On
the Corner of C and S
I don't remember how my ten-year-old self first reacted to seeing the
old house isolated behind the alfalfa field.
Dense green ivy covered the left side of the house and tapered off as it
moved across the front. A few stray
vines were creeping into the door frame and outlining the two bedroom windows
above it and the large kitchen window to the right. A bare patch at the far end exposed red
brick, cracked and crumbly in spots. If
you stared at it long enough, the top windows made eyes and the front door was
the mouth, with the ivy trying to eat the face.
The front porch, four cement slabs on brick, was unstable. A wooden plank stretched out to the left of
the front garden to conceal the parts of sidewalk that had crumbled away. The steps led to the back door, which had a
small wooden balcony above. Maple,
walnut, and birch trees forested either side of the house. A grove of evergreen trees sealed in the
house from the back. A willow could be
seen growing in the distance.
To our right side were the road and one neighbor. To our left was the rest of the
property. The two-car garage with a
rickety basketball hoop still attached was part of a long white storage
building with a loft. To the left of that
was a weathered red barn and grain silo.
I could see a machine shed in the distance between the two buildings, and
a smaller tool shed was on the right side of the garage tucked behind a red
maple.
“Oh, Dale, look at all the ivy!
I always wanted a house with ivy.”
My mom sounded like a child let loose in a toy store as she stepped out
of the car.
“There aren’t very many houses around,” I remarked, slamming the
door. Crisp fresh air lingered with the
scent of trees and faint manure accosted me.
After living in the suburbs of California, I wasn’t used to the country
landscape. It was pretty, with trees
changing their leaves and dairy farms dotting rolling fields of corn. I wasn’t sure if I’d like to live here
though.
We had been looking at houses for nearly a month, and today’s real
estate was a farmhouse nestled on five acres of land. Casco, population 583, was 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 a diner closer to our house, but the shopping that we preferred
resided in the city.
The mouth of the house opened and a short woman in light wash jeans and
a sweatshirt walked out.
“Hi, my name is Ruth. You must
be the O'Briens.” She extended her
wrinkling hand to my dad, who shook it strongly and followed her inside. The screen door squeaked shut behind us.
Momma gasped. “Can you imagine me
cooking in a kitchen this size?”
I couldn’t. It was the largest
kitchen I had ever seen- twice the size of my old bedroom- with counter space
and cabinets lining two walls.
“Farm kitchens are always built large,” the owner explained.
“How
old is the house?” my dad asked.
“It was built in 1910.”
“And
it’s still standing?” I thought to myself.
“Amazing.”
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