Readers Write-Houses

Each month, The Sun magazine offers fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, and photos in a black-and-white format without advertising. Each issue includes provocative ideas from people of science, religion, philosophy, the arts, or a combination. Each issue also includes Readers Write, a feature compiling nonfiction submissions from the magazine’s readers on an intentionally broad topic. Occasionally I submit pieces for consideration. More often, I write essays on the topics too late to submit them.

This piece should have been submitted by February 1, 2016, for consideration for the August 2016 issue.

My grandfather made the downpayment on the house my parents moved into when they married, a one-story, two-bedroom bungalow on a quiet, two-block long street–Dudrey Court–in the county seat. The house was big enough for the first four children while we were all under ten–boys and girls shared bedrooms in those days–but my parents hoped for five children, which would be difficult to manage without a third bedroom.

Anticipating that fifth child, Dad converted the attic of the house into a third bedroom. My sister and I moved upstairs and the boys kept the downstairs room. Both rooms were now large enough for three children.

But the fifth child turned out to be twins, two boys. While the boys’ bedroom would work for a couple of years, Dad decided we needed a bigger house. I didn’t want to move. My friends lived in the neighborhood. And I really didn’t want to move to the other side of town. If we moved further south, I would have to switch schools, and that would mean not having the same orchestra teacher, Mr. Pulicicchio, I had had since fourth grade.

I don’t think my parents were eager to move from Dudrey Court either. After looking at a few houses outside the neighborhood, my dad made a decision that surprised everyone. He placed an offer on the only house on Dudrey Court that was for sale, a two-story, two-bedroom house across the street. That house was on a larger lot than our house, large enough to add two more bedrooms at the back of the house.

For another year, four of us shared a bedroom again, but this one had a walk-in closet so big my desk fit in it, giving me as much privacy as I needed. During that year, Dad added two more bedrooms, a master bedroom for Mom and Dad, a small bedroom for the twins, and once again my sister and I moved out of the shared bedroom into our own.

For more than 60 years Dad lived in one of those two houses on Dudrey Court. We kids enjoyed those houses, too, but we grew up and moved away, coming back to spend time in that second house for holidays. Grandpa made a good choice when he selected the house my parents first moved into.