Looking for Home

Growing up I lived in at least 15 houses. I was born in Philly, then my family, which was very small at the time: my Dad, my stepmother, Marilyn, who we called Mommy, me and and my two younger brothers Dedgie and Danny, moved to the West Coast, and along the way lived in Albany, NY, Albion, NY, in a tent on Fancher Campus in Brockport, NY, a brick house on Oneida St. in Denver, Colorado,and in an Airstream trailer in the Rocky Mountains. We eventually ended up living in Bellingham Washington. I still remember the names of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Cronkhite, who was young and pretty, wore mini dresses, and had a blonde bouffant, and my second grade teacher, Mrs. Mellon, who was also young and equally pretty and had a brunette bob. Both were teachers at Columbia Elementary School. My parents were an interracial couple, and I was in an all white school, but my teachers doted on me, and didn't make me feel that looking different meant I wasn't as good as everyone else. I remember the route I walked to school, and that is how I finally found the house I lived in when I was 5 on Google maps. I confirmed that it was the correct address with a librarian at the Bellingham Public Library, who found my Dad's name in the phone directory for that year.

It was 1970. I still believed in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I knew all of the neighbors on my street.

Next door to us was a newlywed couple with rhyming names: Sandy and Randy, they had an artificial gold fish pond in their back yard, the "mean man"was across the street, the "fat lady" Margaret two houses down, she always let us run in her house and play in her backyard, and at the end of street in the biggest house on the block: the Thompson family. They had 8 kids. I thought it would be really neat if we had big family too. I longed to have a sister, and more playmates. They seemed to have a lot of fun at their house, and my parents were good friends with them. I remember some of their children's names: Heidi, Valerie, Laura, Jeff, and their son, Bobby, who was my age. The teenage daughters in the family danced to Roy Orbison's "Sweet Dreams My Baby" on 45" one day. We had dinner together sometimes, but their family was very strict, and ours was more happy and carefree.

We were only allowed to watch a handful of tv shows: Batman, The Wonderful World of Disney, Wild Kingdom, Kaptain Kangaroo, Sesame St., and one in the morning: Romper Room, where the host would look into her magic mirror and say, "I see Tommy, and Bobby, and Tammy..." I waited in vain for her to see "Desiree"! We had to be in bed by 8. Dad would give us 10 minutes to brush our teeth and run upstairs to our beds before the monster came. Then he would come roaring up the stairs, punctuating the roar with the sound of his metal crutches hitting the stairs, then his foot thumping as he ascended. Dad was an amputee with one leg. We would be giggling under the covers. Then he would tell us bedtime stories like the "Three Little Piggies." He would tell us two or three stories before going back downstairs to his room.

Looking back to those times I can recall some very minor encounters with racism, but Dad shielded us from it. When we first moved in someone wrote the word "nigger" on the sidewalk in front of our house. I asked Dad what that meant. He just said "it's a bad word" and wouldn't explain it to us. He washed it away. I think he had an idea of who did it and took care of it himself. Another time a girl from school invited me to her house to play. When her mother saw what I looked like, she sent me directly home over her daughter's crying pleas. I was able to brush it off because most people there were very nice and I had a lot of friends. In that house I discovered my passion for art. Mommy took me to the YMCA to take ballet classes. I threw a tantrum and absolutely refused when I saw all of the little girls in frilly tutus pouting at me. She then enrolled me in art class, which I loved. I learned tie dye, and candle making, among other things.

The house was painted white when we lived in it, and now it is blue, but other than that it looks just like I remember it. We had prickly holly bushes in the front yard, and plum trees in the back yard. Dad used to take us on crabbing trips to Gooseberry Point. You had to catch a ferry to Lummi Island. Researching Gooseberry Point, I remember the ferry trips, and Dad driving his car onto the ferry. He would sit on the dock and drop his crab trap, while us kids played on the beach and collected shells and sand dollars. Dad had a pink 57' Plymouth with fins on the back. One day when I was playing in the yard, I put dirt, rocks and grass in his gas tank, and ruined his car forever. I did it very innocently. I didn't know it would ruin his car. I'm surprised he didn't put me up for adoption! My Dad passed away last year. I guess that makes me long to reach back to the days when I felt safest and happiest as a small child. I still have yet to find two other houses we lived in after that, but when I do, I will be sure to write about them!