Not Quite a Room… But We Lived There

{Lent always brings the daily discipline of writing for me. Just because. And it’s personal, yet very public. My topic this year: room(s).}

The entry hall as we left the home for the last time

As I was sorting through photos and slides for yesterday’s entry here, I ran across some pictures that reminded me of an odd “room” in our 1820s Liberty Ave. home in Endicott, NY. It wasn’t on my list of rooms when I planned this series (yeah, some of it was planned). But there it was: the un-named room in the front entry hall of the house. Realtors wouldn’t have counted it as an actual room, but with six kids in the family, we spread out through the whole 13 room (not counting this one) house.

The most unique architectural feature of this home was unsupported winding stairway. The entry hall then was two stories high, and while the upper level contained only a spinning wheel, the lower level just inside the front door (and leading to the dining room I described yesterday) served variously as 1) a TV room, 2) Dad’s “office,” and 3) a play room. Not all at once, of course, but over the years we lived there.

I have two memories related to my Dad that spring from that “room.” It was in the hallway there…I remember us standing near the front door…when Dad told me that Grandpa Kellam had died. Dad’s father had been hospitalized for some time, but still… And all I could think of to say (idiot!) was, “No kidding.” Lord, that’s probably one of maybe three things I’ve said that I’d love to go back and erase permanently.

Dad, understandably, was upset at that thoughtless remark. Sternly he replied, “No! I’m not ‘kidding.’ Why would I kid about that!?” I apologized, red-faced. I guess it was probably the first time I’d ever been told of a family death and had no script to follow. But I was a senior in high school and should have had a far more sensitive response.

Dad at his desk in the entry hall

The second memory is related to that one. This was the era of Dad’s desk being in that downstairs hallway, just under the stairs. He was going to call his mother to tell her the news. Now, my grandparents had been divorced since Dad’s childhood, so Dad was trying to put his sorrow into words before he made the long-distance call to Nana. He sat at his desk, and I saw that he had written his script for the call. “Mom, I have some bad news. Dad died this morning.” It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to say it; he was trying to say the sentence without losing his composure, and having a script would help. I saw what he had written and left him to the difficult call. At that point, I did have some sense… finally.

Steve and Kim watching TV, with a view into the dining room from the hallway.

Other days in that non-room, that hall space, were more pleasant. The TV was in there during one period. It kept us kids out of the more lovely living room. I guess Mom and Dad must have watched some programs in there, but I can’t remember any chairs! We kids were used to sprawling on the floor, not only for TV, but for board games too. And homework.

A couple of years ago, I was invited to go back to that home while part of it was being renovated, and I saw the way the winding stairs were constructed. Someone should have gotten a genius award for that design. Awesome.

I guess something to consider beyond my nostalgic look back is this: what have you said in a fleeting moment that you wish you could erase? The wonderful singer/storyteller Steve Goodman wrote a song called “Videotape.” In it, he mused that if his life had been on videotape, he could rewind it and erase his regrets. I know what he was singing about. And you may too.

Note Mom’s caption: Jan and Jill in unusual staircase

Jancye peers from her room at the top of the stairs

 

My Place 60 Years Ago

{I always begin these Lenten 2022 entries with some italicized intro, just in case someone happens onto this “Peace, Grace, and Jazz” blog and wonders what’s going on. And that’s all the time we have for today’s intro. Carry on.}

I realized a short time ago that my 50th high school reunion was a decade ago. I was invited to be on the planning committee and became reacquainted with some classmates I hadn’t seen since graduation. I had moved away to college, seminary, and work in Virginia and Vermont, while others on the committee had stayed put in Endicott (NY) and vicinity. Some of them had stayed in touch through the years, but the only one I kept up with was my cousin Linda. (We and her brother John were all in the class of 1962.)

As far as I know, there are no plans for a 60th reunion. At least no one told me. But it does seem appropriate to write a few lines about the place I spent three years of my life, and my parents three years of theirs almost a quarter century earlier. So, here we are back at Union-Endicott High School in the early 1960s.

