Bedroom in the garage
Vividly remember that moment when the first serious goal in life set itself into my mind. Bedroom out in the garage. Took a half-century and a decade to achieve.
Nineteen-fifty-four. Walla Walla, Washington. Dad ran a Nazarene church in a dim lit hall out on East Alder at South Wilber. We lived across the street in this house.
Many an evening in those days dad would push back his dinner plate and say, soon as we finish dishes lets take a ride in the car.
Family piles into the little green forty-nine Chev. two door. Kid country in the back seat. My side behind dad, closer to the occasional backhand of discipline that breached the otherwise secure border between our area and the adult world in the front. Don't bump the brim of his hat.
Head up East Alder a few blocks then angle north on Tausick Way to the gas station out on highway twelve. Rows of colorful plastic flags snap and pop in the wind overhead till it's hard to hear - dollars worth of regular. Pimple face kid checks oil and water, wash the windshield.
One evening we stop at a house I've always noticed because of the triangle yard, at the Y in the road where Tausick intersects with Alder.
Folks seemed to know them but not one of the regular church families. The older son and his father were over at the school for boy scouts, mom and little brother showed us around the place. Small house with two growing sons, half of the detached garage had been walled off for the older boy's bedroom.
Fifties teenage boy's room. Pennant from State on the wall, model airplane hanging in one corner, hand-carved lamp, bear rubbing against a tree, colorful image of fishing at the lake painted on fiberglass shade. Black Bakelite radio.
Breezeway between the kitchen door and the garage covered with that green corrugated fiberglass stuff that used to be so common in DIY home improvements, one corner flapping in a gust. Big upright freezer against the garage wall.
Something wonderful about the seemingly endless supply of ice cream in a two and a half gallon carton. My mind's eye still sees, even smells the wonderful yellow white vanilla revealed when the woman pulled open the container, commenting that it seemed to disappear, sinks to the bottom.
To which little brother, standing with me looking past the adults' legs whispered: "of Jackie's stomach." Our mind's eyes imagining careful manipulation of a spoon at midnight, get a few scoops without changing the topography within the carton.
License. Most memories from those early days in the church have faded into indistinct images running together in my mind, but specific words sometimes bubble to the surface. Church talk for folks who live a worldly life used the word license to describe their attitudes toward sinful behavior. Like a license to drive. Garage room gave a guy license to take a dip of ice cream at midnight. Even at age six, I figured most folks took a little license at midnight once in a while, save church talk for Sunday.
During high school years, a makeshift room in one end of the basement, broken garage door panels forming one wall is as close to the garage room I got growing up. Twenty-five years later I move out here to Mary Jane's house on the beach. Good sized garage with a finished bedroom and bath.
Newly married, setting myself up out here didn't appeal at the time but eventually, the bloom fades even from the most brilliant of roses. The old desire to have my own little pad set up out in the garage returned. By then both rooms were used as dry storage for our business inventory, so another decade passed before I finished some renovations on the place and moved in.
Had to wait sixty-four years for my dreams to come true, but here I sit in my little man cave, happy as a bug. No freezer from which a guy can sneak an occasional dip - go to the damned store and get ice cream anytime I want - which takes some of the thrill away, but one can't have everything in this life.
Nineteen-fifty-four. Walla Walla, Washington. Dad ran a Nazarene church in a dim lit hall out on East Alder at South Wilber. We lived across the street in this house.
Many an evening in those days dad would push back his dinner plate and say, soon as we finish dishes lets take a ride in the car.
Family piles into the little green forty-nine Chev. two door. Kid country in the back seat. My side behind dad, closer to the occasional backhand of discipline that breached the otherwise secure border between our area and the adult world in the front. Don't bump the brim of his hat.
Head up East Alder a few blocks then angle north on Tausick Way to the gas station out on highway twelve. Rows of colorful plastic flags snap and pop in the wind overhead till it's hard to hear - dollars worth of regular. Pimple face kid checks oil and water, wash the windshield.
One evening we stop at a house I've always noticed because of the triangle yard, at the Y in the road where Tausick intersects with Alder.
Folks seemed to know them but not one of the regular church families. The older son and his father were over at the school for boy scouts, mom and little brother showed us around the place. Small house with two growing sons, half of the detached garage had been walled off for the older boy's bedroom.
Fifties teenage boy's room. Pennant from State on the wall, model airplane hanging in one corner, hand-carved lamp, bear rubbing against a tree, colorful image of fishing at the lake painted on fiberglass shade. Black Bakelite radio.
Breezeway between the kitchen door and the garage covered with that green corrugated fiberglass stuff that used to be so common in DIY home improvements, one corner flapping in a gust. Big upright freezer against the garage wall.
Something wonderful about the seemingly endless supply of ice cream in a two and a half gallon carton. My mind's eye still sees, even smells the wonderful yellow white vanilla revealed when the woman pulled open the container, commenting that it seemed to disappear, sinks to the bottom.
To which little brother, standing with me looking past the adults' legs whispered: "of Jackie's stomach." Our mind's eyes imagining careful manipulation of a spoon at midnight, get a few scoops without changing the topography within the carton.
License. Most memories from those early days in the church have faded into indistinct images running together in my mind, but specific words sometimes bubble to the surface. Church talk for folks who live a worldly life used the word license to describe their attitudes toward sinful behavior. Like a license to drive. Garage room gave a guy license to take a dip of ice cream at midnight. Even at age six, I figured most folks took a little license at midnight once in a while, save church talk for Sunday.
During high school years, a makeshift room in one end of the basement, broken garage door panels forming one wall is as close to the garage room I got growing up. Twenty-five years later I move out here to Mary Jane's house on the beach. Good sized garage with a finished bedroom and bath.
Newly married, setting myself up out here didn't appeal at the time but eventually, the bloom fades even from the most brilliant of roses. The old desire to have my own little pad set up out in the garage returned. By then both rooms were used as dry storage for our business inventory, so another decade passed before I finished some renovations on the place and moved in.
Had to wait sixty-four years for my dreams to come true, but here I sit in my little man cave, happy as a bug. No freezer from which a guy can sneak an occasional dip - go to the damned store and get ice cream anytime I want - which takes some of the thrill away, but one can't have everything in this life.
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