Daytrip with Dad

 

   My parents recently moved into a senior apartment complex near where I live. Dad needed to get some things that they needed from their house down in southern Minnesota. We had decided that my sister was going to stay with my mother. I would ride with Dad.

   I was very eager to see the house again. I had not been back since shortly after I got married which was 17 years ago. There was no reason to. Growing up in a small town in that part of the state is tough if you happen to be different. 

   One reason why I wanted to go is because I know that at some point in time we would be selling the house. Would I be all sentimental and sad about it? I wanted to know. I wanted to go back while it was still my parents' home, the one that my Dad designed and built himself. (although he did have some help.)

   At around nine in the morning, Dad and I got into my mother's SUV and headed south. It was a fun drive. Much of the scenery was familiar although there was a few changes. The sky was blue and the sun was out. It was a good day to be on the road. 

   We went thought the infamous St. James turnoff. It's a sharp turn that you have to take at no faster than 30 miles per hour. In the winter it can be very scary. My Dad calls it "malfunction junction."

   The ride to the town seemed pretty short. It was a little over two hours. We got there before noon. Dad needed to renew his driver's license so that is the first thing we did. The license bureau was large and nearly empty. Quite a change from what I was used to in the city. In the city license bureaus are small cramped and crowded. 

  We were going to have lunch at a local pizza place, but there was no parking nearby. We went to the house. As we drove through the street the houses looked mostly the same. Dad pulled up to a grey house with a red door. It was our house. I didn't recognize it. There was a cement driveway instead of the gavel one I knew and the chimney was finished. When I had been there the chimney was red brick. 

   We went into the kitchen. It was also completely redone. There was a new faucet in the sink, new back splashes, a new microwave and a nice tile floor.  The dining room looked the same, but the wood floor seemed so much lighter than I remembered. Dad pointed out that it was due to years of wear and the wood was indeed darker under the dining room table and desk.

   We had just got to work gathering things when Jan and Bonnie came inside. They knew Dad and I were coming and wanted to say hi. They stayed and talked to Dad and me. I hadn't seen them in over 15 years as well. Bonnie looked the same but Jan had definitely aged. She still had the same sense of humour. I was happy to see them. 

   We started back to work when the couple who are looking after the house came in. They started chatting to Dad about various things. After I was introduced, I went downstairs. I was looking for a clay teapot I made in junior high. I also was looking for a hat that my Mom used to wear. I found the teapot and brought it upstairs. Then I took pictures of all the rooms. 

   My parent's bed had a beautiful colourful quilt. Dad told me that Mom made it. It was  lovely. I didn't know she created things like that. The bathroom had been completely redone. The sink that I bathed my dolls in was gone. The counter top with it's permanent coat or Aquanet hairspray (from my sister) was also gone.

   After the neighbors left Dad and I went to work. I climbed into the attic to look for the hat. It was freezing up there. I was grateful that I could still get into the attic. The last time I had done so I was much younger and much lighter. I didn't find the hat, but I did find an old Bible. It was a gift to my mother from her grandfather. I brought it down to take with me. I'd explore the attic when it got warmer.

   The back of the SUV got more and more full. We started to worry that we would not have enough room for everything. We were also finding things that were not on Dad's list, but that he wanted. Finally they back was full and all the things on the list were crossed off. We made sure all the lights were off. I grabbed my purse and the things I wanted to take with me. 

   I stood outside and took a picture of the outside of the house. Hopefully in the spring I could come back and look at the back yard. I noticed as we pulled away that the tree we had planted in the front yard when we first moved in, "my tree", was tall and strong.

   We stopped at a fast food place to have some lunch. We were so busy that we had not stopped to eat. As I ate my hamburger, I realized that while the house was a nice house, it was not the house I grew up in. I had no sentimental attachment to it. The house I lived in was safely in my head. After we finished eating we got back into the SUV and headed back north.