The View from Our Mobile Home Love Nest
After our marriage in September of 1963, Husband and I settled into our pretty new mobile home at the very end of Waverly Lane. Our neighbors were all older people, particularly our closest neighbors John and Alma as well as their adjacent residents, Frank and Emma.
Home of John and Alma (as it looks today)
Alma Made the Best Christmas Cookie Tin Imaginable
After hearing his somewhat agitated muttering response, she would order the moving of shrubs - all of which must have been relocated many times. It isn't difficult to see why he chose "Lighthouse Keeper" as his life's profession.
Home of Frank and Emma Taken Today
Frank and Emma were devout church goers and Saturday on Waverly Lane was devoted to hair-do preparation for Sunday's grand exhibition. Emma was most ardently searching for perfect hair without a big price tag, and so my mother-in-law offered her amateur abilities as a favor.
On occasions when Mother-in-Law was away, I filled in for her with my humble skills as a hairdresser. With Emma, you never quite got whether you did well or not. She would gush compliments and then find fault - give a little, and take back a little. I was alternately saying "thank you" and "oh, sorry."
There was definitely competition between the two neighbor ladies, as women can sometimes do. Husband's girth increased as they outdid each other baking him treats. If one invited us to dinner, the other would likely do the same.
Now sometimes when I awaken with a start, I could swear it was Emma calling, "Frank, Frank...," and I halfway expect to go to the window and see John, hat on, sleeves rolled, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, placidly hoeing his peas over near the silo.
The Back View from our Mobile Home Love Nest
Neighbor John's Pea Patch
(where blue-green vines, in double rows, with white blossoms thrived)
Time changes everything but our minds, still seeing and hearing the past in the present and thinking about, almost longing to see, those good people now gone.
As is that silo .. I loved that silo .. sigh
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about "seeing and hearing the past in the present" — I've enjoyed your walk down memory lane to your love nest!
ReplyDeleteI miss the silo too. sigh
ReplyDeleteWhen you stop and think about it, time is all one thing, like the universe. So why shouldn't we get a sense of past times, and maybe future times as well.
Husband would say, get out the smelling salts.
All I smell is peanut butter cookies, fresh from the oven, with the fork tines pressed just so on top. Mrs. Armstrong made The Best Cookies.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Ms. Emma, I remember racing to her house to play with her grandchildren when they came to visit. Louis and Sarah (the other's name escapes me right now) were welcome additions to the neighborhood each summer.