovering over the sole floor heater, I will always be thankful for it. I hope it brings the same wealth of memories and experiences to its new occupants. I can only imagine that it will.