About A Boy's Room

About A Boy’s Room

                A boy should have a room.  A boy should have some privacy.  A boy should have a place where he can keep his important things:  GI Joe, books, loose change, a piggy bank, posters of Batman and Robin and Superman, Karen Carpenter standing in front of their band’s van with Richard standing aside her like he’d just come off a coke high, Cass Elliot surrounded by lush gardens - my Matchbox cars – a VW bus with working doors, hood, and sliding moon roof, a Ford Mustang with mag wheels, an ambulance with a working rear door, and about 75 others, all gifts, mostly from my Aunt Maxine.   And a million found things that are too precious to toss into the trash.  I was 17 years old before I had a real bedroom with a proper dresser, a closet, and shelving to display all these terribly important adolescent rarities.  I shared the room with one of my brothers after the older one finally moved out of our house.  But before that I found a place that was all my own…that I made all my own.

                The house I grew up in is the same house my mother grew up in.  When built it had one bedroom.  One.  My mother had three sisters and a brother, and a crazy, divorced mother.  They all lived in that house with the one bedroom.  My grandmother was in the bedroom, and so my mother and aunts shared a bed stuffed into a tiny room off the living room.  And when I say tiny, I mean the door would not even open all the way without hitting the bed.  The door had panes of glass, so forget privacy.  Before my grandparents divorced, my grandfather built a tiny closet in the corner of that tiny room.  We called it the library.  Never mind that it never held any books and was always used as a bedroom; it was meant to be a library, so we called it a library.  That is where my mother grew up – in the library.  My uncle Donnie slept on the couch in the living room.

                When my parents married, which was just after my grandmother died, they bought the house from my grandmother’s estate and Mom didn’t even have to move her things…except to the one, real bedroom.  At first my two older brothers shared that tiny room off the living room, continuing what was by then a family tradition in which I, too, would participate.  When I was born my father built two rooms onto the back of our house: a den, or what for some reason we called the “back room” (seems our family just could not come up with proper names for rooms – although the bathroom really was the bathroom, thank God), and a bedroom for my brothers.  Those two rooms were, and are, the cheapest, draftiest, coldest rooms I have ever experienced, and I have lived in a non-heated farmhouse in Italy, so that’s saying something.  My father hired Uncle Donnie to put a gas heater in the bedroom, and it helped, but not much.  My brothers, and eventually I, slept in that room, and in the winter sometimes wearing a coat and gloves.  My mother was forever berating my father for hiring “some guys off the street” to build the addition.  And that’s exactly what he did.  He drove to the railroad yard in downtown Louisville and asked around for a couple of guys to build the addition. 

“Can you build a couple of rooms onto the back of my house?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, get in the car.”

For the first three years of my life I was at first in a crib in my parents’ room, of course, then I am told I was put in the tiny room off the living room – the library.  That is, until my sister arrived.  Then she moved in with me and that’s how it was until I was 12 years old.  And let me tell you, girls get more attention than boys – at least in the living arrangements.  It was understood that boys didn’t need their own space, or bed, or dresser, or place to hang all their frilly clothes.  But girls do.  We shared a bed.  It was white, with gold trim, with a lovely pink canopy.  The matching dresser couldn’t fit in the room, so it was placed in my parents’ room until I was 12 and when it was deemed that my sister needed a larger room and society deemed we should not be sharing a bed any longer.  So my parents moved into the library, my sister took the bedroom, and I had a single bed placed in the corner of the den, or back room. 

The back room was full of windows, without curtains, and so all the neighbors could see inside.  I would take my night clothes to the bathroom at the other end of the house, change into them, then return to the back room for bed.  The back door of the house was in that room, so everyone was always coming and going.  A TV was in that room, so my father often sat in the back room watching TV while my Mother was watching in the living room.  How is it that my father had his own room, but I didn’t even have a quiet place to sleep?  “Because I work and pay the bills around here, that’s why.”

I was usually the second one up each morning, after my mother, because as soon as she came into the kitchen, which was adjacent to the back room, I was forced awake.  And I was the last to go to sleep.  I mean, who can go to sleep with everybody trudging through the room, out the back door, or into my brothers’ bedroom or in and out of the kitchen looking for a snack?  By the time I was 15 I had had it.