Union-Endicott High School, c. 1960

Back then, in our school system ninth grade was still taught at what we called “junior high schools.” So high school started with tenth grade. The village’s two junior highs merged classes into our one high school, so as we began at U-E we were surrounded by classmates from our previous school, but also found new kids there from another part of town. Introverted, I wasn’t quick to make new friends, but found my small circle. The high school had 1200 students, so our class size must have been around four hundred. See how easily the math comes to me? I had been OK in math until that last year in junior high when things got more complicated than simple division. On to geometry…

Upon seeing my early geometry grades, my Dad confessed that he had flunked the course at U-E. Twice. This was not encouraging. I was lousy at memorizing theorems and postulates. Homework was Ok, because I could peek in the back of the text for right directions toward solutions, but the exams? No one had heard of open book exams back in the dark ages. And just as bad was the classroom practice of “going to the board” with chalk in hand to work out problems in public for all classmates to see. Long story short: I flunked. But unlike my father, I passed the course when I retook it in summer school.

That was a challenging summer. Since I was already spending a summer morning in class, I figured I’d take typing too. Touch typing. My boss at the drug store where I worked after school said he was still using the “Christopher Columbus” typing method: “Discover a key and land on it.” I learned to type enough letters fast enough to pass, but a hint as to how successful I was — I am looking at my keyborad [sic] right now.

Senior Day, 1962 — note the orange Thesaurus Yearbooks

I hasten to add that I did get some good grades, especially in “English.” Mrs. Vogelsang liked my imaginative writing (imagine that), and history grades were OK too. I got a strong B (see, for me that was good grade) in “Political Science” because Mr. Ellis liked my essay on my picking up Radio Moscow on my shortwave radio. As for the sciences? Biology was fine. I even won the “Quiz and Slogan” contest sponsored by the local dental association. Apparently, I was able to correctly count the number of teeth in my mouth for one answer (math again!) and got the rest of the answers right. And my slogan? I remember it to this day because it was so good. “It’s better to pay $5 for a checkup than $25 for a check out.” “Check out” meaning extraction, you see. Well, the local dentists got it, or at least got enough of a chuckle out of it that I won some kind of prize. Maybe $5. Dentistry was one of my vocational choices — until my math and science grades plummeted the next year.

One afternoon when I had to stay after school to meet with my chemistry teacher due to a D in a test, he looked at me and the four others who joined me and offered advice. To the others, it was academic guidance. Then he turned to me and, somehow knowing I was considering the ministry as a vocation, gave me theological guidance. “Jeff, you just remember what the Good Book says: The Lord helps those who help themselves.” Dr. Kaslowskas didn’t get his doctorate in Bible apparently, because that quotation isn’t in there.

I pay tribute here to a teacher I thanked later in life. Mrs. Woodard taught a sinister course called “Fusion Math” in 11th grade. It was the last math course I would ever take. Ever. But bless her heart, she did all she could for me and for the others encountering this fusion of algebra and trig. She came to school early each day so we who were uncertain about the previous day’s homework could check it out with her before the embarrassment of class. In the class hour itself, she’d stop teaching a little early so we could get a start on homework and go to her desk for any questions we had. And then, she’d remain after school for those of us who needed/wanted extra help. Of all my high school teachers, she was the most dedicated and helpful. She was also on my paper route. I should have given her a complimentary subscription!

My Band Uniform- (I was in the color guard)

Extracurriculars? I took photos for the newspaper and yearbook. I sang in the choir. I played one intermural basketball game. (Not one season; one game.) I was in the Color Guard of the marching band. And I was in Latin Club. Anyone who chose to take four years of Latin should have at least one toga party. My after-school activities were admittedly limited by my after-school job at the Union Pharmacy where I learned to neatly wrap feminine hygiene products in blue paper with white string, the theory being that women could leave the store with their Kotex box hidden from public view. Of course, everyone knew that the only thing we wrapped in blue paper and tied up with white string was a feminine product.

