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From the outside, the house at 622 W. Beech in Independence, Kansas, really hasn’t changed all that much in the 58 years the Sell family has owned it.
There’s been the occasional paint job, though now the exterior has faded from years of sunbaking. Some of the bushes in front of the house have been removed. When healthy, they provided beautiful landscape, as they always were neatly trimmed in a nice row.
In the backyard, the laundry line poles have rotted to the point where they’re barely standing, as has the basketball goal, as the wood has decayed so much that if anybody shot a basket, it would probably crumble. And the grass, worn down by years of endless wiffle ball and basketball games, has grown back so much you’d never know it used to be the mecca of youth action in the neighborhood.
Other than that, it’s still pretty much the same, except for one thing -- it’s now a house and no longer a home.
As of March 1, the house became uninhabited. The decision was made to move my father to assisted living after 16 years of having been on his own following the passing of my mother in 1995, who courageously battled cancer for 2 1/2 years before succumbing to the disease there’s never really a total cure for. Just recently, he has been moved to a nursing home, as his dementia has rendered his mind to a mere fraction after having been sharp as a tack. He’s basically unaware of all the madness in the world today, which probably is for the better considering what an unmitigated mess the country is in.
It didn’t hit me just how empty the house is until last weekend during a visit. I stopped by to check and secure it, making sure vandals or other scum of the earth had not broken in and trashed the place.
Some of the furniture was taken from the house to furnish my Dad’s assisted living quarters. And my sister and I have gotten rid of a lot of clutter that has accumulated over the years.
It felt so empty, so lifeless. The piano was still there and my bedroom and parents’ bedroom haven’t been touched. We took my sister’s bed for my father to use, as it’s easier for him since he’s been rendered to a wheelchair.
From the outside, the house at 622 W. Beech in Independence, Kansas, really hasn’t changed all that much in the 58 years the Sell family has owned it.
There’s been the occasional paint job, though now the exterior has faded from years of sunbaking. Some of the bushes in front of the house have been removed. When healthy, they provided beautiful landscape, as they always were neatly trimmed in a nice row.
In the backyard, the laundry line poles have rotted to the point where they’re barely standing, as has the basketball goal, as the wood has decayed so much that if anybody shot a basket, it would probably crumble. And the grass, worn down by years of endless wiffle ball and basketball games, has grown back so much you’d never know it used to be the mecca of youth action in the neighborhood.
Other than that, it’s still pretty much the same, except for one thing -- it’s now a house and no longer a home.
As of March 1, the house became uninhabited. The decision was made to move my father to assisted living after 16 years of having been on his own following the passing of my mother in 1995, who courageously battled cancer for 2 1/2 years before succumbing to the disease there’s never really a total cure for. Just recently, he has been moved to a nursing home, as his dementia has rendered his mind to a mere fraction after having been sharp as a tack. He’s basically unaware of all the madness in the world today, which probably is for the better considering what an unmitigated mess the country is in.
It didn’t hit me just how empty the house is until last weekend during a visit. I stopped by to check and secure it, making sure vandals or other scum of the earth had not broken in and trashed the place.
Some of the furniture was taken from the house to furnish my Dad’s assisted living quarters. And my sister and I have gotten rid of a lot of clutter that has accumulated over the years.
It felt so empty, so lifeless. The piano was still there and my bedroom and parents’ bedroom haven’t been touched. We took my sister’s bed for my father to use, as it’s easier for him since he’s been rendered to a wheelchair.
I decided to go from room to room and, oh, how the memories came flooding back.
When you walk into our house -- which is modest to say the least, but it was good enough for us -- the first room is the family room.
There’s hardly anything left, but we can remember it like yesterday when the family would gather every Saturday night, setting up trays to eat dinner on. It was always steak for Mom and Dad, cheeseburgers for me and the sis. We would watch “The Jackie Gleason Show” religiously on our 19-inch black and white TV, and my Dad always thought of the Great One as a dead ringer for his father, who was quite a showman in his own right.
I can also remember as we were home for lunch on Nov. 22, 1963, when our favorite family soap opera, “As the World Turns,” was interrupted by Walter Cronkite, who tearfully informed the country that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. For the next couple of days, the three networks -- that’s all there was at the time -- carried everything Kennedy. Who can ever forget John-John standing at attention in honor of his father at his funeral, not knowing he would someday meet his own tragedy?
The family room also was the domain for our dog, Gretchen -- I never did figure out that name. She was the heartbeat of everything that went on in the house and was our focal point for 15 years. There was a long period of time when only her two front legs functioned and she would drag her backlegs, though more often than not we just picked her up. But one day, like a miracle, she was able to walk as it truly was a gift from God.
I moved into the kitchen, which was not much bigger than a postage stamp. This is where my mother, who was of Italian descent, cooked the most wonderful meals, though I would take my serving of hash and sneak it under the table to the dog. My mother knew I was doing it, but never really said much.
The kitchen also was where I did my homework, though more often than not, not very successfully. My mother and I would work hours and hours trying to figure out Algebra problems for Mrs. Duryea’s class, and generally, my mother would figure it out and I would tell her that’s how I would have done it. I always told Mom that for what I wanted to do in life, Algebra would not be a necessity.
Moving to the living room, the fondest memories were of my parents hosting bridge club. They would close the partition back to the bedrooms, but the smell of smoke was in the air, as most folks smoked back in those days, though my mother never did and my father only puffed a few deathsticks a day. The living room also was where my Dad’s band would practice and those guys could really pound out some sweet Dixieland.
I only glanced at my sister’s room, especially since it’s now empty. As a kid, I almost never went in there -- too many girlie-girl things.
Memories of my parents’ room are somewhat painful. Mainly it’s the mental picture of my mother laying on her bed, writhing in pain, knowing that her end was near. She never, ever complained or put blame on the Big Man above about her misfortune. She toughed it out to the end and the calendar by her bed still says May 20, 1995 -- the day she passed.
Finally, it was on to my room. As you would imagine, it’s everything sports, from the many golf trophies to the 1967 St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball championship pennant. My grandfather and I were the two most religious Cardinal fans around and as a 10-year-old, I would fall asleep listening to St. Louis games on KMOX, which had a signal that boomed halfway across the country. A trophy commemorating the first of my eight hole-in-ones has the ball I hit -- a Blue Max, for gosh sakes — on a tee. My collection of Chip Hilton sports books are still in the case and photos of my numerous youth basketball teams and golf teams still hang on the wall.
The house will soon become a home again, however, as my sister and I have made the decision to put it on the market. While it will hardly be a financial windfall, you can’t put a pricetag on the memories. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about those days, when the world was a simpler place, gas cost 29 cents a gallon and children respected their parents to the point of sometimes even fearing them as you never did anything to go against them. Oh, how we wish we could turn back the clock and do it all over again.