The one good thing about the house addition, at least to me, was that it was built right on the ground on concrete blocks.  So underneath the new bedroom and back room was a crawl space that my parents used for storage.  We kept the yard tools and lawn mower in there.  It was always damp and dank smelling, and a strong odor of gasoline permeated the space, which sometimes wafted up through the floorboards into the back room.  There was a small door to the crawl space, about three feet high, that gave access to the space and allowed for locking.  When I was looking for a space in our house to call my own, I turned to that crawl space.

In our basement I found a couple of plywood sheets that I used to divide off the crawl space into two separate little “rooms”.  Now why I wanted two rooms I cannot remember, but that’s what I did.  One was my “bedroom”, and the other was my “den”.  My father sold carpeting for Sears, so I was able to get hold of a lot of old carpet samples he kept in the trunk of the car and place them on top of the dirt floor and voilà, I had my own, private room that no one else could, would, or even want to invade. 

I spent hours and hours in that space.  It looked like something a homeless person might live in.  The walls were concrete block and the plywood.   I loved it.  I would do my homework there.  I drilled a small hole in the floor above so I could shove an extension cord down to light up the space, the whole time my mother warning me, “don’t you burn this house down”.  In time I even put a small TV down there and although the signal to the antenna wasn’t the best, I watched the old Saturday night lineup down there:  All in the Family, M*A*S*H*, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and The Carol Burnett Show.  When I was in that space, I was for all intents and purposes outside, so I spent a lot of time in that space in my winter clothing, including a winter coat, hat, scarf, and gloves.  In summer I would sometimes sleep there. 

I used the space for about two years, when, as I said, my oldest brother moved out and I inherited his bed in the room he had shared with my other brother for 17 years.  They each have some great stories to tell of that tumultuous relationship.

                When I was about 23 I was helping clear out the crawl space.  Everything had to go because I was about to build a deck off the back room for my parents, which would effectively shut off access to the crawl space.  My mother wanted the lawn mower and gasoline out of there, anyway.  “You can smell that gasoline in the back room; it’s gonna’ blow up the house someday.”  She got worried about it after 30 years of storing it there. 

I crawled into the space and found my old rooms and it all came flooding back to me.  The hours spent doing homework (what homework I actually did), watching TV, or lying there and thinking about nothing.  I missed those rooms. 

The memories of my time spent in that crawl space have stayed with me my entire life.  Even today they are more vivid than the time I spent in the real bedroom.  It was great, but somehow not as sweet as that little crawl space under the house.  Perhaps because I had made it on my own, I don’t really know.  I only know a boy should have a room.  

Now I'm Being There

        With the addition of the new property adjacent to Casa Del Maya I was able to put in a small fruit garden and soon a vegetable garden.  At the age of 58 10/12 I have discovered that I like to garden.  It was a long time coming.

When I was 14 I had a garden in our back yard in Louisville.  I grew tomatoes, of course, mainly because everyone said you couldn’t screw them up…and they were right.  I put in Broccoli, about half of which grew large enough to pick.  I had zucchini, which I quickly learned would grow overnight from finger size to watermelon-size.  I carried these colossal pieces of green that looked like something out of “Lost In Space” around our neighborhood begging for folks to take one, or four.  After a while my mother wouldn’t even let me in the house with them.  She pushed her way past the mountains of giant green zucchini strewn about the den to bar my way in the back door.  I thought they were great!  I mean, I wanted to send them to the starving children in Biafra – I was certain I could end world hunger with my huge squashes.

I remember having a great time with that garden, but it did take a lot of time away from running around with my friends and being a smart ass, so I only did that one year.  Actually, I think by August I was getting pretty tired of the whole idea of gardening, just as things were really starting to come to harvest.  But riding our bikes to the local convenience store, named “Convenient” (Wow, I bet a lot of people got paid big money to come up with that name), turned out to be a more pressing activity than cutting off a head of broccoli for dinner.  So a lot of stuff just withered on the vine.  Story of my life, really.