I also learned, a bit later in life than my male classmates, what Shieks were. One day at the store a man whispered to me that he wanted a dozen sheets. Pardon? A dozen sheets. Still too quiet to hear and too naive to understand, I explained that we didn’t sell sheets. Exasperated, the man headed toward the pharmacist and asked him. When he’d left with a tiny box of something, the pharmacist quietly led me back into the storeroom where the Trojans and Shieks were stacked up. “Jeff, you do know what these are, right?” he asked gently.

“Oh, sure. I just didn’t understand about Shieks.” Trojans I knew. Shieks? Not so much. Those were the days such products were not on open display. At least I never had to wrap them in blue paper.

I wasn’t in any cliques. Not being an athlete nor a musician, I moved in a wide circle that included both, plus the student publication staff, and some neighborhood and church friends. I never made Key Club, though at our 50th anniversary banquet the Key Club Class of ’62 president, learning of my disappointment with not getting in, as well as my outstanding successes since (!) proclaimed me an honorary member. I still smile at that. I guess some class members thought I was a nerd decades ahead of my time, thanks to the camera constantly around my neck. Others thought I was the typical “nice guy,” and I may well have been. I wasn’t close to many classmates, didn’t go to parties or skip school, or even leave the building for lunch at the diner across the street. But my memories of high school are mostly positive, and I’m thankful for the connections we’ve renewed with my being back in this area after being away so long.

At work at the Union Pharmacy

I go now to occasional football games, so thankful that the school has a winning team (it didn’t when I was a student), but disappointed that the marching band is a shadow of its former self. As I watch the band enter the stadium, I imagine my Dad as a drummer and my Mom playing sax, as they did when they were in school there. I’m so thankful for such good roots.

To consider: have you ever thanked a past teacher for their help in your education? Can you think of a couple of favorite teachers? What made them special to you?

 

Our Historic House on Liberty

{This is Lenten entry #17 in my series centering on my own sense of “place.” I’ve previously written of the first houses I called home. Today, I’m thinking about the home in which I lived the longest as a kid. It’s still the home closest to my heart as I grew up.}

My parents preserved their personal stories in a book “published” for us six Kellam kids. The book was called Two from ’22. Mom told her story, Dad his, and then they told their shared story. Of course, the book is a treasure. In the last pages, Mom drew some line drawing depictions of the eight homes they had lived in, including the one I write about today.

That home stands on South Liberty Avenue in Endicott, NY, and one could rightly call the place “historic.” Part of that arises from its age. It is approximately two centuries old, having been built between 1820 and 1830. The other historic piece of the story is who built the house. Today, while not on any historic register, it is acknowledged to be the home of one of the area’s founding families, that of one Joshua Mersereau. But there’s a problem here. There were three or four Joshua Mercereaus. Grandpa Joshua named one of his son’s Joshua and that son named one of his son’s Joshua. And no doubt there were others in the family line. Was it a case of family tradition, or a lack of imagination? Or, both. The main thing is that when the area’s informal histories are written, the house on S. Liberty Avenue is referred to as “The Joshua Mersereau House.”

I will yield my personal opinion to those who know the Town of Union (NY) better than I, but I hereby proclaim that the Mersereau in question is the one who lived from 1759-1857. That’s right; he lived a long life, especially for that time. Of most interest in that long life, he was a Revolutionary War spy, and the Mersereaus are credited with being among the founders of today’s CIA. This snippet from his biography:

He was then employed by Gen Washington in obtaining information of the enemy’s movements…; he was in the battles of Trenton and Princeton; the remainder of the winter he purchased horses for Generals Mifflin and Lafayette…

There are more details regarding that Joshua’s life, but my purpose is to write about the house, not the man. When we last left the Kellam family, they were outgrowing the home they completed in Vestal, which was at that time (1948-53), a small village across the Susquehanna from our hometown Endicott. We were three boys, one girl, and two parents, one of each. Mom and Dad saw that a large home they had always admired in Endicott was up for sale. It was a white Federal style home on a brick street, and it had a huge back yard. It was just right for a growing family. The owners were looking to downsize and it turned out that they and my parents pretty much “traded” houses! Mom reported that the moving vans passed one another crossing the Susquehanna, maybe not literally, but almost.

