The Long Good Bye

One time, more than a decade ago, I was visiting a friend who lived on the other side of Maplewood, the side that still exists. Her neighbor was obsessed with finding out how many unrelated adults lived in a certain house on the block. He had his suspicions that it was more than allowed. “Wow,” I thought. “He seems a little anal about this.”

I didn’t understand then, but I do now.

Ever since many of the houses became home to students--about ten years before this summer's destruction--the 800 block of Maplewood made for a sad ride. Now, I don’t have anything against, students, God love them, and have aspired to remain one all of my life. But those in the 18-23 year-old category aren’t really concerned about property values and curbside appeal, nor are their landlords.

It took an act of will not to speed up and avert my eyes as I drove past the bushes with the little white flowers in front of 841 N. Maplewood. We used to dive into those bushes and shake them, pretending the white flowers were snow. After awhile, the bushes were ripped out, exposing the brick base of the house.

The screens on the attic windows were out and I wondered how many bats had gotten into the place. My mother always said that summer hadn’t really started until we had a bat in the house. The screens were also off the side porch, which was perhaps my mother’s favorite part of the house. With the white wicker furniture on the cool maroon tile, she and my dad like to take their breakfast out there and watch our part of the world go by.

At least there were no couches in the front yard or no German shepherd poking his head out of an upstairs window with a beer can in his mouth on a Sunday morning, as my mother once saw at another student residence.

My parents moved out of the house in 1996. My dad was retiring from Bradley and four of their five children had moved on. The three-story, six-bedroom house was more than they needed. A few weird things had happened, too. Laundry was stolen off the clothesline in the backyard. And there was a scary but ultimately harmless visit from a man named Cornelius that I’ll describe in the next post.

It was a hard decision for my parents and one made with mixed emotions. On the day they moved out, my mom went around to each room to say good by and think about all the things that had happened there over the years. She insists the house was creaking and groaning as they left.