The next time I attempted a garden was when we lived in Italy.  That was 2010 – 2011.  We had this incredible plot of land that sat on the edge of a plateau and afforded 180 degree view of the many small towns and villages dotting the landscape until it reached the Adriatic Sea.  Out our front door was an area I thought would be perfect for a garden.  I could access it quickly and easily, and I could also keep an eye on it and shoo away any wild boar that happened by – and they happened by quite often.  One night I heard them digging in the yard and so I grabbed my flashlight to run out and scare them away.  I was in the middle of the garden when I turned on the flashlight and discovered to my everlasting chagrin that I was surrounded by about five wild boar.  Two were obviously the parents of the three smaller ones.  I almost put down a natural garden fertilizer, if you know what I mean.  If you don’t know what I mean, count yourself lucky.

We ate out of that garden all summer.  There were potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini (If at first you don’t succeed…), onions, rosemary, oregano, thyme, and I think I’m forgetting one or two more.  Everything came in great.  It was such a pleasure to pull a carrot out of the ground and see its bright, orange color.  I would push a shovel down into the earth and up would come several potatoes about the size of a, aw hell, the size of a potato!  We had so many tomatoes that I started canning them.  I think we had about 25 jars of tomatoes that we continued to eat well into Fall.

In addition to the garden, our property already had a lot of fruit varieties.  Of course there were grapes, but the vines had been buried in 20 years of overgrowth, so they didn’t do very well that year.  But the fig trees – we had three – produced the most luscious little gems.  I made fig jam and we ate that stuff like it was manna from heaven – and I guess it was, really.  We also had three very mature cherry trees.  My Sister-in-Law, Ruth, and her husband Kurt, came to visit us and Kurt could not stop pulling cherries off the tree and popping them in his mouth.
“They’re like candy.”

       But, again, it would be several more years before I attempted another garden.  And that brings me to our current home at Casa Del Maya.

       When we opened our B&B we had a small garden area.  The only lounging area was next to our pool.  It sufficed, but wasn’t really what we wanted for our guests.  So last March we purchased the property next door.  It has a 3-room house in the front, and the rest was reclaimed jungle.  We had it cleared, except for the larger trees, put in two palapas for our guests, a couple of hammocks, and lots and lots of local plantings.  We have palms, bamboo, cacti, different types of flowers, and much more.  But because we did not add rooms to the B&B, we ended up with much more garden area than we anticipated.  I mean, we knew the dimensions and we designed the garden, but it all turned out to be so much larger than we felt it would be.

       One day we went to the vivero, or garden center, and purchased a truckload of plants for the new garden.  We passed the fruits area, and decided to throw in a couple of banana trees and a papaya tree. When we got home it was almost immediately apparent where to plant them.  In the rear of the new garden we built a half-bath for guests and guests of guests.  Just in front is a large area we didn’t really know what to do with.  So on the left side of the new, winding gravel walkway we planted the banana and papaya trees.  I then threw in some watermelon seeds, and we planted some of the tops of pineapples.  They are all going great guns.  The bananas look strong and are growing tall, and the papaya looks very healthy.  The watermelon vines have begun and the pineapples seem to be digging their space.

       On the right side of the walkway is the perfect area for vegetables.  We are waiting for a load of dirt to be delivered, and then I can begin my third vegetable garden.  Here’s hoping.
But the real surprise is how much I am enjoying taking care of the entire garden, not just the fruits and vegetables.  Every day I walk the garden, pulling a few weeds, trimming palms and other plantings (it is amazing how quickly things grow in the Yucatan).  I get a lot of satisfaction from taking care of my garden, and get really teed off when those leaf-clearing ants, properly known as leafcutters, get into my garden and strip things bare.  I have gone out to our lovely, green vines with yellow flowers that cover our pasillo wall to find half of the leaves gone – in just one night.  So now I try to keep up with spreading the little poison that takes care of them; and I feel no guilt about it at all.

       When I’m kneeling down in front of a few plants, weeding or gently trimming the overgrowth, I get lost in the moment.  For a few moments at a time I am immersed in deciding if this little plant is, indeed, a weed and should be plucked out, or if it is some off-shoot of a nearby relative.  I forget about money problems, family issues, the heat of summer, even my advancing age.  I’ve become Chauncy the Gardener and I love it.

