A correction from last week:

We’ll be performing at “565 Live” on 23 February, NOT 22 February!  I guess when you’re retired you lose track of dates.  Every day is Saturday!

Sorry I’m a little late this week.  Maybe I’ll tell the story some day.

Working on my mom’s kitchen got me thinking about our perception of what “home” is.  Most of us have fond memories of growing up.  Going home means remembering the sounds and smells of things familiar and happy.  Whether it’s the predictable squeaks on the staircase or the smells of mom’s cooking, there are powerful triggers that send us back decades when we go “home”.  It’s a little different for me because going home means walking up my driveway, turning left and walking 137 feet.

It’s not that I’m not nostalgic about being in my mom’s house it’s just that, as I’ve said before, many of my memories involve headaches from banging my head and waiting for my sister to get out of the 1 bathroom.  Holidays at mom’s are great, but not for the claustrophobic.  It’s always been that way and as we pop out more grandkids and great grandkids it’s only getting worse.  So, when I started dating Peg in 1973, my perspective of “home” changed.

Peg’s parents bought their house in 1956 for the staggering sum of $21,500.  It sat in the very center of Ben Avon on a level, double corner lot.  It was built in 1900 and is a 40′ x 40′, full three story high with heated basement, grand entrance and staircase, 10 foot ceilings with decorative plaster inlays, inlaid hardwood floors, double pocket doors, third story servants quarters with servants staircase, Victorian mansion.  When they bought it, it had been converted into a duplex but they quickly turned it back into a single family home and for the next 53 years raised their 4 children and entertained their numerous grandchildren.  It was, and is, an architectural masterpiece.

By the time Peg and I went on our first date (to see Fantasia in Squirrel Hill on September 23rd, 1973) her siblings were all out of the house.  So the enormous house was occupied by a total of three people. No, wait, I forgot about her grandmother who lived in the servants quarters on the third floor who I only spotted once or twice a year.  So that makes four people.  You could go for days and not run into anyone else!  Peg had her choice of four bedrooms but she, of course, had the largest one.  I spent my first Christmas with the Redman family in 1973 and for the next 35 years it was my second “home”.  At my parents house it was fun filled, cram packed, “don’t stand up or you’ll lose your chair”, pandemonium. At Peg’s parent’s house things were always much more mellow.

Peg’s dad passed away in 2002 leaving her mom to rattle around by herself for the next six years.  She managed, with Peg and Lou’s help, to maintain the place.  She had no desire to go anywhere else and eventually passed quietly, surrounded by family, in the house she loved.  After the funeral, Peg and her siblings were left with the inevitable question.  What happens to the house?

Peg and I had talked about what would happen for a long time.  We were in a position to purchase the house.  To make all of the changes that needed to be made, to bring it into this century, to keep it in the family as a place where both of our families could gather comfortably and keep traditions alive.  But at what price?  The utilities, on a yearly budget plan, where nearly $600 per month.  Taxes another $600 per month.  Although it had plenty of property to build one, it had no garage.  Emotion versus practicality.  Those that know me know that practicality had to win.  Do I sometimes regret the decision?  Of course, but the young family that bought it has a real passion for the history.  They invite us back every Christmas to see the changes they have made and give us a chance to remember.  They’re doing all of the modifications I would have done and are building new memories with their children.

When parents pass there is always the desire to keep the family home in the family.  Everyone wants someplace to go back to.  To recapture happy childhood memories.  To gather under one familiar roof.  To see, and hear, and smell, and feel again the things that made us a family.  But nothing stays the same.  Change is inevitable, and necessary.  We can fondly remember the past but we can’t cling to it.  When we stop moving forward we begin to slowly die.  It’s true for everything, not just the family home.  Relationships, careers, companies, churches, marriages, everything.  But don’t get me wrong.  Change for change sake can be just as disastrous.  It’s our past that provides an anchor for the future. The very core of what we are, who we are, what we believe in our hearts defines us and gives us a framework for the future.

There is a door frame in the dining room where Peg and her siblings were measured every year on their birthday.  A line on the moulding with a name and a date.  The first thing the new owners did was to paint the house.  The whole thing.  From top to bottom.  Everything, except the dining room door frame.  If you forget the past you’ll surely screw up the future.