310 S. Liberty Ave., The Joshua Mersereau House

Depending on how a “room” is defined, the Mersereau house had a dozen or more. As we moved in, the residents of the two apartments in the place saw the handwriting on the old plaster walls, and eventually all the rooms were ours. Dad opened up the two rental areas so we had the run of the whole house, and with the big back yard, we four kids had room to roam. And then there were five kids. And then six. Three boys, then three girls. I used to say that Mom and Dad didn’t have any more because they weren’t sure what came next!

One of the lovely things about that old house was the entrance hall with its winding staircase, seemingly unsupported. The pics here show that foyer feature from my own collection, plus a current view I’ve borrowed from the realtor. (The home is currently on the market, something I discovered the very day I started writing this account. Thanks to Judy Long of Howard Hanna Realty.)

One memory I have of life in that home was the nearly constant renovation my parents undertook, Mom especially redecorating rooms, and Dad having the two coal furnaces replaced with electric heat. (Early on I can remember the excitement of coal deliveries, the chunking of stokers, and the blast of heat we’d feel in the cellar when we went down there to play the old “Fleet” pinball machine.) Dad also changed the purposes of many rooms, converting a small bathroom into a bedroom for me, and making Mom a space for her sewing room. (She made lots of the girls’ clothes and saved the family money by mending almost any tear or fray.) The house had been painted white for its first 125 years, but Dad painted it yellow and eventually added aluminum siding so he wouldn’t have to paint it again. One of Mom’s fond memories was standing on a step ladder painting shutters on the front of the house and having a tour bus stop in the street while a guide told passengers the history of the home. Mom says they got quite the view of her on the ladder.

Speaking of my parents, it was not uncommon for us kids to wander into the living room, the kitchen, the dining room…almost wherever… and find Dad and Mom embracing. We could have told them to “get a room,” but they had 13 of them already. Oh, there was the occasional spat or fight, but most of the time they engaged in “public displays of affection,” and left no wonder they had six kids.

So, that’s where I lived during a very formative time, from fifth grade into college years. That house was only two blocks from where my mother had grown up, around the corner from the business district where the theaters, the bank, the drug stores, the bakery, the clothing stores, and an A&P stood. (I’ve already written in this series about our lighthouse.) I was three blocks from my elementary/junior high school, and a mile from high school. Between my earlier time in Vestal through high school graduation, I never rode a school bus. I had cousins in the neighborhood, and my grandparents had continued to live in the house where they had raised mom and her two brothers, all within a short walk. And very significant in terms of my sense of place, across the street was Union Presbyterian Church, a place about which I’ll be writing later in Lent.

Tomorrow, some more about my Liberty Avenue years. Until then, I invite you to think a bit about the home you may have spent most of your childhood in. I was in a writing seminar once where we were asked to draw the family table and where we sat, not worrying about the artwork, but focusing on who was there and what our relationships were like. So, go get some crayons. Relive a little of your childhood place, and meet me back on Liberty Ave. tomorrow.

(If you are looking for current interior pictures, here’s a link to the realtor: 310 S Liberty Avenue, Endicott, NY 13760, MLS #316179 – Howard Hanna

The selling agent lived there for fifteen years and personally invested time, energy, and resources in making the interior positively lovely.)

 

Places of Escape

[This is another of my Lent 2022 reflections based on my own sense of place. My own, yes; but you might identify with mine and consider yours.]