90

               What must it be like to be 90?

                My Mom recently turned 90.  We threw her a party at her assisted living facility.  It was like a family reunion, and then some.  A few old friends happened by.  Our next door neighbor from the house I grew up in, and in which Mom lived some 80 years, showed up.  He, too, is 90.  He came in with a huge smile on his face, and walked right up to Mom to say hello.  He told me he makes Christmas lawn ornaments for friends and family.  You know, big nutcrackers, elves, even Santa and his sleigh.  At 90. 

Mom with some of her nieces.

                I wonder what I’ll be like should I be lucky enough to make it to 90.  I wonder what it is like for Mom.  I wonder what goes through her head.  Does she still worry about money?  Does she worry about her health?  Losing weight?  Or is there some point where you just say, “Screw it all, I’m 90 and I’m going to enjoy it”.  My old neighbor, Tom, certainly seems to be that way.  But I’m not so certain about Mom.

                Like me, Mom has always been an introvert.  I know what it is like not to want to be around people, to just hole up in your room and watch TV or read.  I love going to the movies because theatres are dark and you feel that no one really knows you are there.  So now, at 90, does Mom still feel that way?  I think she does because she does not go anywhere.  When my siblings and I researched assisted living facilities for Mom, high on our list was to find a place that had a lot of activities.  We were certain Mom was going to want to stay busy (or at least, we hoped).  And the place we found has about a dozen activities each day.  They take trips to Bernheim Forest for picnics, to the grocery store, the mall, they have jewelry classes, play bingo, bridge, poker, Uno, they have movie night in the on-site theatre, weekly chorus practice and performances, and of course there are mealtimes, where everyone gathers to talk about families, their health woes, or where to buy the best wigs.  They all seem to enjoy living there.  Except Mom.

                In the year Mom has been at Atria Assisted Living, she has left the building once – and that was because the administrative staff said she had to go for a TB test or she would have to move out.  She has left her room twice, including that little TB outing.  She takes all her meals in her room.  There are people on staff who say they have never even met Mom.  I think they placed bets on whether or not she would leave her room and go to the party room for her birthday.  I spoke to one young woman who was very surprised when she did.

                What is it that makes one 90 year old want to get out as much as they can, while others lock themselves in their rooms, working puzzles and watching games shows?  I cannot figure it out.

                My Uncle George never stopped.  I’ve written before about how Uncle George always did things the hard way, on purpose.  By stepping off his back porch at the highest step-down point rather than the lowest, he kept his mind sharp and challenged his body.  I want to be like Uncle George.

                I watch so many older celebrities keep working into their 80’s and 90’s.  Angela Lansbury 

is 90 this year; she’s touring Australia in a production of “Driving Miss Daisy”.  Betty White, at 93, just came off another 7-year run of a sitcom.  And Dick Van Dyke, also 90 this year, is still dancing, singing with his new band, and making records, videos and guest appearances.

                The one person who I most wish to see doing all this won’t leave her room.  And it is frustrating.  It’s difficult not to say something to Mom about it. 

                “Do you know how lucky you are to be 90 and in such good condition?  You’re just pissing it all away!”

                But, of course, I don’t say that to her.  I gently prod, try to suggest things she might be interested in doing.  I offered to drive her to Florida to see her great grandchildren.  “No.”  I offered to go get her and accompany her to Mexico to stay with me for a few months each winter.  “No.” 

                She won’t budge – literally or figuratively. 

                So I’ve given up.  We all have.  If we try to push her on being more active, she just digs in her heels.  We’re the ones feeling frustrated.  We’re the ones stressed out about it.  We’re the ones getting into long discussions about what to do about Mom.  Mom seems perfectly content to sit in her Lazy Boy chair, continue working those word-seek puzzles, read her books, and keep the TV on for company. 

                I have made a promise to myself.  Barring any major health problems, if I make it to 90 I’m going to be hiking the Alps, or rafting down the Colorado River, or at least still enjoying the beaches of Florida or Mexico.  Will I make it?  What will that be like?  I’ll let you know.