The greatest advantage of this new house was that it was way larger, even the basement was huge and is divided into three separate areas. The steps toward the basement are located off the kitchen or from the side door from the one-car garage. At the bottom of the steps is the first divided room of the basement. There was an unprotected toilet underneath the steps, what I mean by unprotected is that there was no enclosure for the most intimate purpose of life, and the same for the shower head that is attached to the cemented wall across from the toilet. This room is where my Mom would wash and dry clothes and perch wet garments with clothes pins to ropes that flew across the room. Later she would have a clothes dryer which made life easier when doing laundry every Mondays. An old stove was left behind and was in working condition and was found to be helpful on special occasions. The next room, which I will call the middle room, was the whole length of the house, at one end is the furnace and near it along the bottom of the cemented block wall was a very simple fireplace inserted into it, and at times, my Dad would use as an incinerator. The other end of this area was a door with a small wooden block that acted as a handle and a way to keep it shut. The room is smaller that is beneath the front porch, my Mom called it the fruit cellar. I never understood it because she never canned vegetables or fruits. This room’s temperature was slight colder; however, it was only used for storage.
The cemented front porch with four steps to it has a built-In deep-set bed where Mom would plant flowers like colorful petunias and marigolds. As you entered the door from this porch you would enter into a spacious living room with a brick fireplace with a manterpiece to store knick knacks. The fireplace has never been used and never will be, it don’t even have the utensils most fireplaces hold. It has always just been a decoration for a manger scene at Christmas time. A double entrance would draw you into the dining room with a cabinet divider from the kitchen. The greatest asset to this house was the three bedrooms, unlike the two small bedrooms at our old house. The three bedrooms are located down the hall off the dining room. My sister, Frances Ann, and I would share the back bedroom, which was closer to the bathroom, thank goodness it had a door with a lock. I would enclose my dresses in the closet that was in the room and Fran would use the closet located in the hallway across from my brother’s room which was the middle bedroom that did not have a closet, I guess boys don’t need closets. My parents had the front bedroom of the house that had two closets, his and hers.
The front yard had two pine trees that would grow too large for the house and pose a nuisance for the yard, and like I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t climb them! The backyard was pretty big with no trees, how sad; it had enough room to place two dog houses for our dogs. The back yard reached an empty field that would be an attachment to the woods that I was all too familiar with. Even though the homesteads located near this field did not own the land as far back, they maintained the land.
Yeah, dog houses for our dogs... I forgot to mention in my earlier blogs. My Dad believed that every kid should have their own dog and I always thought that it was a good thing they didn’t have eight kids. I don’t know if it was because he was a dog lover or if it was to teach us responsibility and commitment. I would like to think he loved dogs because he always had a way with them, I remember at one point in my life, he was trying to teach one dog to count. In my surprise, he would demonstrate his accomplishment by asking the dog how much was 1 plus 2 and the dog would bark 3 times.
Any how, returning to the recollection of our pets… my sister’s first dog was Skippy, which I believe we still had in the move and homed in the first dog house. At this point, I think, I got Queenie who was placed in the dog house behind Skippy’s. I remember my first dog on Perry, was Curly, she was white with some black spots throughout her long hair. I remember her appearance and characteristics close to the dog portrayed in the Disney movie, “Shaggy Dog” or maybe it was wishful thinking of her in those terms. I don’t remember what happened to her, but I remember her big black eyes peeking through her long bangs. Our dogs never had to consume dog food, they were fed left overs and bones from our dinner table, maybe Dad mixed this food with dry dog food and maybe added broth, water or leftover gravy. It didn’t hurt them; Skippy lived to a very ripe age.
Remembering Queenie on Grimm Heights, she got loose from her chain, a phone call from the Muzas came and my Dad went down to their house. Soon I found out that it was about Queenie. She ran in front of a car and got hit and I remember running down to the Muza’s house where my Dad was with a policeman in the back of Muza’s house. I ran down there even when my Mom advised me not to. The policeman expressed, and my Dad agreed, that it was best to put her out of misery, it was then that I heard the loudest sound ring in my ears, it was the sound of a gun that left her quickly still. It was the worst experience that I had in my younger years, and how I wished that I would have listened to the words my Mom said.
Later, they got a Pomeranian, I always considered her my Mom’s dog, and her fur was reddish in color and boy was she a yelper. She was not what you called a perfect pet for children; I considered Fluffy as s a High-Class dog. Fluffy later died, I don’t know from what, but I remember her fur being very matted and she became very weak. Later, Spotty, a toy terrier or something, appeared into our lives, another yelper. Neither Fluffy nor Spotty were friendly companions as, Skippy, Curly or Queenie were.
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