At the age of 10 (or so) my parents moved into a large Endicott (NY) home just around the corner from a movie theater. And a block away, was a second theater. Both have been long closed and demolished, the fate of almost all local single screen movie houses. But, oh my…those places were my escape route nearly every single weekend when I was a kid.

The movie on the marquee dates this view of my neighborhood to 1960

The State and Elvin Theaters (the Elvin has the white marquee seen just under the traffic light) were far from the movie palaces of larger cities. Even nearby Binghamton had three or four ornate theaters. But our village had these two and two others on “The Ave.,” the main business district. Plus the drive-in! Mom and Dad took us to “shows” (that’s what we called them: “going to the show…”) until all six of us siblings made the event more expensive. Plus, with kids eventually spanning 17 years, no one movie would have entertained us all.

My youth was not wasted on cartoon carnivals or Francis the Talking Mule movies, though I did spend many Saturday matinee hours watching those images flicker on the screen. To be sure, there were lots of westerns and comedies on the Kellam movie menu. But the more serious film fare I experienced included more adult themes: “Marty,” “The Next Voice You Hear,” “The African Queen,” “From Here to Eternity,” and “Blackboard Jungle.” {An aside: our church youth group once took the Lackawanna train down to New York City for a couple of days, and we went to Radio City Music Hall. After the Rockettes danced, we met “The Brothers Karamazov.” Not exactly light viewing. I’m referring to the movie.}

My reference to “The Next Voice You Hear” may be pivotal in my vocation. The drama was produced in 1950 by Dory Schary, and starred James Whitmore and Nancy Davis (who became Mrs. Ronald Reagan) as middle class folks whose son listens to the radio one night and hears the voice of God. I must have been only six or seven when I saw the film, but I still remember the final scenes when people gathered in a church with a console radio the size of a refrigerator about to broadcast one final message to the world from the Almighty. “The next voice you hear…” Interestingly, the movie soundtrack never portrayed that voice (James Earl Jones’ tonality hadn’t yet matured, I guess); we only heard the characters’ doubting responses and eventual commitment to heeding the unheard (by the viewer) Voice. Only decades later when the movie was on television did I connect that radio voice to my call: media ministry, using radio to proclaim what I took to be God’s word. When James Earl Jones retires, though, call me.

I loved watching the animated lights dance around that marquee.
I was easily amused.

When the movie palaces of the late 1920s and 1930s were designed, the Depression-era audiences hungered for some fantasy, some escape that would transport them from poverty to awesome grandeur, to Moorish gardens and Arabian nights and chandeliered ballrooms. A good part of “going to the show” was seeing the showplace. A 25¢ ticket took you into a different world from breadlines and headlines. And then there was the movie, or two movies, plus a newsreel, cartoons, and short subjects, like serials or travelogues. You got more than your money’s worth.

But as I said, we had the Elvin. The not-so-attractive auditorium had been tacked on to an old office/retail building years before. But my Saturday afternoons spent in the dark there with Junior Mints and popcorn took me out west with a sepia-colored Gene Autry, made me laugh at Abbott and Costello, and introduced me to sci-fi with “Forbidden Planet.” The State, on the other hand, had been built with a modified art deco touch, and when it was converted to CinemaScope and surround 6-track magnetic stereophonic sound — well, it became my Sunday afternoon living room. I remember seeing “The Robe” there, marveling more at the wide, curved screen than at Demetrious’ having Jesus’ tunic. The sign on the building called it “The Theatre of Distinction.” And, to my joy, another sign read: Acclaimed One of the Nation’s Outstanding Theaters for CinemaScope. Whose acclaim, was it? No idea. But did I mention the big panoramic screen? It was the IMAX of its day.

Also of note: decades earlier, my parents had had their first date there! Back when the screen was square.

Now, there’s a chain drug store in its place.

