How A House Becomes A Home

Willy the Whale in Wally's Room

If I searched for a reason how I managed to emerge from the house after six months of hiding from the world and feeling very sorry for myself being in New Jersey it actually had to be the people. That is a pretty amazing relevation considering the fact that most southerners consider those living north of the Mason-Dixon line to be unfriendly and rude. It was certainly a learning experience in a lot of ways.

In the fifteen years Dennis and I had been married the move to Riverton was number nine and the third Ford Motor Company move. I count the move from Arlington, Texas to Carrollton, Texas as a Ford move because we moved closer to Dennis's office.  That move and the one to Kansas City was the typical large corporation thinking in that you build a new house in a new neighborhood so when you get transferred again you get the maximum appreciation on the house when you sell. Nice thought but as they say, money isn't everything.

The new house in the new subdivision maybe nice but all the people you meet are from some place else and know that they won't be there for long.  Boxes don't get unpacked and lasting friendships don't get made.  Kansas City was a great example for me as all my neighbors not only stayed pretty much on their own block or joined a group like New Neighbors to hang out with other people who wished they were someplace else. I was lucky in Kansas City because of the decorating business I met a lot of "natives" and was able to see the town as home rather than the current tourist attraction.

The move to the east coast was frightening because of how unfriendly the people would be, there was no way we could afford the new house where all the other Ford employees lived and here we were living in a town the real estate agent had thought was the scourge of the earth.
It sounded like it was a setup for disaster and we did a very good job at first making that come true.  After all our cat ate the baby cardinals, we chopped down the huge shrubs,  put awful Christmas lights on the house, had two little boys and a dog running loose and strange trailers and cars in the driveway.  Then there was this old lady that kept popping up on my porch wanting to be friends when the New Neighbors had preached that friends don't pop up on your porch. To top it all off we lived in the "Adams" house who were pillars of the community.

My best guess is that for six months everyone watched us while we watched them.  Perhaps that is the "Yankee" way.  No rushing up on first sight with big smiles and welcomes then suddenly no one pays much attention to you as they are too busy with whatever they have to do.  The "Yankee" way is to carefully study the newcomer with just a casual stare when you pass them in the store at first, that slowly changes to a polite nod, then to a smile with a nod until they decide you may be okay and it doesn't look like you are going anyplace else.  That slow warm up then turns into a lasting friendships with some very interesting people.  The other fact is that no transients chose Riverton to live so that in it's self made it more difficult for them to shun us.           
The funny coincidence of suddenly being accepted occurred  after the arrival of Ms. Vogue Magazine, aka Mother.  Perhaps it was her perfectly matched running outfits (I was in cutoffs and a sweatshirt) or the neighbors viewing her in the smashing Lord and Taylor/Neiman Marcus outfits as we dashed out the door to exciting places.  Maybe they decided we might have some class after all.  My Mother had turned into a very flirtatious woman in the past few years which was amazing for me to watch and a great pleasure for all the neighborhood men.    

The first to come and meet Mother on her arrival was, of course, our next door neighbor and regular afternoon visitor, Danny Mento.  He was in love with Wes and Wally and usually arrived with food, treats or toys for them.  Danny was the picture of the Italian man and his wife, Mary Jane, had put up with him since the day they graduated from high school some four decades earlier. Danny sold new Oldsmobiles and played a saxophone in his own little Jazz band at all the clubs and hotels in South Jersey.  My very favorite story of his was how if you arrive home at 6:00 in the morning it is a good thing to walk into the house backwards so the neighbors don't really know whether you are coming or going. I always thought the tuxedo would give him away.

At first Mother tried to act rather aloof but that could not last long with Danny.  Very soon it was like watching a contest on who could flirt the best.  Mary Jane and I would try very hard not to roll on the floor in laughter but it was pretty hard. One evening we were all invited to their home for dinner which Danny's Mother and sister arrived with since Mary Jane did not cook.  That was the most outstanding Italian dinner I ever had and an evening filled with laughter at stories from both Danny and Mary Jane. It was rather interesting that Danny's mother and spinster sister were always dressed in black - perhaps something about being Italian I did not understand.

There was an evening of drinks and snacks on Sis's porch.  Since Sis was the one who was really working hard to make us a part of the community I think she invited the entire town to drop by the last evening of Mother's visit. I am forever thankful for her hospitality that evening as it turned those east coast stares into real conversations and smiles when I met people on the street. Sis always said that South Jersey was like a part of the mid-west plunked down one the east coast.  I didn't understand her statement, especially since she had never spent much time in the mid-west, but I think she had been trying to tell me that they were just as good at hospitality as other parts of the country. I loved every inch of our new, old house dust balls on the hardwood floors included but that evening at Sis and Gus's house made made the move to Riverton home.

Mother flew back to the wild west of Oklahoma with promises of many more visits to come.  I put the new running shoes back in their box promising myself I would not ruin them by mowing the yard or painting with them on.  Of course I was not going to continue the morning dash around town but perhaps I would trade the cut offs and sweatshirt for something more stylist before Mother's next arrival.

Raising two boys who were four years apart in age was always a challenge or maybe it was just Wesley that was the challenge.  Sis, in her effort to blend us into the community, asked if Wes and Wally could be waiters at a spaghetti dinner at the church.  There were not many children that attended the church and I did wonder how a six and ten year old would work our as waiters but I marched then down to the church for the dinner.

Actually they did a pretty good job and at the end of the evening they gave the boys four boxes of leftover Neapolitan ice cream, the kind with vanilla, strawberry and chocolate in separate little sections in the box.
Naturally the boys thought that was pretty cool as each boy had two boxes of their very own. A few days later Wally is crying his little heart out after getting one of his boxes of ice cream out of the freezer.  It seems like Wes had gotten into Wally's ice cream and very carefully cut the sections of chocolate out and eaten all of it. So I had Wally crying his eyes out and Wes explaining that he only liked the chocolate and he had left the vanilla and strawberry for his little brother. What was the problem?  Oh, the challenges of being a parent.  I wanted to take away every privilege that Wes had or give him a good spanking but it was difficult to get any words out without laughing. The best thing I could do was to hide in the bathroom for a few minutes to get over the laughter, then take Wally to the store for his own box of chocolate ice cream and tell Wes if he touched it he would never get to eat again.

Is there something wrong with me?  School will be out in a week and I am looking forward to the summer?