Home

Following is a story I wrote about ten years ago;

Home

Home is where the heart is. For the last year my heart has been pulled back to the memories of my childhood home in Woodland Heights, Brownwood, Texas. I have been flooded with so many emotional memories and it saddens me to think that when I am gone these memories will be no more. My awakening to these realities of life began August 27, 2002 when my Dad, Don Beck, passed away in our home with Mom, my four brothers and me standing at his side. Then on August 27, 2009 my Mom, Berylene Beck, passed away after fighting cancer for over ten years. On August 12, 2010 we sold what had been the focal point of our family for fifty-six years, the house at 1409 Oakland Drive.

It seems, as I have grown older, I have become more sensitive emotionally. I have spoken much over the last year about my feelings and how they relate to losing my parents and now saying farewell to our old homestead and that seems to help. Especially when you have friends and family who are kind and understanding because they too have had loses and have said goodbye to those things and people that they love. It is for these reasons that I feel compelled to write once more about the things that I remember about my home and the people that made it that way.

1954 was the year that we moved into the house at 1409 Oakland Drive, Woodland Heights, Brownwood, Texas. It was a new, but small, two bedroom, one bath, white, wood framed house, that sat on a big pile of rocks. I guess I must have been about five years old. My younger brother, Danny, was about two years old and Mom and Pop were still in their twenties. I can remember that we were out in the country. There were wooded pastures in front and behind the house. It seemed that it was a long drive through the country to get from our house to downtown Brownwood. As I grew older and the area developed that distance became shorter, only two or three miles.

I remember our long battle against the rocks that made up much of the large yard. We (mostly Pop) dug, loaded and hauled rocks for years. My Dad ordered many a load of top soil and sand over the years. These loads of dirt and sand were a paradise for us and the neighborhood kids. As soon as it was dumped, the pile became the objective for games such as "King of the Hill". I still remember my Dad's delight as he went out and tried to spread the pile of dirt after ten or more kids just spent hours of romping and stomping on the pile. We would have the pile packed like cement and poor Pop would have to get out the grubbing-hoe or pick and break it up in order to spread it.

The sand piles were even more fun. We would build huge castles or use it for a high jumping pit. Pop always said he was amazed how he could order ten yards of sand and by the time he was ready to spread it, there would only be three or four yards left. He claimed that the other six or seven yards were hauled in the cuffs of our jeans into the house, on the floors, in the bathtub and beds. Yes, we all had cuffs on our jeans. Not only was it cool, if Mom bought them about two sizes too long, you wouldn't grow out of them as quickly.

This was a time before television, at least in our house, and in the evenings Mom would pop some popcorn and we would all sit in the living room and listen to regular programs on the radio. I remember holding Mom's hand as we listened carefully to the scary moans and creaks of a mystery program and picking my feet up off the floor so that something couldn't reach from under the couch and grab them. The sounds of the fog horns and the visuals built by my young mind are still crystal clear.

I have fond memories of our first television and the two or three stations we could receive at the time. Back then, after supper it was always family time, watching TV and playing games. Especially in the summer when I could stay up late and watch all my favorite shows with Mom and Pop. Then school would start and I would have to go to bed early. It would kill my little soul to be laying in bed and hear the intro music for some of my favorite shows playing from the living room. Shows like Kit Carson, The Rifleman, Cisco Kid and Highway Patrol.

We had a telephone but it was only used when necessary because we were on a party line shared with several of the neighbors. As I recall, party lines brought out the best in people and the worst. The only way you would know if someone was using the line would be to pick up the receiver and listen. If someone was talking you would try to hang up quietly. If it was a long conversation and you picked up the receiver several times you might hear, "If you will hold your horses, I will be off the phone in a minute!! Please quit picking up the phone!!" The only problem was, you had to pick up the phone to see if they were off.

