When I was three, we moved from the corner of Main and Maplewood down the block to the large, light blue, aluminum-sided house on the corner of Maplewood and Laura, address 841 N. Maplewood. I fell in love with the spectacularly garish, red and white cowboy wallpaper in the back bedroom. The cowboys on their horses with their lassos conveyed a world of excitement and adventure that I knew awaited me. My mother did not share my feelings about this sui generis wall covering, and I was helpless in the knowledge that I did not possess the rhetorical skills to convince her of the importance of that wallpaper staying. And so it went, replaced by a non-descript, but much more tasteful, light green pattern.
The neighborhood was already changing.
Fast forward 42 years and it isn’t just the wallpaper that’s going. Last year, after months, if not years, of stonewalling and subterfuge, Bradley University bought this and all the other properties on the 800 and 900 blocks of Maplewood, 20 plus in all. The university is expanding into my childhood front and backyards and those of many of my former neighbors. In a year, the Robertson Memorial Field House is going, too, all to make way for a new sports arena, parking deck, student recreation center, and quad.
I had read the reports in the paper about the confrontations/negotiations between Bradley and the neighborhood associations. Then one day last year, my mom, who is nothing if not a good sport, called me. “Did you see in the paper where our old house sold for $500,000?” she asked, actually laughing. What?! Who paid that for it? was my incredulous response. Some outfit called Lepomis. Even my non-genius mind figured out that had to be Bradley. What was with the cloak-and-dagger act?
My parents had moved from Maplewood after my dad retired from Bradley and most of their five children were gone. The housing market was soft in 1996 and so they rented the house to a family for a year. When my folks were eventually able to sell it, they got much less than six figures for the house. And yet my mother was laughing, not crying, when she reported what would be the final sale price ever for the house.
“Do you wish you’d held onto it?” I asked. No, she replied. They would have had to get in the landlord business and witness first hand the ravages of student living on our beloved homestead. My parents sold the house to a family who lived there for a few years before they sold it to a landlord.
If I seem to have a rather proprietary air about a house that hasn’t been in my family for 11 years, well, isn’t that the way we often are about the things of childhood? My family, the King family, lived at 841 N. Maplewood, from 1964 to 1996, longer than any other family in the property’s 137 year history.
While the house may be history as soon as the end of the month, the memories will go on. I’d like to record a few of them in a place slightly more permanent than my mind and so over the next several weeks, I’ll be writing about my recollections of the neighborhood. I’ll include a little history and some commentary, too. For me, these posts will serve as a ritual to note the passing of a time and place. So, I offer to you, Requiem for a Neighborhood.
The neighborhood was already changing.
Fast forward 42 years and it isn’t just the wallpaper that’s going. Last year, after months, if not years, of stonewalling and subterfuge, Bradley University bought this and all the other properties on the 800 and 900 blocks of Maplewood, 20 plus in all. The university is expanding into my childhood front and backyards and those of many of my former neighbors. In a year, the Robertson Memorial Field House is going, too, all to make way for a new sports arena, parking deck, student recreation center, and quad.
I had read the reports in the paper about the confrontations/negotiations between Bradley and the neighborhood associations. Then one day last year, my mom, who is nothing if not a good sport, called me. “Did you see in the paper where our old house sold for $500,000?” she asked, actually laughing. What?! Who paid that for it? was my incredulous response. Some outfit called Lepomis. Even my non-genius mind figured out that had to be Bradley. What was with the cloak-and-dagger act?
My parents had moved from Maplewood after my dad retired from Bradley and most of their five children were gone. The housing market was soft in 1996 and so they rented the house to a family for a year. When my folks were eventually able to sell it, they got much less than six figures for the house. And yet my mother was laughing, not crying, when she reported what would be the final sale price ever for the house.
“Do you wish you’d held onto it?” I asked. No, she replied. They would have had to get in the landlord business and witness first hand the ravages of student living on our beloved homestead. My parents sold the house to a family who lived there for a few years before they sold it to a landlord.
If I seem to have a rather proprietary air about a house that hasn’t been in my family for 11 years, well, isn’t that the way we often are about the things of childhood? My family, the King family, lived at 841 N. Maplewood, from 1964 to 1996, longer than any other family in the property’s 137 year history.
While the house may be history as soon as the end of the month, the memories will go on. I’d like to record a few of them in a place slightly more permanent than my mind and so over the next several weeks, I’ll be writing about my recollections of the neighborhood. I’ll include a little history and some commentary, too. For me, these posts will serve as a ritual to note the passing of a time and place. So, I offer to you, Requiem for a Neighborhood.
View from the room that had the cowboy wallpaper
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