Where I live today, there is still a neighborhood movie house. It’s barely hanging on in its old vaudeville showplace. It almost didn’t recover from our town’s major flood. You can see where the organ pipes used to be. And where the carpet used to be. But the modest marquee still lights with the titles of first run films, and kids of all ages still buy their popcorn and Good & Plenty candy and watch the screen light up with fantasy, drama, comedy, and music. There hasn’t been a Looney Tune or two-reel comedy there in ages. But I’m glad it’s there. We need all the escape their bargain prices provide.

What were your first movie experiences like? First date maybe? Meeting friends and deconstructing the plot afterwards over a Coke? What film has stayed with you, sung to you, spoken to you, challenged you? Except for the outrageous expense, do you still enjoy a night out at the movies over watching a film on TV?

Man, I wish we had an IMAX around here.

The Elvin. Torn down in the 1960s; replaced by a bank.

 

Second Place

[I’m writing each day during Lent 2022 about my personal sense of place. While this entry is called “Second Place,” rest assured I won’t be counting each place through number 40. But my second place was very significant, especially for my mother.]

This home still stands on West Main Street, Endicott, NY, though it’s appearance has been modified through the years.  

I love to tell this story as much as my Mom did. She was so proud of being the young woman who bought a house so that when her husband returned from war, they would have a place of their own. She was only 23 and it was 1945. Let that sink in.

Here are her words, taken from an unpublished book she and Dad wrote, Two from ’22.

I can truthfully say the happiest day of my life was on January 10 [1946], when the discharge proceedings were completed, and Harry came home. Landlords in those days were very careful about renting living quarters because the government made it extremely difficult to evict tenants. As a result, the only alternative I had was to put our joint savings ($800.00) into a house Harry and I both admired– at 206 West Main Street, one block from Union’s business section. The owner was a kind man who “allowed” me to purchase it, with so little down payment and $50.00 a month with Mr. Vaughn, the owner, carrying the mortgage. Jeff and I moved into the house sometime that December of 1945. The big night finally arrived.

Beverly Kellam, “Book One: Beverly,” Two from ’22

As I wrote yesterday, Mom and I had been living with her parents since my birth. What I didn’t mention yesterday, because I just ran across it in her book today, was that, as she wrote, “I can understand the pressure my parents may have had with a young child in the house, but they did not really cope with us very well.” No wonder Mom went house hunting!

So that home was my second place. The place of a joyous homecoming for my Dad. The place my Mom was so very proud of. The place where I learned to walk. And where our Cocker Spaniel “Skipper” snapped at me as I bothered his evening meal, leaving a scar on my face that lasted for decades. (Lesson learned: don’t mess with a dog when it’s eating.) And it was there that I learned to accommodate my first brother’s presence, his birth interrupting Mom’s birthday supper! Indeed, his coming home from the hospital may well be my earliest memory…or, one I manufactured upon hearing the story over the years.

But here is the main thing about my second place, that West Main Street home: a young woman spent her life savings to risk buying a home so she could welcome her love back from the battlefields of New Guinea and the Philippines. They say it was quite the party!

So, for your consideration — what risks do you suppose were taken for you in your early years? What investment worked toward your finding your own sense of place?

In the backyard of her new home

 

First Place

It begins. Well, I begin. During Lent 2022 I am writing of my own sense of “place.”

I’ve been a fan of etymology for some time, so I looked up the root(s) of the word “place.” From the Middle English and Old French, the word refers to “open space.” The Latin and Greek both reference words meaning “broad” as in broad street or broad way. In my forty Lenten reflections, I will treat the word “place” as broadly as possible, with space, room, dwelling, and location affording me plenty of latitude as I think about my own sense of place in this life.

The Loder Avenue Living Room, Endicott, NY

Most of the photos I’ll use to illustrate writings through this holy season are my own, but now and then, I borrow from family collections. The photo above was taken, I assume, by my grandfather. The picture is undated, but the early TV set is a 1950 16″ GE. The living room is the one where my mother and her two younger brothers would have spent time as teenagers, maybe even as younger children. I’ve lost the date the house was built, but it still stands on Loder Avenue in Endicott, NY. It was my first home, perhaps six years before the TV arrived there.

