Each time I move somewhere new I venture out to spend the day wondering my new neighborhood or the hood for those who are hipsters and like the shortened version of the word. This has become a sort of habit really. I do enjoy switching it up by moving city to city, and have resided at countless addresses over the past 18 years. Whether I move toward or away from something I just have a sense that when things become too familiar I should pack up and move on simply because there is a whole world out there to see.
Until now.
Until this address.
Super small southern town USA has me feeling like it’s history and inhabitants could hold my attention for quite sometime. I actually feel like this is the one town I was meant to find in all my meanderings across North America and abroad. I think I might actually feel at home.
I should tell you we found our house just after Christmas…I like to call it my Miracle on 34th Street house. I knew it was “the one” the second the front door swung open. It’s owner, the seller, greeted us with a little hesitancy and then a pride filled; “Welcome to our home, it is a Georgian Colonial built in 1910.” She had gone to the trouble of baking cookies to make the house smell good – although I never did see the cookies. I am lead to believe they must have been eaten up by all the curious people who had come to the open house hours earlier…we were the stragglers. The house was a beauty, thoughtfully restored, even though the walls had received quite a shock (a quote stolen from the mouth of a wonderful southern woman I have become acquainted) with some of the paint pallet choices, in no way did the smell of fresh baked cookies have to promote this home.
We moved into the house in early February. At closing the woman we bought the house from said; “We left you the keys for the house in a basket in the drawer, a bottle of wine and some beer in the fridge. There is a spare key at the yellow house next door. It’s owned by Ben & Anne Marie, they are good people. I suggest you leave the key there and don’t you dare change the paint in that house. If you need to retouch the paint anywhere Pratt and Lambert’s has the list of colors under my name.”
Three hundred signatures later the house was ours.
All our belongings arrived frozen solid from our temporary (it became 9 months) un-climatized storage unit in winter land Canada. It was a balmy 15 degrees Celsius and we were delighted at the idea that we would have no use for snow tires or show shovels for some time.
Slowly and deliberately I unpacked boxes. With each venture out to the curb to add to my recycling pile a new neighbor came over to meet me and inquire as to the house’s inhabitants. At first I found this odd. No one had ever crossed a street to meet me in any of my other homes except just once a neighbor in Toronto yelled over the back fence at me;
“Do you have kids?”
“No” I replied.
She never spoke to me again. Here though, in the south, it’s all about hospitality and with it comes the old small town values of actually knowing your neighbours. At first I found it was nosy but I’ve come to change my mind about that. It’s genuine interest and respectfully so. With each neighbor's introduction I repeated the answers to their questions:
Yes, I live here with my husband, we are newly weds, he works at the hospital in the next town over, no we don’t have children, but we do have a dog, yes, he does look like a squirrel, speaking of squirrels there are so many here I have never seen so many. Oh, it’s because of the pecan trees, yes we do have two gorgeous pecan trees. Well it’s very nice to meet you, thank you for coming over to introduce yourself to us, we feel very welcomed already.
This went on with each neighbor until later in the week when the last few neighbours came over just to shake hands by introduction and say hello. It seemed they already had the answers to their questions - "it’s a small town, people talk"- I was informed.
And in act of absolute generosity and kindness, home made cookies were baked and delivered to our house by way of the lovely Miss Anne Marie. She had brought them over as a welcoming. I swear I thought this only ever occurred on TV – in all the places I have ever lived, no one had ever brought over home made cookies. I think I ate six one after another in lieu of lunch. Guilt getting the better of me I decided to bag a few for my husband’s lunch. A few, whatever, he does not have to know how many made there way over here originally. The cookies were quickly followed by an invitation to dinner next door. “We felt we should get to know the people who’s house key we are keeping!” Anne Marie said by way of invitation. “Don’t worry” my husband said; “we are only Canadian axe murderers.”
