Our House

A house, in the middle of the street.

I was 14 years old when my parents moved us into this house. The apartment we lived in was too small, it only had two small bedrooms and there were now seven of us (small is relative, in Mexico we all shared one bedroom). So, when my parents spotted this house for rent they had to inquire. At the time the house was white with a brown roof, it had a charming porch, something new houses don't have anymore, and it was a two story house, how cool was that?

Inside it had a small foyer then to the left a straight stair case going up to the second floor and ending directly where our only bathroom was. To the right was the living room, followed by the formal dining room and lastly there was small bedroom. Past the foyer was a hall that lead to the kitchen.

The upstairs was simple, it had three very big bedrooms and one bathroom, that was it. The first two bedrooms were divided by a shared long closet, and the last one had it's own closet and was slightly bigger than the other two bedrooms.

The house looked innocent enough but if you happened to be the only one in it say at around when it was dark it was actually a bit creepy. Because it was all wood, including the floors it made all sort of weird noises when the sun sat down, as the wood compressed with the change in temperature. We always got that haunted house gut feeling if you know what I mean. However, the house was hardly ever empty, with so many of us living there there was always noise and action going on.

The landlord offer it to my parents and my mom knew it would be a great buy, so this house became the first house my parents ever owned. Bought it for $17,000 and sold it seven years later for $75,000. This was one of the best investments they made, although with my mom's brains for business there were more. Consider this, my mom did not go to school ever, where she came from they only offered as far as the third grade and it was mostly reserved for the boys.

Last year we went to Los Angeles for a weekend and we drove by the old neighborhood. We went past the house and captured some images of it. As my sister would say, the house is no longer white, it is now a "gay pink", don't ask because I don't know where she come out with that color but it made us laugh.

We all have nothing but good memories of that house, the house that for the first time made us feel that we were important as we felt my then middle age parents had finally achieved something important.

Funny though because for them that was just the beginning.