My mother’s account of my birth is melancholy. She was alone in the hospital. Her parents chose to work as usual that day: Grandpa went to the “shop,” that is, IBM; and Grandma walked two blocks to the elementary school where she taught. My Dad wasn’t around either. He was in the Philippines, in the Army fighting in the second World War. Released from the hospital, rather than living by herself in the Main Street apartment my parents had rented after their marriage (they were 19), she chose to live with her parents until Dad’s return from the war. Certainly that saved some money, but also meant some loving support at home.

So, my first home was that of an extended family: me, Mom, my grandparents, and for a while, Great-grandpa John. My only memory of him was his coming down the stairs you see in the photo. (I’m sure that wasn’t within my first two years of life; our memories don’t go back that far. So, I must have seen that tall, white-haired gentleman descending the stairway a couple of years after we had moved to our next place. Still, it is a precious memory– my great grandfather!)

I would live within a few blocks of this home for fourteen years of my childhood. Thus, I have many memories rooted on Loder Ave. I was a frequent visitor there as a small child. I recall playing with tin soldiers on the dining room floor while Grandma was busy in the kitchen. She’d call me in to see if I’d like a raw oyster. She’d be ironing while listening to “Ma Perkins,” a radio soap opera sponsored by Oxydol. I remember the bigger radio in the living room playing music by the local band “The Tune Twisters.” Grandma and I would sit on the piano bench while she taught me the songs she used in her classroom. And she’d read to me, as we sat on a couch no more comfortable than the chair appears to be in the photo. (Oddly, the only book I recall from those days was the racist story called “Little Black Sambo.” Good grief.)

And I remember heading up the stairs one morning only to find my grandfather on the john, the bathroom door wide open. I stopped cold “in mid-flight,” and waited for him to finish, and then lied to him when he asked if I’d been watching him.

My grandparents still lived in that same house when I was old enough to have them on my paper route. Well, they were on the route, but didn’t subscribe; Grandpa had a decades long habit of buying the paper as he left the IBM plant at 5 p.m. each night.

That home was my “first place.” It holds many memories. But those memories were not shared by my five siblings. I had been Grandma and Grandpa’s first grandchild. I had lived the first 18 months of my life with them, with Grandpa taking Kodak color slides and 8mm movies of my early months so that when my Dad came home from the war he could see what he’d missed as his first born developed into a toddler. But as the young Kellam family grew, and as our grandparents aged, my siblings experienced a less-than-warm relationship with them. Grandma especially was pretty persnickety about her home and furnishings. Her strict grade school teacher persona took over and my siblings didn’t find her at all warm and welcoming.

If there’s a lesson here, and there needn’t be–but it does occur — it’s the realization that the physical space we might have in common is perceived in memory quite differently by those who occupied the same rooms, sat on the same furniture, engaged the same family members. I know: no great revelation. But as I look back on my Loder Avenue days, I still treasure the special times I had there as a boy. And I have the film to keep those times in focus. Not so for my brothers and sisters.

Before my final paragraph, I have a prompt for you. Think about your earliest memories of “place.” Your first home, first room, first toys (!), first family encounters. How do you suppose your life was shaped by your earliest sense of place?

Last words today: that Loder Avenue home went up for sale a couple of years ago, and there was an open house. I confessed to the realtor that Sunday that I wasn’t a prospective buyer, just a curious grandson of the home’s very first residents. My life began there in 1944. No problem, he said. Take a look around. Oh, there were lots of familiar spaces even all these decades later, as well as modifications added over the years. Then, another man and a young boy came through the front door as we took the self-tour. He told the realtor that same story. His grandparents had lived in that house years after mine! And he wanted to show his son where he had spent some of his childhood. We all smiled at the warm coincidence of a shared sense of place on Loder Ave.

The date of the Oldsmobile indicates that this is young Jeff, but it sure looks like brother Kim to me. Nonetheless, it’s on Loder Ave.