I was a month into my third year of life when my brother Tim was born in December of 1993. Our family count was now at 5 people. We were still living in the yellow duplex on Walnut Street, but that all was about to change within the next year. I mentioned previously that this house was owned by missionaries. They were coming home on furlough in the summer of 1994 and needed their house. Thus we had to move. This would be the third time in my existence, but the first I could remember. We didn't quite have another place lined up yet, so there was a bit of a predicament. However, Al & Sue stepped up to the plate and offered to let us move in with them until we had a place of our own. All five of us plus them in their dome-shaped house Al had built years ago.
Now Al was a brilliant man who had an engineer's mind and put it to good use. The house was one of a kind and I have not seen another like it. The outer walls were built entirely out of concrete and wood logs that were cut. Think of brick and mortar but replace them with logs and concrete with more concrete than logs. The roof was a large dome shape with two octagonal windows at the top and a triangle on just beneath the two. It looked like an old-school idea of a flying saucer and the oddly shaped windows seemed to give it a face. While the house itself was a marvel, the other things he managed to do with it and on his property were wonders in their own right.
Two examples that immediately come to mind are how he heated the place and how he had running water. In between the living room and the kitchen was a small wood stove. That tiny wood stove heated the entire house. Using his engineer mind, Al had designed a heating system based off that stove from a similar old world Russian heating system. And it worked like a charm. All he had to do was pop open the heavy little door and toss more wood in and the entire house was nice and toasty. The other thing Al did was that he managed to dig into an underground river that pumped thousands of gallons of water per minute. He piped it into his house set it up so it was the main source of running water they had. I mention this mainly because this source of water eventually became part of a chore in life that drove me bananas, but I'll explain that in a later chapter.
As a three year old, I called this dome house home, but only for a short while. While I lived there, Al was working on something in his house (he was always adding to it) and he needed a giant black scaffolding. At day's end, that scaffolding became a jungle gym for us kids. But don't worry, Al removed the platforms so we couldn't get very high. Another perk of living there was that we got to experience their birds. Al & Sue kept a number of birds as pets. The had a few parakeets which were quite cute but also could be annoying with their sharp and shrill chirps. But the really beauties were the two African Gray parrots they had. Al built an extension off his sunroom that was basically a zoo-like bird enclosure so they didn't have to be kept in a cage. They were beautiful and docile. Al's favorite thing to do was to walk in, put one on his shoulder and ask for a kiss. The birds would always comply. Then he'd put a peanut in his teeth and let the birds take it directly from his mouth. We loved it. I was practically living in a kids paradise...
...which only lasted a few months. I didn't comprehend the fact that we were moving from Al & Sue's. The day my parents began packing up they got me out of their hair because I got invited to a birthday party from a family we knew at Upper Adams. For some reason their name eludes me, but that day does not. They came over and picked me up in the morning. I spent the late morning and early afternoon playing at their house. Then they put me down for a nap as the party was in the evening and they didn't want a cranky 3-year old on their hands. After the nap, it was time for birthday festivities, but not at their house. We were returning to the scene of the crime at my old stomping grounds. Kids Biz. Hey I did say it was a poor man's Chuck E. Cheese. Between the games, prizes, cake, and presents, I completely forgot that we were moving. I do remember when the birthday boy was opening gifts, someone got him toy cowboy guns which were all the rage back then. As he realized what they were, he excitedly shouted "Guns! I got guns!" His mom chided him to tone it down a bit, but nobody in the establishment batted an eye or seemed the least bit concerned. That's kind of how life was back then.
Finally, it was time to take me home. The parents of the kid who had the birthday party drove me back, but not to Al & Sue's. They parked in this unfamiliar place in front of a long, brown, ranch house. Here we are!" they said excitedly. I immediately got worried and started saying I wanted to go back to Al & Sue's. They calmed me down and assured me this was my new home. They walked me up the flight of concrete steps that led up to the front door. Little did I know then that those steps would serve my feet (and shenanigans) for years to come. I was still unsettled until my parents answered the door. My fears melted right there. The couple said goodbye and I spent the next few minutes telling my parents about my day and showing them all the candy I got from the party. They then got me ready for bed and tucked me in for the first night in the place I would come to call home for nearly the next 10 years. This was the place where my entire childhood was about to happen. This was home.
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