Welcome Home

When you have lived in a house since 1957, you are anxious to get home, especially after spending the last two weeks in a hospital and a rehab center. Welcome home Mom!

Mom said today though that when they first moved here she wasn't too keen on the place; it was "a port in a storm." Not many options at the time and the old salt box was a bit run down.

Since then, our house -- this house where I was raised and spent 18 years before going to college -- has been worked on bit by bit. Some time during elementary school days I had to help scrape salvaged bricks with a wire brush that were used in restoring the fireplaces. I don't recall that as a particularly fun after school activity, though the results were nice. There was a flourish in the last five years restoring the shed and garage and barn. Dad found a wonderful local carpenter, who he worked side by side with day after day.


The house still has uneven floors with wide pine boards, steep stairs to the second floor, and a few other features that remind you of its 1762 vintage. For us kids, these features seem a little daunting for our Mom who will continue rehab at home after hip surgery. But our parents know the place by feel. They can make their way in the dark from the second floor bedroom, down the stairs, to the bathroom, and back again. Talk about a sense of place.

For a while Mom will stay on the first floor, while she strengthens legs and arms. No doubt she will mount those steep steps again one day.