Today's reminiscence is one that is shared by all generations, but I'm going to wax poetic on my own particular experience.
Our little tract home in Miami, Oklahoma seems cramped by today's standards. It was three bedrooms and one bath. My eldest brother had his own room, while the middle and myself shared another.
It was a cozy, wonderful place to spend the first eight years of my life.
But one day, about 1965, a remarkable transformation took place overnight. My oldest brother headed off to college, and my other brother took over his room.
I had a room all to myself!
Indeed, it was a very liberating experience for all three siblings. One on his own for the first time, and two others with their own private hideaways.
One memory I vividly recall was Terry asking me if i wanted a huge, ugly No Trespassing sign that someone had liberated from a government facility somewhere. It was attached to his bedroom door, and apparently mom was eager to see it go, because she hauled it to the trash before I could answer "Heck yes!"
My room became sort of a bedroom/den, as the television was hauled in there. A swamp cooler was also installed, So needless to say, "my" room was a very popular place on hot summer days and nights.
I remember sitting in that room watching that television when Martin Luther King's assassination hit the news. I had heard of him, but wasn't sure why anybody would want to kill a man who kept saying we should have peace and stop fighting among ourselves.
I guess I still don't get it.
I loved having the TV in there because my mom might stay up until 10:00 watching it, and I would fall asleep listening to it. That was WAY past my bedtime, BTW.
Later, my brother Bill joined the Navy, and I had the whole house to myself. Headsome times, indeed.
Today, my beautiful bride of nearly twenty-five years and I have a 1500 square foot home to ourselves. I gained an office when my daughter left two years ago, and now we have an unused bedroom that was formerly inhabited by her younger brother, now on his own out in California.
This is the stuff that fills a middle-aged Boomer's head with all sort of conflicting emotions.
I guess I'd better get used to it.
Comments (3)
Funny how the circle keeps repeating, and remains
unbroken. Sibs moving out, kids moving out,
etc. Unfortunately, things are a little more
fluid now, and kids don't have the chance to put down roots as solid as in the past will all the moves and family dispersions. At one time not long ago, all family members would reside somewhere in the same city all their life, with extended families tying down community ties strongly as well. Now, the moment when all family
members and relatives are in the same house/area
at the same time is rarer and valued all the more. That's when appreciation for the more
constant and tighter family units of the past
comes into play, and reminds us of how lucky we were to be probably the last generation raised
with tight external familes who all lived in the same city. As families had far more children
in the 40's - 60's, we boomers had a motherload of kinfolk in our towns/cities growing up, and
we can only hope that we retain as much of that
togetherness as possible with what relations we have left in area.....
Posted by Scott | September 20, 2007 7:54 AM
Posted on September 20, 2007 07:54
I know what you mean, Scott. I am still in the home my folks bought before I was born. I arrived 14 years later than my brother. My parents used to laugh and say I was their "old age insurance." And I was, staying here and tending to them till death. I, too, had a large extended family in this town and county, but being as they were all so much older, they are all gone too-- their children and grandkids all having had that urge to move to other places. It gets a little lonely at times, but it is nice to be at a site like this and reminisce with other like-minded boomers!
Posted by NCeddie | November 23, 2008 5:59 AM
Posted on November 23, 2008 05:59
Hmmmmm! It was just me and my sister in one room as a very young child. It wasn't until about 8 or 9 years, the family expanded the house with building an upstairs bedroom and I was the one to occupy that room! So I had it pretty lucky! My own room at an early age!
Posted by Rivers End | September 13, 2009 10:23 PM
Posted on September 13, 2009 22:23