#WANAFriday: Childhood Homes

WANAFriday prompt for October 18. Write about a house you have loved.

Tatiana de Rosnay has written a fiction book called The House I Loved about Rose Bazelet in France in the 1860s when her house was to be destroyed in the reconstruction of Paris into a modern city. “Necessary progress,” Napoleon III called it.

Rose loved her house and the precious memories held in it, but as she watched the destruction of her neighborhood coming ever closer to her own house, she made a vow. She wrote a letter to her departed husband, telling him of the destruction of their home and memories, and finally, after all these years, telling him the devastating secret she had kept hidden in her heart.

. . .

This book made me think of the houses that I have lived in and loved.

Here’s the house I lived in until I was 18-years-old. At that time, went off to college, and somehow never went home again to live until forty years later. That year my Mom passed away, and the old homestead went up on the market for sale. My brother, Adam, lived in the house after Mom passed away, and I joined him there a few months later. I ended up buying the house from my siblings and renovating it. Many great memories here.

My childhood home

Mom grew up in the house pictured below. It is about two miles from my childhood home. My grandparents raised chickens and turkeys and had a large vegetable garden. Families were self-sufficient at that time (early 1900s), lived near each other, and took care of each other. I remember going down to visit my aunts and uncles in this house on hot summer nights. The adults sat inside drinking iced tea and reviewing the news of the family and the world, and the kids ran around outside catching fireflies, playing baseball, or just making noise in general.

My Mom’s childhood home (picture taken in 2000)

 Here is Mom’s house in the early 1900s.

Mom’s childhood home in early 1900s.

Life is different now. My family is spread far and wide, and I don’t get to see them as often as I would like. And as we age, we lose family members. That is probably the hardest bit of all. From time to time, I drive past my old house and my Mom’s old house and relive some of the memories held there. Maybe there were no devastating secrets, but memories were there nonetheless. Good memories. Nostalgic memories. Family memories.

…

Read Tatiana’s de Rosnay’s excellent book and see how it inspires you to review the houses in your past.

The Last Meow

She forgot to tell you how many cats lived at both of these houses. Generations of cats. Kittens galore. And we had real work to do: chasing mice in the barn, sleeping in the sun, and entertaining all the grandchildren that came around to visit.  A basket of kitties was a common sight!

Meow for now.  =<^;^>=

Here are other #WANAFriday responses for this prompt:

Siri Paulson: Childhood Home

How about you? What house have you loved? What place have you loved?

WANAFriday for 9-20-13. Dandelion Dreaming

Ellen Gregory posted the #WANAFriday (last Friday’s) blog prompt for September 20, 2013:

Share your favourite (or interesting) WORD — what does it mean for you? (Note that Australian spelling there!)

I love words like serendipity, scintillating, effervescent, splendiferous, grandiloquent, sibilant, and supercilious.  All these multisyllable words sound pleasing to me. Some of them have somewhat haughty meanings, but they still sound interesting, sweet, and maybe a bit humorous.

My husband likes the word magnanimous and money. Yes, money does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it.

#MyWANA Favorite Word

Siri Paulson already wrote about serendipity, so I had to choose another word for this prompt challenge.

A recent Facebook posting reminded me of another word I like: Dandelion.

Yes, folks, dan-de-li-on. Some folks consider it a weed, but where I come from, we know better.

photo: fcpsdotedu

Not that dandelion has always been a lovely word for me.

When I was a kid, those egg-yolk-yellow dandelions blanketed our football-sized front and side lawns, squeezing out the more desired green-velvet grass. Mom, always looking out for what the neighbors thought, decided that a dandelion infested lawn in our nice neighborhood was not socially acceptable, so she decreed that we kids had to get out there on perfectly good icy-cold-Maurice-River-swimming days to dig out these perverse lawn inhabitants and dispose of them.

Mom didn’t like it when the flowers turned from yellow to white puffy balls, and the feathered seeds starting flying through the air on the light summer breezes, seeking new rooting grounds (notably our neighbors’ lawns) to infest. (What would the neighbors say then?) And, beware, if any one of us kids ever, ever, ever blew on those fluffy seed balls, trouble would surely follow. Back then, there were no taboos about spanking children!

photo: legallysocialbledotcom

No. Mom wanted those dandelions out of her lawn. Pronto!

So, day after day, on the hottest of days, my Little Brother Bobby and I sat out on the lawn persistently digging out dandelions, not always with the best attitude, I might add. (A few dandelion flower fights made it a little more interesting, but only when Mom wasn’t looking.)

We thought this whole dandelion destruction debacle was a losing battle, but Mom had different ideas. She was determined to have a lawn as nice as Mrs. Cervini’s down the street.

Well, Mom won. After that summer, our lawn did look as nice as Mrs. Cervini’s. Green, nicely trimmed, and dandelion free. We kids felt pretty proud about that, too.

What? Dandelions Can Be Eaten? Who Knew?

Now, here’s the thing. Dandelions are a cash-crop delicacy in my hometown, Vineland, NJ. In fact, Vineland holds bragging rights to being the “Dandelion Capital of the World.”  (Not far away, in Hammonton, NJ, is the “Blueberry Capital of the World.”)

We didn’t know that dandelions were valuable when we were digging up and disposing those dastardly weeds to make Mom happy.

Yes, dandelion is a valuable food crop in early spring. You can use dandelions in soups, salads, fritters, muffins, breads, and even tasty wine. I haven’t heard of a dandelion dessert, but who knows, some creative chef out there may have dreamed up a sweet, melt-in-your-mouth dandelion dish. Vinelanders hold dandelions in high esteem in a special spring festival each year. A dandelion dinner at Merighi’s Inn on East Landis Avenue is the real deal.

Dandelion Salad Fit for Royalty

We had simpler fare at home. Each spring, Mom made dandelion salads, decorated with hard-boiled eggs sprinkled with paprika, to accompany our evening meals. “Dandelions are loaded with vitamins A and C, iron, and beta-carotene,” she claimed. “Eat!”

“The secret to good dandelion salad,” she said, “is to pick the tender leaves before the plant forms its flowers. (Once the flowers bloom, the leaves taste bitter.) Add a little vinegar-oil-garlic dressing, and there you have it: a delicious, healthy spring salad. Decorate the salad with hard-boiled eggs sprinkled with paprika and enjoy. Simple, but delicious.”

Today’s WANA favorite prompt brought back a lovely childhood memory. Check the following posts for other #WANAFriday Participants’ favorite words:

Di Bell digs deep and finds some wonderful lost words.
Ellen Gregory shares her love of kitties with the word ailurophile. 
Julie Farrar uses her word as a jumping-off point. (Look for a kitty in here, too.)
Kim Griffin goes nostalgic with a Mary Poppins’ word.
Siri Paulson beats me to the punch with serendipity.

The Last Meow

Favorite Word? For a cat? That’s easy. Eat-play-sleep. That reminds me. I think it’s nap time now. Maybe I’ll head out to the dandelion patch and take a snooze.

photo: flickrdotcom

Meow for now.  =<^;^>=

Five Recipes for Dandelion Wine