I think the real magic of this old house and its surrounding neighborhood, besides my immediate family, was the wealth and variety of kids than ran within the boundaries of my world. There were so many things to do and so many to do them with. Very seldom was there ever a group of us kids numbering less than five or six. There were wiffle ball games with the big live oak tree being first base, the clothesline pole being second base, the old flower pot third and one of the dog's old sleeping pillows was home plate. There were the bicycle rides; the trips to Mr. Dewbre's corner store; walking over to the old Woodland Heights playground with its monkey bars, seesaws, swings and huge oak trees; the building of tree houses, forts and caves; walking down to Willis Creek and fishing for perch. The sounds and smells of the neighborhood are still crystal clear. The hollering of kids echoed through the neighborhood, the smell of our mothers cooking supper would float through the air in the early evening hours. Then the whistles, bells and voices of our parents calling us home....it was supper time.

Then came brothers Pat and Chris, the twins, and a year later my baby brother, Steve. For several years it was like an assembly line with the younger brothers and at nine or ten years of age, I was expected to assist in the feeding, diaper changing and bathing. Remember, this all took place in a two bedroom, one bath house but I really don't remember it being that crowded except for the bathroom. I remember putting Pat, Chris and Steve in their baby beds hoping they would take a nap and within a few minutes they would be on their hands and knees in their beds rocking back and forth. They would get to rocking so violently the beds would begin to move around on the hardwood floor. It looked a lot like the bumper car ride at the carnival.

Housework was a form of punishment. If we were in trouble, we were assigned household chores to fit the degree of guilt. If you were in really bad trouble, you had to scrub the base boards, cabinet and all the wood work. With all hardwood floors, waxing was interesting. We didn't have waxing or buffing equipment, so, Mom and I would put down the wax by hand on all the floors; then Mom would put old work sox on all us kids and then tie old rags to our feet and we would walk around the house dragging our feet, buffing the floor. After a couple of days of doing this off and on, it became more fun as the floor became more slippery. Then we would turn throw rugs upside down and run and slide down the hall and just hope no one walked out of the bathroom or bedrooms as you slid by.

So many memories, most good, some bad. I remember laying in my bottom bunk bed on summer nights with the bedroom window open and hearing the wind blow through the leaves of the huge Cottonwood tree outside the window. I remember Pop pulling that Cottonwood tree out of Ma and Papa's flowerbed in Ft. Worth when it was only a foot tall and planting it in our back yard. I remember it dying years later as a huge tree and having to cut it down. I remember finding out that one of our young friends had died as the result of complications of tonsil surgery, the first time many of my friends and I were faced with death and the first time Mom and Pop had to try and explain why something like that could happen. I remember the dogs, cats, doves, chuckers, the fox, the two Great Horned Owls, the rabbits, and the duck that we raised over the years. I remember a knock on the door at 4:00AM one morning and following Pop to the door as a twelve year old and hearing the two policemen tell him that Papa Dan had died that morning and hearing Mom cry as I stood outside their bedroom door.

Mom and Pop used to stay up late a lot of nights drawing plans and trying to estimate the cost of adding onto the house. Years past and still they planned. Finally when the last of us boys had moved out, they remodeled the house and doubled its size by adding another bedroom, a family room, a dining room and another bathroom. Mom also told Pop that there would be no more smoking in the house so he proceeded to have the builder build him a huge screened in back porch and informed Mom that the porch was his. I asked Pop why they waited so long to remodel the house after we were all gone. He said, "We couldn't afford it 'til now. Besides, we had to do something to compete for equal time with the grand kids."

So many people have been part of that old house. So many people have laughed, cried, talked, hugged and loved in that house. Now it is the beginning of someone else's history, a young couple expecting their first child. There is still a lot of living to do in that house. May they be as fortunate as we were and may they soon realize that it is not just a house but a home, a home with history, a home with character.

The house now belongs to someone else, but the home is in my heart and memories. I will hold and cherish these memories for the remainder of my life, and hopefully be able to relive those good old days much as you would watch that favorite old movie for the hundredth time, still laughing and still crying just like you did the first time.