Pictured for this month’s header is my maternal grandmother’s house circa 2012 according to Google Maps’s street view. It looks practically the same with a few exceptions.
- I don’t recall the tree out front, guessing upon its age, my mother had it planted in the last few years.
- On the right side there’s a central air system installed. This is something Grandma wouldn’t have bothered with.
- The bushes under the front windows were in the process of dying away. Again, Mom either removed them or they died off 20 years ago.
- Another part of the front steps must’ve been in the process of being rebuilt.
- It’s also not covered in snow!
I chose to go with this because December 1993 was the last month I actually lived there. I put “lived” in italics since I was in the process of planning my escape from Bloomington-Normal. Plan A was getting the offer from Austin through my MIA friend Doc. Plan B…there really wasn’t a solid Plan B as I look back. Maybe I would’ve just gone to temp work around the area (fat chance) until I saved up enough money to go with the original idea, moving back to Milwaukee. Forget Plan C, this was probably committing suicide; staying in the area was out of the question.
January 1994 entailed mostly wrapping up my affairs which I’ll cover another day as a part of a 20th anniversary blatherfest celebrating the move to Austin.
December 1993 otherwise was a cold, miserable time. Grandma was set in her sedentary, housebound lifestyle and hadn’t really modernized the house in numerous ways: the place was drafty in Winter, uncomfortable in Summer, no shower (I should’ve scraped up for a gym membership instead of scheming how install one), the electrical system was one surge away from destroying my Mac, the list goes on. Yet I had little choice after July, my roommate Greg secretly went in another place with two other mutual acquaintances. He didn’t have the decency to tell me ahead of time. I don’t complete blame him then, my reaction was likely to be nasty but it worked out, he got stuck with a pair of deadbeats while I left to live in a nicer climate. I do hope he’s doing alright 20 years later though. Of all the people we knew around Bloomington-Normal, Greg was a rarity in that he didn’t want to settle for a getting-by existence. Last I did hear, he went back to ISU, earned another degree and landed a gig with State Farm or as the locals say, “Greg became a ‘Farmer.'”
Back to the house.
I holed up in the spare bedroom on the main floor much to Grandma’s irritation. Beats me why, she had her own room down the hall. Grandpa was content with the “upstairs,” really a modified attic. Many belongings I didn’t need immediately were stored in the basement. What I felt was vital I had in the room and it was a tight fit, the elderly love to hoard useless crap, especially if they lived through the Depression.
The situation sucked immensely. I was only present to sleep, take a bath (a minor ordeal), do laundry or make a mix tape. Eating was a rarity due the lack of space in the fridge. After Helen’s birthday in October, my temporary stay transformed from finding a new, affordable apartment (on Midwestern crap wages? HA!) to the staging point I would leave for Austin from…now if the offer would just arrive!
My parents harangued me too. They said my presence was stressful on Grandma. I thought, “How exactly?” I do my best to avoid her routine of naps, eating ham sandwiches, watching cycles of CNN and bitching about how the world is falling apart. Had she lived to see President Obama, Grandma would’ve become a Republican Faux News drone. Grandpa was a different situation. His driver’s license was finally revoked over the previous Summer; how I loved the phone call in the middle of Gen Con. Without his mobility, Grandpa was the bigger source of stress than I could ever be. At least I would do the laundry I was allowed to do, paid for all my long-distance calls and often handled my own food. These were the least I could do, given my crap pay. Besides, the ‘rents were being hypocrites because they conveniently forgot whenever they crashed there instead of checking into a hotel.
Not all memories with this house were awful. Many rocked! It was often the destination with the holidays and Summers after we moved downstate. Grandma always had better cable TV compared to what was offered in Champaign-Urbana or Springfield. My brother Brian and I always found ways to entertain ourselves until we evolved into surly teenagers. The house used to be a bastion of familiarity and comfort during the early Eighties while we lived in Houston, Indianapolis, North Dakota and my years in Milwaukee attending Marquette. Brian’s experiences are certainly different, it was his primary residence for 75 percent of his high school days. The strongest events revolve around food and Christmas. It was the secondary Chez Maggi throughout the first half of my life.
I will need to ask my brother what’s the status on the house. Namely if our mother is having it remodeled or did she sell it which was my advice. I’m a strong advocate of holding on to a legacy but the neighborhood had been sinking into oblivion after the Seventies. All the houses were getting squeezed by all the commercial interests at to get the land.