{Forty days in Lent and forty rooms to explore…that’s where we’ve been and where we are headed.}
The room where our kids grew up was the den in our home in Settlers’ Landing.
That neighborhood was in the Chesterfield County suburb of Richmond, a subdivision that had been intended to be a little Williamsburg. Originally a wooded area between two older developments and including the property of a former Girl Scout camp, Settlers’ Landing would have included some sizeable “colonial” homes, in Williamsburg-approved colors, on smaller lots. But the developer apparently built only two or three homes before the concept failed. So, the bank(s) took it over (as I understand it) and much smaller homes were constructed by three or four different construction companies. But the Williamsburg/colonial idea remained, if downsized. When we bought our lot and had a home built, only certain exterior colors were allowed.
Our home was a two story, four bedroom house. Like most of the other neighboring homes, the first floor plan included a living room, dining room, kitchen, and den. Since this had become a kind of “starter home” neighborhood, it turned out that a few first-time homebuyers had too little furniture to place in a formal living room, and those rooms were nearly vacant! Nice carpet, a chair…that was about it. Not many folks used the so-called living room. They did their living in the den.
Now, we did have living room furniture, including Joan’s childhood piano on which she taught lessons to neighborhood kids. But we too lived mostly in the den. It and the kitchen ran across the back of the house, almost as one room. That was especially convenient early on. Joan could watch our two young children while preparing meals. All that divided the space was a kitchen table. And the tiny furnace room placed conveniently mid-house, since the home was built during the energy crisis of the mid-1970s.
The den furniture was from “This End Up,” a brand of “crate” furniture popular at the time. It was so sturdy that the heavy wooden sofa, chair, and foot stool survived for decades, and is probably still being used somewhere today. A fireplace provided winter comfort and warm ambiance between two built-in bookcases filled with a pastor’s library and some pleasure reading as well. We were told that the “old brick” used for the fireplace, as well as the decorative brick along the exterior foundation, had come from an old demolished downtown Richmond building. We liked that it was rescued brick.
The lower bookcase cabinets held the 19″ color TV on one side and my turntable, amp, and reel-to-reel on the other. Large wood cabinets held the 12″ tri-axial Utah audio speakers. And when we tinkered with house plans, we asked the builder to wire some headphone jacks into the wall between the den and living room. I liked lying in the middle of the living room floor late at night, listening to music plugged into those audio jacks. Some nights, from the upstairs bedroom, Joan would hear the record “stick” while I had fallen asleep during side B. She’d have to wake me up to change LPs. Yes, she, upstairs, had heard the music from my headphones. It’s a wonder I have any hearing left.
Our two kids spent hours each day in the den. Watching TV, reading, playing games. Wendy had her dolls and Jim his Legos. Birthday parties, family visits, and just day-to-day living happened there. And at Christmas, we put a Chrismon tree in the living room, but the den was home to the bigger one with the kids’ presents, and stockings tacked under the fireplace mantel. On one wall at the back of the room was a large corkboard, complete with the kind of things magnets now attach to fridges. Plus a map of the U.S. Or, was it the whole the world?
So, there were the four of us lounging on This End Up or lying on the striped carpet floor. Plus, soon, the fifth member of the family: Ivan the Terrible. The green monster. Our mini-Godzilla. Ivan came from the pet store a four-inch, very green, iguana. By the time he or she (never really knew….only suspected) went to lizard heaven, that 18 year-old pet was well over three feet, head to tail. If it were not for the size of the cages through the years, we suspect Ivan might have been even longer.
It was Jim’s creature, and he was a responsible caretaker. Oh, the stories we could tell. About the lizard’s diet, about how she/he didn’t like to be handled, about that love of collard greens, about how infrequently she/he pooped. About once a week, I’d guess. So our den surrounded that cage, its heat rocks, sunlamp, climbing logs, etc. For a pet you couldn’t actually, well, pet–we loved that thing. And when an Asian exchange student visited once, she was fascinated by how Ivan just sat there and stared. And stared. “Just like the Buddha,” she said.
When we look at the photos of our two children in their early years, the chances are very good that the picutres were taken in that den.
I have no conclusion for you about this personal history of ours. A couple of readers have told me that my “rooms” have prompted memories of their own. I hope they are happy memories. Ours certainly were. Are!
Peace, Grace, and Jazz! 