Day 249: Exploring My House

This is part of a draft I am writing for my creative nonfiction class.  I have to write about a place, and I am writing about my favorite childhood home.

     Driving down that long country road, with alfalfa and green corn stalks with their tassels growing tall on either side, I see the rickety old barn built about a foot from the road.  The red paint has long faded, and there are gaps in between the wooden planks, bowed from several years exposure to the harsh wind and snow.  It looks so close whenever our van drives passed it that I affectionately called it the "close barn." I came to know that once we passed it, we would be home within a couple minutes.  Our van rolls to a stop, and I stare at the lonely stop sign.  Only two other houses are visible from all corners of the stop.  Then we round the corner and, after driving down several feet, turn right onto our long driveway.  As I walk out of the van, I stare at the ivy covered red brick house, knowing I won't be seeing it much longer.

     The older you get, when you look back on your life, things tend to get hazy.  I don't remember quite how my ten-year-old self had reacted to seeing the old house stuck out in the middle of nowhere.  I didn't like thinking I'd be so isolated from any kids my own age, or from any major towns.  Casco was a tiny little country town in Wisconsin, a forty minute drive from Green Bay, the nearest large city and home of the Green Bay Packers.  There were gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants closer to our house, but my parents preferred shopping there. 

     The owner of the house was a short farmer's wife in her fifties or so.  She had raised her kids in this house but had moved out to a smaller house a few miles away.  I was impressed to know it was built in 1910 and still standing.  I had never been around a house so old before.  Inside the house was confusing though.  It's like the house was stuck in a time machine that had two different settings on it.  The upstairs had all its original deep chestnut red brown floors and bedroom doors and oval dark metal doorknobs, but the floors were still decorated with carpeting from the 70s.  One room had red and black zigzags, another had deep aqua and black, and another had puce green.  The master bedroom had a cream shag carpeting.  Despite the dated decorating tastes and old-fashioned design (there was a door to the upstairs), I fell in love with that gigantic empty house.