Dinner was amazing. All of it, the food, the company, the generosity of stories and information, the wine, it seemed we could listen to Ben and Anne Marie tell us stories for hours. They laughed when we said we hadn’t chosen this town at first, we were meant to go else where, a larger ocean front city. We were told that story was not new and ironically was just their story as well. Ben said, “ No one was meant to settle here, we all happened upon this town and are still here.”
After dinner Ben who had had a great hunting season, pulled a tube of venison sausage out of the freezer to send home with my husband. Steve and I wandered home hand in hand feeling happy, discussing the night’s events deciding unanimously that we had found the perfect spot to live. Then Steve looked at me, held out the sausage, and said; “hold my sausage I have to go pee” and bolted inside the back door of our house. Laughing loudly I called after him - Do you know what you just said to me? I entered the house and put the sausage in the freezer.
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Days moved into weeks as we settled into our house. I puttered the neighborhood, figuring out where the good stores were, exploring the board walk, more than once having conversations with a rather hard of hearing elderly man who would nod while my lips moved then say exactly what I had said a moment before like it was news.
Michelle: “Hey look there at that little turtle.”
Pause.
Deaf Man: Hey Look at that little turtle there.”
Eventually I would wander back into the historic district admiring the old houses. Many of them have been restored and are looking beautiful. I want so badly to walk up to the front doors of them and ask their owners if I could walk through. I liked to imagine who had lived there. Each house had it’s own distinct personality. Most have a plaque hanging beside the front door boasting the original family name and the year the house was built. Our house does not. I am determined to find out though. My father in law suggested we mock one up for our house that reads our family name circa 2008.
So it’s on this walk when I discover two very curious looking white houses located side by side. If they had historic district plaques you would not know for all over the front porch and lawns and drive ways and down between the houses were precariously propped pieces of what looked to be the oddest collection of discarded furniture. The front porch of one house was clear to the door but had an armoire with all it’s drawers pulled out and stacked one on top of the other on top of it, rolls of indoor outdoor carpeting, a chair, some cardboard boxes, a dolls carriage, an old Christmas tree fully decorated a few bed frames and lord knows what else perched on the porch.
My eye was drawn to the second porch. A five-foot tall metal filing cabinet, and some other articles of furniture visibly blocked its door. I stand and stare trying to take it all in. There in the corner by the top step sat one of the most gorgeous mirrors I have ever seen.
Oh, I think to myself, I wonder who lives here and I wonder if they would want to part with that mirror? It sure would look great on one of the walls of my sparsely furnished house.
Just then an old white station wagon pulls up and turns into the small clear space of driveway between the two white houses and it too is full of stuff, it even has cardboard boxes of more stuff bungeed to the roof. From behind the wheel I see a tiny white haired head. Quickly I turn on my heel and head in the opposite direction toward home. I didn’t want to be caught being a lurky Lou.
Curiosity over the houses inhabitants had got the best of me. The same person must own both houses. I imagined what it looked like inside what treasures were stored within those eight walls and I also wondered if it were filled with cats.
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A dinner invitation was accepted by Ben and Anne Marie to join Steve and I at our house. This was going to be our first dinner hosted in the new house and we were looking forward to it. We actually had a dining room and now thanks to Steve’s mother a proper dining room table which had originally held a prominent position in their childhood family home.
Back in Toronto we were known for hosting dinner parties. Fridays the boys would shop and then drop by to spark up the BBQ for what had become to be known as “Meat Fest” which became “Beer and Meat Fest.” We hosted meals for the holidays and just because days too. Birthdays, Sundays, Thanksgiving and Easter which we nick named “Feaster” because we were not practicing Catholics nor the parents of small children so the day was not about church or hiding tiny candy eggs but rather all about the food. Hence Feaster. We would cram our dinner guests around our old Formica diner table to get down to the business of food, wine conversation and more wine.
Steve and I were really looking forward to hosting our new neighbours. We had been meal planning when he was unexpectedly called into work on the day of the dinner. Dammit! Steve tells me to go ahead with the plans – he’ll join us at 8 pm when he gets in... or try for next Wednesday when I am off again to help with the cooking. By help Steve means -do the cooking. I am always the Sous Chef.
