Yes I ripped off the title of this chapter from a Miranda Lambert song. And I darn good one at that. But it perfectly represents the house I called home for nearly 10 years of my life and the first one I fell in love with. And thanks to the wonders of technology, if you go to google earth and type in 190 E. Water St. Abbottstown, PA, you can see it for yourself without having to travel there. A lot has changed in the past 17 years so some things may be different, but it'll be enough to feed your curiosity.
The brown ranch house was built upon a small hill. Short in stature, but long in length, she withstood the best of times and the worst of times. It overlooked the 18th hole of a golf course owned by a local country club. The country club also owned the house and the entire property surrounding it. Instead of demolishing the house and using the property, they deemed it more profitable to rent it out. And my parents were the fortunate ones to be able to do so. I don't recall the exact acres of the place, but in the eyes of a three year old, it was huge. There were enough trees on the property to create what would could be considered a woods or two. In what we called the back yard stood a large male mulberry tree. I say male because even though it was perfectly healthy, it never once produced mulberries. But it was an incredible climbing tree. I spent many summers hanging out on its upper branches. Not too far south of that tree was a giant walnut tree. And yes this towering behemoth produced walnuts, as did a plethora of other walnuts trees found on site. Sadly, none of her branches were low enough for me to scale her. But what made her special is she had the perfect protruding branch to hang a swing from. So that's exactly what we did. That swing took me and my imagination on many other worldly adventures.
To the north of both the trees near the road was cluster of pines that made the perfect tree fort. and directly next to them overlooking Water Street was a female mulberry tree the swamped our little gravel driveway with multitudes of mulberries each year. So many that my mother would have us kids collect tons of them which she used to make mulberry jam. Delicious. Behind these trees and away from the street was was a little, dark brown shed with a concrete open patio in front. We stored all our outdoor equipment here and packed it to the gills. Then behind that was a swing-set which some-how managed to survive all the years of many childhood antics that would occur on it.
The furthest eastern edge contained a tiny, white, graveled road that led to the large maintenance garage the country club used for repairs and upkeep. We simply dubbed it as "The White Road" and it became the staring point for nearly every single bike race we ever had. The maintenance garage that it led to was a place we weren't supposed to be, but I've got a few tales from entering those premises.
Just beyond the maintenance garage into the thicker part of the woods was a large hill that led to the country club's overflow parking lot. That lot was empty most of the time save for an occasional car or two. Because of this, us kids utilized that area all year round.
And to finish up the exterior, behind the swing-set was a patch of treeless land, except for two sets of distanced trees at either end. These four trees on this patch of grass were incredibly important as they became natural soccer goals for us down the road.
The interior through my eyes seemed huge, but in reality it wasn't that big at all. The door everyone used to enter into the house led straight into the kitchen. Then immediately to the right was a doorway that led to a standard sized living room. At the end of the living room was a door that led to the second biggest room in the house. Then to the left of that room was the side entrance to a long hallway (the main entrance was from the kitchen). This hallway led the cellar, the only bathroom in the house, and three other bedrooms. In the kitchen was a pantry door that led to the attic. The attic could also be accessed from a trap door in the closet of the back bedroom on the right.
Some final tidbits about the inside. My parents obviously had the master bedroom which was in the back left of the hallway. The back right room was briefly used for storage. I had the small room on the master bedroom side and my sister Sarah had the large room off of the living room. The cellar was a place of terror as musty old stairs led to a concrete floor covered in dirt and shelves containing spider webs. Sometimes an unfortunate mouse or bird would seal their fate down there, leaving us to find their remains. The attic was a little better, but at times it was quite terrifying to be there as well.
In hindsight, the house and the land weren't really all that impressive. But for young kids, it was a dream come true. Especially when your yard/woods took up as much space of at least 6 neighbor's properties combined. This was the place where my childhood identity was shaped. This was the place where my roots were formed. This was the place that built me.
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