I place a call next door and thankfully Anne Marie is so easy going – they can’t make Wednesday but why don’t I join them at their house since Steve will be out and then I won’t have to eat alone. I arrived with two salads and some berries for dessert. Anne Marie breaks out the olives, corn bread and a delicious beef and barley soup. We get down to the business of eating and talking. I miss Steve, because I am having such a good time, I wish he were there to enjoy with us. Topics of conversation head in every which direction, school, books, retirement, more books, writing, food, childhood stories, referrals for handy men, and finally I decide I will ask if they have any knowledge of the inhabitant of the white houses with all the furniture on the porches. I tell them about my curiosity about the white houses and about the mirror.
Ben with his rich southern accent tells a story in just such a way he easily can hold an audience captive. His voice is like butter.
Ben of course knows a little about the lady of the white houses. He spins me a tale and for a while I am left wondering if he is telling me the truth or if he is pulling my leg just a little. I hope I don’t miss anything in the retelling but it goes something like this:
The woman of the white house is approximately 85 years old she had a job taking care of wards of the state. The last time Ben had spoken to her she said she was taking care of a retarded black man who had become a ward of the state when the armless moonshiner he was living with died. You see the armless moonshiner had the recipe for the moonshine but not the capability to make the formula so under careful guided direction and constant supervision the retarded black man would blend together the ingredients and together they would create the beverage, which he then bootlegged. This was the arrangement and it worked great at keeping them both cared for. One man the whole brain the other the whole body. When the armless moonshiner died the retarded black man could not care for himself as he retained nothing of the recipes or the daily activities of keeping himself or his home so he became a ward of the state who was then cared for by the white haired woman of the white house. Ben said, he asked the white haired woman of the white house if the moonshiner had ever left he retarded black man anything by way of his will - after having had such a long term symbiotic relationship. The white haired woman replied, “Only a stack of armless sweaters.”
Seriously? A stack of armless sweaters? Go on? This is not true. Armless sweaters? Don’t they call them vests down here in the south? Ben said if I see the white haired woman out front her house I should stop to chat and ask her for the mirror she would likely give it to me. Mind you if you decide to stop to talk be sure you have plenty of time. She is known for being long on words.
“Time” I say – “is what I happen to have a lot of right now Ben.”
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I drive my bike though the neighborhood taking a different path each time. With the summer has come my neighbours desire to spruce up their houses. Fences and verandas are going up, exteriors of homes are in stages of repair and paint, landscaping is tended to. I pass by the cluttered white houses without ever seeing any existence of its owner. I do however notice the mirror is gone. In its place are several new treasures. A wrought iron bench, a few empty flowerpots and a cushion for a couch, but no sign of the couch, I scan the porch. No mirror. Oh wait the mirror is there it has just been moved! Clearly summer has brought about improvements to these houses too, in the way of additional lawn ornaments.
I pass by the white houses several times before I finally see the white haired lady outside. She waves at greeting so I slow down and compliment her on her hydrangeas, which are heirloom in size and grandeur, full of beautiful blooming blue flowers.
“Come.” She says, “I have a knife in my pocket, I will cut you some.”
I introduce myself and she asks where I live.
“Oh by the Episcopalian Church,” she says.
“Sort of,” I reply.
While she works at cutting branches off the hydrangea she tells me her name is Helen and that she is 95 years old. She says she was born right here in this very house. She bought the house from her parents and had lived there her whole life. She was a twin. Her sister Harriett lived next door in the other white house.
Mystery solved I thought. I wondered if Harriett was still alive and living there - if so it was her porch where the coveted mirror was, it would be Harriett I would have to speak to about parting with it.
Helen continues on offering information about her home and it’s history she seemed to be very happy to have someone interested in listening to her tell stories of old main street. I was a very captive audience.
Her parents had five girls. With each baby girl born they planted a tree. She points to each tree on the lot and calls them by name.
“There is Cadence she was the eldest, then Laura pointing to a Mimosa tree, see those Pecan trees over there side by side? Those were planted for Harriett and I. My mother had all four of us in 31/2 years. Can you imagine? Then came the baby Margarite. We had to take her tree down because a possum had made a nest in her and had eaten all of its roots.”
The tree was going to fall into her sister’s house; so, an arborist had taken it down, although when this was, I am not sure. I would have asked but I really could not get a word in edgewise since I had made my introduction and that was a good half hour before.
Helen’s mother had wanted 10 children. Her wish fulfilled when each daughter married. Then she had five girls and five boys. She regarded each of her sons in laws as her own, Helen tells me.
Helen talks of the train stopping on the track behind the house, letting off all the Circus animals to bathe in the river before the animal handlers would march them in a parade up main street into town. She said she would perch herself on the porch of the Martin house to watch. I make a mental note to check the house names and look for the Martin House on my next walk down Main Street. And I recall Ben saying, “she’s a talker, you had best have time when you stop by.”
Waving her arm towards the front porch she tells me she wants to have a garage sale but has been too tired to sort all the stuff out to get rid of it. She says some of it belongs to her and some to her son who lives with her and some to her sister. Although, I suspect her porch has looked like that for a very, very long time. Helen plunges into another story about her house as I see my opportunity to ask about the mirror slip by.
“My sister’s husband was named Lolly pop – he survived WW1 to return to the little white house where he opened a store and people would come from miles around to buy his meat as he was an exceptional butcher."
They had no children, so, when he died the business closed and Helen had opened a bicycle shop in its place, which ran good business for a while.
"I don’t want any shops back there now – too much traffic. It was different in those days.” she says.
“The ice truck used to come up the street. The street at that time was much lower.” She gestures with her hands at how much the road has risen with all the layers of gravel and pavement. She tells me she has photos of the street and shops somewhere, if she could find them.
The door of her house opens and out comes a tall well-groomed gentleman in his 70’s. He is wearing a flamboyant floral shirt tucked neatly into walking shorts. His hair is neatly combed and his moustache meticulously shaped. He is carrying a bag and a plastic patio glass full of ice and lemonade. She introduces me, saying I have just moved into the 400 block.
For the first time in more than 45 minutes I have an opportunity to speak. “ Your mother has kindly cut me some flowers to plant in my yard she says if I plant then near a down spout they’ll grow.”
He says, “If my mother cut them they will root and grow, she has a way with plants.” Helen pipes in, “Terrance is a hairstylist he had an add in the paper this week.”
“What salon do you work in Terrance,” I ask?
“Terry,” he says, “ I work just up the road at Silver Scissors.”
“He’s really quite good at it!” Helen brags.
Terrance says, “ I have 40 years practice,” winks at me, tells his mother he is going to a friends and won’t be long. He gets in hi solder model white caddy and drives away.
“Don’t be long” she calls after the car, “my chest is tight today and I don’t fancy being alone.”
Helen then tells me about a myriad of health trouble she has encountered in the last year. “But you are still here! And at 95 you have had a good run of health I comment.” I say and she looks pleased.
I thank her for the flowers – she tells me to come back and let her know how they are growing. I say I will and head for home.
Somewhere along the way the desire for the mirror was lost to the satisfaction of having held a rather informative and engaging conversation. I decided that while the mirror was the impetus for searching out the white haired woman, now known as Helen, the true treasure I got to take home, in addition to a vase full of hydrangeas, was two hours worth of insight into a woman’s life combed through on fast forward over 95 years. Helen chose to share some of the recognizably important events of her life with me. She is a woman who has known my new neighborhood and my street for a lifetime. No amount of circling the block gaping at houses on my part would tell the stories she had just shared.
Ben said, “Make sure you have time when you stop, to talk.”
“Right now all I have is time,” I had replied.
I gave Helen my time and in return Helen gave me a reflection from the mirror of her life.
